Page 96 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Winston lived in Gervase Drive, Dudley until 1958 when he moved to Farmcote near
Bridgnorth. His son Simon (club member #420) succeeded him as proprietor of the jewellery
business.

302 Richard Percy LOVELL (1908-1988) (Inducted 21.3.1949; left 31.3.1955.) Brass Goods
Manufacturing. Chairman and Managing Director of Lovell & Hanson Ltd, manufacturers of
brass water pipe fittings at the ‘Hanlo’ works, Spon Lane, West Bromwich and partner in Repco
Engineering, plumbers, brass founders and engineers, at separate premises in Spon Lane. As a
child he was known simply as Percy but later seems to have adopted his father’s names of
Richard Percy. His early years were in Salford but in 1916, when he was eight, his textile
merchant father and family sailed to the USA and settled in Bergen, New Jersey. Four years later
they returned to live in Manchester. As an adult Richard lived and worked in the Bolton area,
latterly as a factory supervisor. He moved to Dudley and founded Lovell and Hanson in 1945, at
first using sub-contractors to manufacture his plumbing products, directed from his home and
then from a small office in Wolverhampton Street. Two years later he started his own
production from a garage in West Bromwich. From then on the business expanded rapidly: in
1950 he set up a small factory in a nearby converted shop; in 1954 he expanded into other
buildings in the neighbourhood; and in 1960, just 15 years after it started from nothing, the firm
moved into a modern 60,000 sq.ft factory in Oldbury Road, West Bromwich. Lovell & Hanson
became IMI Yorkshire Fittings in 1985 and continues today as Yorkshire Fittings Ltd. In Dudley
his home may have been in Watson’s Green Road but he moved to Four Ashes near Enville,
Stourbridge. Because neither his work nor home were in Dudley his Rotary membership was in
doubt, but he established an office in Dudley in 1952 so his place in the club was assured for the
moment. A few years later he moved home to the historic Billesley Manor near Stratford-upon-
Avon (where Shakespeare wrote most of As You Like It). He sold the hall and its 11 acres of
parkland in 1962 and eventually retired to Ringwood, Hampshire, close to the New Forest.

303 Basil Eugene POOLE (1909-1999) (Inducted 11.4.1949; President 1970-71; left 1995/6; died
9.10.1999.) Mining Engineering. Chartered surveyor, mining engineer and
geologist, Principal of Johnson Poole & Bloomer, mining engineers &
surveyors, then in Priory Street, Dudley. He was nationally known as a
mineral valuer and adviser to small mines, and was much involved in major
opencast mining and land reclamation projects around the Black Country.
He was born in Netherton, son of Horace Poole, General Manager of all
Lord Dudley’s collieries, and educated at Dudley Grammar School. From
1928 he served a two year apprenticeship as a mine surveyor at Baggeridge
Colliery, under the manager Ben Price (later Club member #326), starting
at 1s.6d per day. Then after a couple of years at Hamstead Colliery he joined Josiah Bloomer of
Henry Johnson & Son, mining engineers & surveyors in Dudley. In 1934 he bought a half share
in the firm and in 1939 bought the remainder. In 1951 he was joined in partnership by Ben Price
on his retirement from Baggeridge Colliery. Price retired a second time 15 years later. In 1973
Colin Knipe (club member #428) joined Basil as a partner.
With his wife Gwenyth, Basil Poole played a major part in the establishment and running of
the annual Dudley Festival of Music, Drama & Dance, first held in 1959, and the Dudley National
(now International) Pianoforte Competition from 1968. He was a competent pianist himself. He
was a driving force behind the creation of the Black Country Museum, becoming a Member and
Vice Chairman of the Founding Board at its inception in 1975 and later a Vice President of the
museum company. He was a founder member of the Friends of the Museum, becoming
Chairman and subsequently Vice President. He was also President of the Dudley Canal Trust.
For many years he was a trustee of Parsons Charity, Baylies Charity and the Dudley Old Meeting
House, and Secretary of Dudley Book Society. He served as chairman of Dudley Arts Council and
on the Council of West Midlands Arts; as a member of Dudley Council’s Conservation Areas