Page 82 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

proposed to be inducted in the classification ‘Banking - Executorship and Trustee Administration’
but District ruled that this was unconstitutional so H G Michie, manager of Midland Bank, was
asked to resign to allow Bullas to be admitted in the classification ‘Banking’. His retirement at
the end of 1950 allowed W A Woodall to become a member. He was born in Cradley Heath and
went into banking straight from school. He lived in Waxland Road, Halesowen for almost the
whole of his adult life. During the First World War he served in the Royal Garrison Artillery as a
Gunner, rising to Lieutenant, and seeing action against the Turkish army in Mesopotamia (Iraq)
from 1917.

255 Edward (‘Ted’) FLETCHER (1905-1976) (Inducted 25.10.1943; died 8.8.1976 whilst still a
member.) Classification Concrete Products Manufacturing. Managing Director of Concrete
Frames Ltd, manufacturers of precast concrete building products based at first at Porter’s Field,
Dudley. After the works moved to Stallings Lane, Kingswinford in 1952 he was nearly asked to
leave the club but he declared his business address to be ‘c/o Appleton & Co.’ (Tailors and
Outfitters!), also in Porter’s Field, Dudley. This fiction was accepted for the next 20 years.
However concrete was not his principal business. Around 1950 he established E Fletcher
(Builders) Limited which rapidly grew to be a major house-builder across the Midlands and North
West. In 1969 Fletcher Builders merged with the Bardolin Group and he became group chairman
until retiring in 1973. With capital released by the Bardolin merger he helped form Company
Developments Limited of Solihull and was a director. His son Geoffrey became a successful
property developer too. Edward lived at Cot Lane, Kingswinford until 1956, then in
Kidderminster for 15 years and finally at Wolverley.

256 Alexander Rolfe MacKENZIE (1908-1972) (Member 1938-39 - see #214 - then rejoined
c.Oct.1943; probably left c.1950.) Electricity Supply Service. He was District Manager with the
Shropshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire Electric Power Company, Dudley. However by
about 1950 he had become a Director of E C Payter & Co. of Limerick Works, Meeting street,
Great Bridge. The firm produced a wide range of metal fabrications, particularly for the
engineering, petroleum and chemical industries. During the 1950s and ’60s he obtained
numerous patents as inventor of products as diverse as improved beer barrels, a vending
machine for hot and cold beverages, and diving spring boards for swimming pools. He was
presumably born in Scotland because his home in Selbourne Road, Dudley was called ‘Tulach
Ard’, ('Lofty Hill’), the name of a Scottish mountain and war cry of the McKenzie clan.

257 Thomas Howard KENT (1887-1953) (Elected 2.11.1943; resigned 8.5.1947.) Classification
Dentistry. He practised as a Dentist and Artificial Teeth Manufacturer but apparently with no
formal qualifications, starting in Scotch Chambers, Dudley Market Place in 1909 at the age of
only 22 and moving to the Old Bank House in Wolverhampton Street in 1936. He was born in
Dudley, son of a travelling draper, but moved to Shifnal as a very young child when his father
became licensee of the Jerningham Arms Hotel. However his father died when Howard was only
5. In consequence he perhaps received a better education than he might otherwise have had
because a few years later his widowed mother sent him to Wolverley Grammar School near
Kidderminster as a boarder. He was a prominent member of Dudley Conservative Club
(Chairman in 1930/31) and of Dudley Golf Club.