Page 87 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

also furniture at the Waterloo Place works; aircraft parts at the Cinderbank factory; and
‘Mastercraft’ domestic hardware and ‘Smithlite’ industrial lighting fittings and electrical
equipment at the Empire Works in Hall Street. (The Empire works had been the Empire Music
Hall and Cinema. As a boy Herman occasionally played the piano there to accompany silent
films.) After art school training he joined the firm in 1919 as an apprentice and moved from
department to department, learning the business from the ground floor up. He succeeded his
father (Herman Smith senior) as head of the firm, being made a director in his mid 20s and MD
in 1937. (His father was a member of the Rotary club from 1926-32, #112) Herman Smith Ltd
became a public company in 1959 and expanded as a group of specialist manufacturing
companies. Herman obtained several patents between 1933 and 1962 for items as diverse as
hearth fenders, draining boards, and fluorescent lamp fittings. He lived in Oakham Road, Dudley
until 1949 and then at Norton Road, Stourbridge. From the 1970s he described himself as a
farmer, still living in Stourbridge but owning two or three farms near Bridgnorth.

270 Arthur Ewart WEBB (1896-1976) (Inducted 30.4.1945; President 1961-62; died summer 1976
whilst still a member.) Classification Gas Production Equipment - Manufacturing. He was a
director of Westwood & Wright Limited, engineers and ironfounders of Stourbridge Road, Scotts
Green, Dudley. The firm, which was associated with Grazebrooks of Netherton and also had a
foundry at Round Oak Steelworks, manufactured valves, storage tanks, purifiers and other heavy
equipment for the gas production and distribution industry. Arthur started with Westwood &
Wright’s as a pattern maker’s apprentice at the age of 14, became a qualified pattern maker,
rose to become Works Manager (like his father before him), and then director. He eventually
retired 52 years later in 1962. He lived in Brettell Street, Dudley until 1936 and then in St James
Road.

271 Major Arthur Joseph HILLMAN, JP MBE TD (1917-1998) (Inducted
25.6.1945; President 1952-53; left late 1970.) Leather Manufacturer.
Director, and from the 1960s Managing Director, of industrial and fancy
leather goods manufacturers J & A Hillman Ltd of Porter Street, Dudley.
During the last War the firm added the manufacture of synthetic rubber
seals to its range of products. In January 1968 the company merged with
a subsidiary to become Hillman-Douglas Ltd, suppliers of handbags to
both the Queen and the Queen Mother. The business was founded by
brothers Arthur Henry Hillman, grandfather of Arthur, and Joseph Alfred
Hillman, the father of Rotarian Leonard Hillman (member #13).
Arthur junior was brought up in Kates Hill, Dudley but educated at Stonyhurst College,
Clitheroe, Lancashire, an independent Catholic boarding school. There he joined the Officer
Training Corps. On leaving college in 1934 he started with the family leather business but almost
immediately joined the Territorial Army as an officer in the Royal Army Service Corps. As Captain
Hillman he joined the tank Brigade and was sent to North Africa in 1941 where he was seriously
wounded in fighting near Tobruk, Libya. He lost both legs below the knee and the sight of one
eye. Despite this he soon continued as a keen golfer on artificial legs. He remained in the TA
for more than 20 years, with the honorary rank of Major.
He was a Dudley magistrate, chairman of the West Midlands Probation and After Care
Committee, Chairman of the Birmingham & District Committee of Voluntary Service Overseas
(which still sends large numbers of young volunteers to work in overseas developing countries),
vice-chairman of the Birmingham & District Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association, and for many
years played a leading role in Midland philatelic circles, having joined Dudley Philatelic Society
when it started in 1960. He was awarded the MBE in 1986 for services to the community in the
West Midlands. He left the Rotary club at the end of 1970 on moving home from Edgbaston,
Birmingham to Lickey End near Bromsgrove, and continued for a time as an insurance broker.
Five years later he retired to Lower Bentley a few miles further south.