Page 88 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

272 Thomas Howard BRUTON (1903-1955) (Inducted 27.8.1945; died 28.2.1955 aged 51 whilst still
a member.) Classification ‘Road Haulage’. When he joined the club he was proprietor of
Bruton’s Motor Services, haulage contractors, with offices in Priory Street, Dudley. However at
the beginning of 1948 many of the country’s road haulage businesses were nationalised, so
Howard’s business ceased trading. He became an employee of the British Transport Commission
as head of the Dudley depot of British Road Services in Tipton Road. Apparently in anticipation
of impending nationalisation, Howard set up a motor servicing and repair garage at the bottom
of Trindle Road in the name of Bruton’s Garages Limited (now the site of Dudley Motors). He
left BRS in early 1952 and resumed trading as Bruton’s Motor Services as well as running the
garage. His Rotary classification changed to ‘Draying & Hauling’. Howard started his career as
a fishmonger, following the trade of his father and grandfather, before setting up his own
haulage business when only 24 or 25. He was brought up and lived at Kates Hill, Dudley for most
of his life, moving to Gervase Drive only in 1949. He served as a Dudley councillor for three years
from November 1947.

273 Cecil Victor (‘Vic’) CLARK (1901-1990) (Inducted 27.8.1945; poor attendance from 1951 because
of continuous ill health of himself and his wife; left in June 1971.) Classification Woollen goods
manufacturing. He was Company Secretary and, from 1949, a director of Grainger & Smith
Limited, woollen goods merchants and exporters of King Street, Dudley, having started with the
firm as a clerk straight from school aged 14. As a teenager he learned book-keeping in night
classes at Dudley Technical School. After retiring about 1961 he became a director of Dudley
Building Society and in the 1980s Chairman in succession to George Lewis (member #250). (They
were good friends and had adjoining season tickets at West Bromwich Albion.) His early years
were in Norton Canes, Staffordshire where his father was a mechanical engineer at the Wyrley
No.3 Colliery. The family moved to Dudley when he was 12. He spent a year each at the Kates
Hill Boys’ School and the Sir Gilbert Claughton School.

274 James Sanford (‘Sandy’) SMITH (1908-1997) (Elected c.6.1945; left before 1952-53.) Chairman
and Managing Director of Sanford Manufacturing & Trading Company
Limited, textile manufacturers until it was voluntarily wound up in 1962.
The firm’s factory was in Dibdale Street, London Fields (near the top end
of Himley Road, Dudley) and was known as ‘The Scrim’. It started in the
1920s as The Scrim Manufacturing Co. Ltd, scrim being a light, open-
textured, cotton or linen fabric. Much of the output was used to make
bandages. Sanford was born in Burnley where his father was a loom
supervisor in a cotton factory and ten years later was Weaving Manager
for a Birmingham surgical dressing manufacturer, so it was natural that
Sanford would go into the industry. He was a Dudley councillor from 1941-45, Chairman of
Dudley Conservative Club in 1950, and lived in Gervase Drive.

275 Edgar Oswald WESTLEY (1904-1987) (Elected ~8.1945; left January 1952.) Director and later
Chairman of Westley’s Dudley Garage Ltd, car and commercial vehicle dealers and motor
repairers. The garage was on Castle Hill, Dudley opposite the Zoo, and is now Dudley Casino.
Oswald started the business in 1929 when he was 24 and wound it up 56 years later in 1985. His
father Arthur Edgar Westley joined the club in 1925 (#103).

276 Charles Frederick JONES (1895-1957) (Inducted 29.10.1945; resigned as club Secretary at
31.12.1951 owing to a serious eye disease; President 1954-55; died 5.4.1957 whilst still a
member.) ‘Official of Ministry of Labour’. Manager of the Employment Exchange in Parsons
Street, Dudley. He appears to have been brought up at The Bratch, Wombourne, son of a farm
bailiff, started work as a carpenter’s mate and then as a driller at the Wulfruna Cycle Works,
Wolverhampton, before serving with the Worcestershire Regiment during the First World War.