Page 92 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

and lived in Dudley until the late 1950s when he moved to Wollaston and later to Norton,
Stourbridge.

290 John (‘Johnny’) Stewart WIGHTMAN, MBE (1909-1969) (Inducted 12.1.1948; President 1958-
59; died 12.5.1969 whilst still a member.) Original classification ‘Insurance General’ was changed
to ‘Insurance Broker’ in June 1954. He was a Partner in the Wolverhampton practice of Howard
Wright & Co., insurance brokers and consultants which he joined in the late 1940s. He withdrew
from the partnership in August 1955 but from 1952 had also operated on his own account under
the name of Birmingham & Midland Insurance Brokers Ltd from premises in St James’s Road,
Dudley. He was active as an insurance consultant until his untimely death at the age of 59 but
was evidently significantly in debt so his estate was put into Insolvency Administration.
He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne but brought with his family to Coventry as an infant. As
a young man he lived and worked in Birmingham until he took the post of ‘Resident Inspector’
and branch manager of the Royal Insurance Company in Wolverhampton Street, Dudley,
probably in 1938. On the outbreak of the War in 1939 he joined the South Staffordshire
Regiment as a Colour Serjeant and rose through the ranks to become an acting Major. He saw
action with General Montgomery’s troops in North Africa for which he was awarded an MBE in
June 1945 ‘for gallant and distinguished service in the Mediterranean Theatre’. After the War
and into the 1950s he retained the honorary rank of Major with the South Staffordshire
Territorials. He served as a Dudley councillor from 1950 and was elected chairman of Dudley
Conservative Club just months before his death. It was only about 1950 that he moved home
from south Birmingham to Dudley, first to Gervase Drive, then St James’s Road, and eventually
to Kingswinford.

291 Hubert Gambier ROBERTS (1901-1996) (Joined 15.2.1948 from the Rotary Club of Salisbury
where he had been chairman of District 11 International Service Committee; resigned Nov.1953
on transfer to Chippenham where he joined the Rotary Club with no break in service. He was a
apparently a Rotarian at Cheltenham in his 20s, and at Port Talbot, and probably also at Harrow
and Bournemouth.) Classification ‘Income Tax’. HM Inspector of Taxes, Dudley. He was born in
Gloucester, son of a ‘Draper’s Traveller’ but his father died young, so between the ages of 10
and 15 he was accepted as a boarder at the Commercial Travellers School, Pinner, Middlesex.
He then studied at St George’s College, London before joining the Inland Revenue in 1920, aged
19, as an Assistant Inspector of Taxes. He served first in the tax office at Cheltenham; then at
Harrow, Middlesex (from about 1926); Porthcawl, South Wales (from 1935); Bournemouth
(from 1938); Salisbury (from about 1943); Dudley (1948-1953); Chippenham (from 1953); then
Bournemouth again (from about 1962) until he retired.

292 Mervyn Henry Gerald BLACKMAN, ARIBA AMTPI (1909-1977) (Elected ~11.1947; resigned
11.10.1948 because moving out of the district.) Architect and Surveyor. He was the first Borough
Architect of Dudley, appointed in 1947 but left at the end of 1948 to take up the post of Deputy
City Architect of Oxford. From there he moved to Luton in 1956 as Borough Architect. He
designed the acclaimed Luton Central Library but was also responsible for the infamous Marsh
Farm Estate in the town. In 1970 or ’71 he returned to Hastings, the town where he grew up
and with which he maintained close connections throughout his life. His bricklayer father was
killed in 1918 whilst serving with the Royal Engineers in the Great War, so from the age of nine
Mervyn was raised by his mother, who kept a small shop in Hastings. Before coming to Dudley
he was Senior Assistant in the Portsmouth City Architect’s Department.