Such an interesting topic. There was a prior disfellowshipping arrangement. It was seldom used because it was, if anything, even worse then the post 1953 procedure. The original method of addressing “deportment” issues was a public trial before the congregation. When I was a new Witness, some congregations were still doing this. The small congregation with which I associated briefly in 1949 tried a man for homosexuality and pederasty, exposing his faults to the entire congregation.
However, by that time a different procedure was in place. It was poorly defined. Organization Instructions (first published in 1939, if I recall correctly.) Said that the responsible brothers were to speak privately with those not behaving as a Christian should. If the “mature ones or elders should decide what shall be done with such person.”
They did not call it disfellowshpping. But the effect was the same. If they servants wrote to the Society, they were to furnish the accused brother with a copy of the letter.
Post-war behavior standards were lax. In the same period, the Watchtower put more emphasis on behavior. The 1950s modifications were meant to increase diligence and to diminish the role of the service department. Poor behavior on the part of appointed servants was part of this. As an example, the Company Servant at Salinas, California, ran off with a fifteen year old girl.