JUNIOR CLERK TO MILLIONAIRE

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 521, 11 May 1915, Page 2

JUNIOR CLERK TO MILLIONAIRE

Birmingham has lost, in the death of Mr Arthur Keen, one of her greatest captains if industry. Starting life as a clerk witli the" London and North- Western. Railway Company at Smethwick over 50 years ago, at a small weekly wage, he became probably the wealthiest man in Birmingham. Whilst in the employ of the company at Smethwick his courtesy ahd energy attracted a deal of attention, and he married the daughter of a wealthy ironfounder named Astbury, who had been struck "by his business aptitude. His father-in-law found him the money to join Mr Vf. A. Watkins in working an American patent for making nuts and! bolts. After a few years Mr Watkins retired, leaving young Keen to carry on the concern alone. It developed with great rapidity, and after absorbing tlie then well-known firm of Weston and Griqe, a company was floated under the style of the Patent Nut and Bolt Company, with & capital of £400,600. This proved a very successful venture, and in 1900 an amalgamation took plaoe withi the Dowlais and Cyfarthfa Ironworks, having a capital of about £2,000,000, followed two years later by another amalgamation, and Mr Keen became the chairman of the huge concern of Guest, Keen, and Nettlefolds, with a capital of £5,000,000, and employing over £0,000 hands. ,In addition to being a director of Bolclraw, Vaughan, and Co. and the Muhtz Metal. Company, Mr Keen was for so.mo years chairn_an of the London City and Midland Bank, a position which he resigned in 1906. For a quarter of a century he was a member of the old Smethwick School Board, and for 15 years its chairman. In politics he was a keen supporter of Mr Chamberlain and his tariff reform policy. . A man of great individuality, he had a masterful grip of trade intricacies, and it was said that in the art of driving a bargain he knfew no superior.