Page 83 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

258 Rev. Samuel Edgar Leslie LARWOOD (1908-1970) (Elected c.4.1944; left in
1947.) Minister of Dudley Baptist Church from 1939 to 1947, having
previously been minister at Selly Oak, Birmingham from 1934. His early
years were in the Twickenham area of London where he started as a
commercial traveller. He then trained for the Baptist Ministry at
Spurgeon's College, Croydon and his first position was at Selly Park Baptist
Church. He moved to the newly constructed Dudley Baptist Church in
Priory Road in July 1939. He soon became President of Dudley Free Church
Council and a Committee Member of Dudley Citizens’ Advice Bureau,
becoming Chairman in 1946. He left Dudley to become Baptist minister at Stockton-on-Tees in
April 1947. During this period he was becoming prominent in the Baptist church hierarchy. In
December 1953 he was sent to Kingston, Jamaica as a missionary sponsored by the Baptist
Missionary Society, in charge of the East Queen Street Baptist Church and soon also the Bethel
Baptist Church. He returned to England in January 1958, living first at Bexley Heath and then
Croydon. He was a leading member of the Baptist Revival Fellowship throughout the 1950s and
60s, editor of the BRF Bulletin 1965-67, and author of a book entitled Facing Death.

259 William Henry (‘Bill’) RIGG (1913-1964) (Elected c.4.1944; resigned
7.5.1945 owing to business difficulties.) Chartered Engineer and
entrepreneur. Works Manager of Vono Ltd, Dudley Port, manufacturers
of mattresses and bedstead fittings, from 1938. His home was in
Wolverhampton but by 1945 he had moved to Lydiate Ash House near
Bromsgrove and appears to have left Vono to start William Rigg &
Partners, Consulting Mechanical and Electrical Engineers. He advertised
for ‘gentlemen suitably qualified in the fields of electronics, structural
engineering or metallurgy who are anxious to enter the field of industrial
research and development.’ His research included developing early forms of computers.
However in 1955 he was appointed a director of Revo Electric Co. Ltd, becoming Managing
Director in 1958 and also the MD of the associated company Firth Cleveland Tools in 1961.
He was born in Torquay, the son of a wealthy retired Lloyd’s stockbroker, but brought up in
London. As a teenager he started competitive motorbike racing, including on the Isle of Man TT
circuit, before transferring to cars in his early 20s. At the age of 24 he also obtained his pilot’s
licence from the Cambridge Aero Club. The War stopped these pastimes but he took up motor
sport again in 1962 when his sons started car racing. Bill successfully raced a D-type Jaguar and
3.8 Jaguar MkII saloon on circuits around England and Ireland, but met a tragic death in July
1964 when his Lotus Elite overturned whilst taking part in the Leinster Trophy race on the
Dunboyne road circuit near Dublin.

260 Edwin Arthur ALLEN (1906-1966) (Elected c.4.1944; resigned 14.5.1946.) Director, with his older
brother Alfred, of the family firm Alfred Allen and Son Ltd of Deepdale Lane, Lower Gornal,
manufacturers of skips, trolleys and mining equipment, and a wide range of other sheet metal
industrial fabrications. When he was being considered for membership there was concern
whether Lower Gornal was within the club’s territory.