In 1916, Percival Herbert Coates, an Englishman working for a British  owned railway, was a permanent resident in Montevideo, Uruguay.  That  year he went to the Methodist General Conference in Chicago where he  was a guest at one of the weekly meetings of the Rotary Club of  Chicago.   An American lawyer, Richard Momsen, who was serving as U.S.  Consul General in Rio de Janeiro, also attended the same Rotary  meeting.  There they met the legendary Ches Perry, who served as  secretary and organizer of the International Association of Rotary  Clubs, today, known as Rotary International.   Momsen and Coates were  very enthusiastic about what they saw and what was said about Rotary 
by Ches Perry.  Returning to South America, they competed to see who  would win the race to start the first club in their respective country

In 1918 Coates succeeded when Montevideo RC held its initial meeting  to become the first club in South America.  In Brazil , at the same  time, Momsen met some friends to discuss his project. However they  were not enthusiastic about the idea.  Following two more  unsuccessful attempts, Momsen was another 4 years before Rio de  Janeiro was founded, and then it was with Coates’s help, using his  experience from Uruguay.   At this first meeting Coates attended as  the representative of Rotary International.

Herbert Coates, known as Don Heriberto,  was in1922 secretary of the  Rotary Club of Montevideo, and also a member of the Committee for the  Extension of Rotary.   Subsequently, Coates remained the ‘eminence  grise’ of South American Rotary and was there to entertain Paul and  Jean Harris when they visited Montevideo in 1936.  Harris wrote that  “the presence of (Coates) amply justified our visit to South  America’s first Rotary club.  To relate the story of the untiring  work of Don Heriberto in the interests of Rotary....would be to tell  a long and romantic story.  England has given the world hundreds of 
great leaders.  Not among the most conspicuous, but among the most  purposeful and useful must be written the name of Herbert Coates. ”

See Paul Harris' reference here.

Researched and posted by Basil Lewis. August 2008