The first years of the Rotary Club

Silvester meeting February Harris’s The first friend of Schiele 23, Rotary three 1905. Gustave (a Club business In coal addition was merchant), Loehr’s acquaintances formed to office Harris and when in and Hiram the in attorneyLoehr downtown Unity E. Shorey (a mining PaulBuilding (a Chicago,P.tailor) engineer Harrison Dearborn were Unitedcalledand the freemason),togetherStates,other Streettwoonata

who attended this first meeting. The members chose the nameRotarybecauseinitially they rotated subsequent weekly club meetings to each other’s offices, although within a year, the Chicago club became so large it became necessary to adopt the now-common practice of a regular meeting place.

The next four Rotary Clubs were organized in cities in the western United States, beginning with San Francisco, then Oakland, Seattle, and Los Angeles. The National

Association of Rotary Clubs in America was formed in 1910. On November 3, 1910, a Rotary club began meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the beginning of the organisation’s internationality. On 22 February 1911, the first meeting of the Rotary Club Dublin was held in Dublin, Ireland. This was the first club established outside of North America. In April 1912, Rotary chartered the Winnipeg club marking the first establishment of an American-style service club outside the United States. To reflect the addition of a club outside of the United States, the name was changed to the International Association of Rotary Clubs in 1912.

In August 1912, the Rotary Club of London received its charter from the Association, marking the first acknowledged Rotary club outside North America. It later became known that the Dublin club in Ireland was organized before the London club, but the Dublin club did not receive its charter until after the London club was chartered. During World War I, Rotary in Britain increased from 9 to 22 clubs, and other early clubs in other nations included those in Cuba in 1916, Philippines in 1919 and India in 1920.

In 1922, the name was changed to Rotary International. By 1925, Rotary had grown to 200 clubs with more than 20,000 members.

World War II era in Europe:

Rotary Clubs in Spain ceased to operate shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

Clubs were disbanded across Europe as follows:

• Netherlands (1923)
• Czechoslovakia (1940)
• Finland (1926)
• Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Yugoslavia and
• Austria (1938)
• Luxembourg (1941)
• Italy (1939)
• Hungary (1941/1942)