Our 1.2 million-member organization started with the vision of one man—Paul P. Harris. The Chicago attorney formed one of the world’s first service organizations, the Rotary Club of Chicago, on 23 February 1905 as a place where professionals with diverse backgrounds could exchange ideas and form meaningful, lifelong friendships. Rotary’s name came from the group’s early practice of rotating meetings among the offices of each member.

Rotarians have not only been present for major events in history—we’ve been a part of them. From the beginning, three key traits have remained strong throughout Rotary:

We’re truly international. Only 16 years after being founded, Rotary had clubs on six continents. Today we’re working together from around the globe both digitally and in-person to solve some of our world’s most challenging problems.

We persevere in tough times. During WWII, Rotary clubs in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Japan were forced to disband. Despite the risks, many continued to meet informally and following the war’s end, Rotary members joined together to rebuild their clubs and their countries.

Our commitment to service is ongoing. We began our fight against polio in 1979 with a project to immunize 6 million children in the Philippines. By 2012, only three countries remain polio-endemic—down from 125 in 1988.

Rotarians are your neighbors, your community leaders but also history-makers such as US president (Warren G. Harding), Finnish composer (Jean Sibelius),  inventors (Guglielmo Marconi , Thomas Edison and Bill Gates), American Astonauts (Frank Borman and Neil Armstrong) , Politicians (Winston Churchill and John F Kennedy)  and many, many more.

 

Setting the Scene in Banbury 1934

In 1934 Banbury was still very much a market town and livestock market, Industries apart from the traditional ones associated with agriculture, were few and were relative newcomers to the town. The largest was the Northern Aluminium Company later to become known as Alcan Booth Industries, other major companies were Spencer Corsets Ltd and Henry Stone and Sons a furniture making company.  The population of Banbury in 1934 was 14,000 compared with today’s of approximately 48,000.

The Start

In November 1934, Mr. Howard Chapman, a Banbury house furnisher, visited the Oxford Rotary Club and was sufficiently interested to have a talk with several members of their Club Council. As a result, one of the Past Presidents, Rotarian A. M. Eagleston, and their Secretary, Rotarian Fred Holbrow came to Banbury in January 1935.

They told Howard Chapman about the procedure to be adopted if a Rotary Club was to be formed locally. On their advice he approached the then Mayor, Alderman Sidney Ewins and the two of them decided to invite leading members of the Banbury business community to a meeting in order to discuss the idea.

Twenty invitations were sent out to a meeting to be held in Wincott’s Café to meet members of the Oxford Club and two District Officers. Friday, 12th April, was the date set for this meeting. In addition to the Chairman of the District Extension Committee, the District Secretary and the President and four members of the Oxford Club, and sixteen Banbury men were there. This meeting decided to constitute itself as the Provisional Formation Committee of the Rotary Club of Banbury, and the sixteen members present agreed to become Founder members. On 25th April 1935.

The first meeting of the provisional club was held at the Wincott’s Café in South Bar on Friday 10th May 1935, and the Inaugural lunch was arranged for Friday 24th May at the same venue.  The Club’s Charter was signed and dated on 24th September 1935. Five months had elapsed from the first meeting before the presentation of the charter at a formal dinner that was held at the Banbury Town Hall on 25th October 1935.   This Dinner was attended by 167 people including representatives from 10 other clubs in Rotary District 9 (later to become 109 then 1090) and also Rotarians from Bideford, Coventry, Leamington and Sheffield. There were also lady visitors from Denmark and Switzerland.