Alfred Ernest Owen

Shops and shopkeeping were not for Alfred Ernest Owen, he was a born engineer.  His parents wisely encouraged him in the interests nearest his heart, and after his schooling he was apprenticed at a firm of foundry engineers in Chester.  After a five-year apprenticeship there followed a course of marine engineering at Liverpool.

In his early twenties he had built various working models of engines which showed a surprising degree of engineering skill.  The young Owen had set his sights towards his Mecca - the Midlands.  Small metalworking industries were already in being in this enterprising area, locks in Willenhall, chains in Wednesbury, various crafts that had been carried on by whole families and handed down from father to son.

His real opportunity came when an advertisement brought him in touch with a certain John Turner Rubery, owner of a very small engineering firm in Darlaston, who desired to take on a junior partner.  Alfred Owen, joined J. T. Rubery in July 1893.

Like most factory owners in those days the young Owen had to be jack of all trades, salesman, works manager, and cost clerk all rolled into one.  The partners did most of the office work between then, even helping out on the manual side when the occasion demanded.

Alfreds well known phrase was "let me know what you want, and I will make it".  This simple statment, asserted with the quiet confidence of a man who knew what he was about, was to line his pockets with gold and to pave the way for the vast organisation which exists today.

The partnership he had entered into with Mr Rubery was blossoming forth into an important and expanding business with the rapidly-developing motor and aircraft industries.  By 1910 Alfred Ernest Owen, had become sole owner of Rubery Owen & Co.

The business interests of the Owen family in the development of Rogers and Jackson Ltd., had been preserved throughout the years with Alfred Ernest Owen taking over from his father as a director in addition to his industrial commitments in the Midlands.

Under the guidance of E. Llewellyn Rogers, the firm of Rogers and Jackson continued to develop in great measure.  When the centenary of the firm was celebrated in 1915 rapid strides had begun to be made with extensive alterations to the premises in High Street.  In 1918 A. E. Owen, by that time a well-known Midlands industrialist, became Chairman of the Company.