ROTARY GLOBAL HISTORY SECTION HOME First Clubs of Ireland & the UK (First 100 & RIBI History) HISTORY OUTLINE HISTORY CALENDAR
1911 BARC BURNS RI ARCHIVES CHARTERING FIRST CLUBS HISTORY
PRESIDENTS HUNTLEY PASCALL DISTRICTING WARREN YOUNGEST RIBI PRESIDENT WHAT'S NEW? COMMITTEE
RIBI 100 SINGING MAGAZINE BRITISH STAGE STARS MORROW RIBI UPDATES
Section Chair - RGHF senior historian Basil Lewis, UK FIRST IN EACH REGION


THE RIBI SURVEY OF 1949
 

In January 1949 the then General Secretary of RIBI, Frederick Hickson, sent out a questionnaire to each of the 8 Founder clubs of RIBI, then known as the BARC.

 

These 8 clubs were Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow. Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. It was hoped that the replies would help to provide a record of the origin of Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland.

(post script)
 
DUBLIN ROTARY
This was the first club to be founded but not the first to be chartered.  The replies to the questionnaire have not yet been found but details of the foundation appear elsewhere. See our page on Stuart Morrow. William McConnell  was President of BARC/RIBI in 1921/1922    Although he is described as the 'founder' of the club, the real initiative was Morrow's.
 
 
 BELFAST ROTARY
 
 

GLASGOW ROTARY


 The reply of the Glasgow Club gives some idea of the time scale between the idea of forming a Rotary Club and the fruition, as well as describing briefly how the club came into being.
 
 

 

 

LONDON ROTARY

This was not one of Morrow's clubs  but was an initiative from Chicago.   It was chartered early so it received a lower number from America but is only number 2 in RIBI.

It was Stanley Leverton who first proposed changes to the one city one club rule which led to very large clubs in some parts of the world.
 
MANCHESTER ROTARY
No copy of their reply, if any, has yet been found.
 
EDINBURGH ROTARY
This club seems to have had difficulties in dealing with the questionnaire. No full answer has been found in the RIBI Archives
 
 
 
LIVERPOOL ROTARY
When he learned that Manchester was being started by the Chicago representatives, Stuart Morrow turned instead to its near neighbour, Liverpool. The reply from the Liverpool Club to the questionnaire sent out in 1949 was brief...and not entirely correct. Although by 1913, Stuart Morrow had authority to open clubs, this was not the case in the beginning at Dublin, but it was in Liverpool. These replies explain a little about the process of starting from scratch.
 
The replies from Liverpool were the most explicit of all those so far found.
 
BIRMINGHAM ROTARY
As with Manchester, no copy of the reply to the questionnaire has been found as yet.
 
The information garnered from the replies of the eight founder clubs was extensively used by Roger Levy in his book on 'Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland' . Levy had been working in the Secretariat of RIBI since 1931, including a period as Deputy Secretary. He had built up a vast store of knowledge about early Rotary and almost certainly would have seen and had access to these questionnaires. It may be that further research in the RIBI archives will uncover some of the missing information. However, for the present, an outline of the book can be found at http://www.rotaryfirst100.org/library/levy/ In recent years, this has been added to and brought up to date by Norman Proctor.
 
RGHF Senior Historian Basil Lewis with material from RGHF members Tim Tucker and past RIBI president David Fowler.
 
RGHF DisclaimerPrivacyUser AgreementSubscribeJoin RGHF

Edited by Calzada, 2012