George Clement Jenks
George Clement Jenks (1887-1946)
1946 Obituary [1]
GEORGE CLEMENT JENKS was the chairman and managing director of Messrs. John Shaw and Sons, Ltd., tool manufacturers, of Wolverhampton, and was well known in the Midlands as a prominent engineering employer. During the war of 1939-45 he held the important position of Director of Hand Tools, Ministry of Supply, and subsequent to his resignation in 1943 acted as chairman of the central advisory committee for hand tools.
He was born in 1887 and received his general education at Wolverhampton Grammar School, and his technical training at the technical school in that town. Shortly after the conclusion of a two years' apprenticeship at the Cobden Mills, Wrexham, in 1906, he received an appointment as joint managing director of the Coventry Metal and Iron Company, Ltd. A visit to the United States and Canada followed in 1911, when he toured various engineering works on the introduction of Messrs. Alfred Herbert, Ltd. On his return to England in the following year he founded in conjunction with his brother, Mr. Reginald P. Jenks, the firm of Messrs. Jenks Brothers, Ltd., and incidentally, somewhat later, designed and patented the first all-steel sidecar body.
In 1915 Messrs. Jenks established an additional business, the British Tool and Engineering Company, Ltd., and finally on the acquisition of these two firms by Messrs. John Shaw and Company in 1936, Mr. Jenks became chairman and managing director of the new combine. Other appointments he held in the course of his career included those of chairman of Messrs. Moor and Wright, of Sheffield, and also of Messrs. Lake and Elliott, Ltd., Braintree, Essex, to which latter office he was elected only a few weeks before his death, which occurred on 13th February 1946.
In addition he was a Past-President of the Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce and a magistrate of the borough.