Page 9 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

from 1936 to November 1965, 14 of those 29 years as Chairman of the Bench. He was also
Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace for Dudley, for which he was
awarded the OBE in 1963. (Remarkably he turned down an MBE in 1957!). He was also chairman
of the governors of Dudley College of Education. A few years after the War, in memory of his
father, he funded the restoration of the East Window in Top Church which had been damaged
by enemy bombing in 1942. He lived at 22 Oakham Road, Dudley.

14 Harry Raymond HURST (1901-1979) (Founder member, elected 22.5.1922; resigned 25.7.1932.)
Secretary of Dudley Guest Hospital. He joined the hospital service in 1919, became Assistant
Secretary of the Guest Hospital in 1921 aged only 20, Secretary in 1927, with the added title of
House Governor from 1931. On the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948, was
appointed Secretary to the Management Committee of the Dudley, Stourbridge and District
Hospital Group. He retired in 1966 after almost 47 years, during which period he was
responsible for the arrangements of three royal visits to the Guest Hospital. Fellow of
Incorporated Association of Hospital Officers, serving as President 1936-37. He was author of
the centenary history The Guest Hospital Dudley 1871–1971. He joined the Rotary club aged
only 21 and was the youngest ever member. His father was a Company Secretary but died when
Raymond was only 6 so he was raised by his widowed mother at the family home in Penn Road,
Wolverhampton. In later life he lived in Gervase Drive, Dudley.

15 Robert HUDSON (1853-27) (Founder member, elected 22.5.1922; resigned 5.11.1923.) Printer
and publisher. Managing Director of Dudley Herald Press, Priory Street,
Dudley, part of Midland United Newspapers Ltd and publishers of the
Dudley Herald. He was proprietor and publisher of the Herald from 1896,
at first with well-known novelist A W Marchmont, and from 1918 with Sir
George Bean until Sir George’s death in 1924. From then he carried on
alone. He was born in the village of Kirkby Malzeard near Ripon, Yorkshire,
worked as a printer in Durham, then established his own business as Printer
& Bookseller in Goole before coming to Dudley. He was a freemason,
attached to the Royal Standard Lodge and Mark & Ark Lodge in Dudley and
St Bartholomew’s Lodge, Wednesbury, also a member of the Order of Foresters of Dudley and
Cradley Heath District. His home was in Wellington Road until retiring to Leamington Spa and
moving to Scarborough shortly before his death.

16 William Harry LETT (1874-1942) (Founder member, elected 22.5.1922;
membership terminated 19.3.1928.) Wine & spirit merchant. Principal from
1900 of Rutland & Lett, wine merchants of King Street, Dudley, with branches
in Wolverhampton and Walsall, and co-director with his younger brother
Rupert, club member #28. The firm was founded by their grandfather John
Rutland in 1847 and continued by their father Edgar Lett. After leaving
school Harry joined his widowed mother Ann Maria Lett in running the
business. During the First World War he was a captain in the Worcestershire
Volunteers. An old Dudley Grammar School boy, from the days when the
school was in King Street, he became President of the Old Dudleians’ Association. He was active
in the Netherton Conservative and Unionist Club, and the Dudley & District Licensed Victuallers
Association. He lived at ‘Banklands’, Himley Road. On his death the family requested No
flowers, but donations to ‘YMCA Dudley Hut’.