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PAUL P. HARRIS
| Board | Members | Competition | Newsletters | History |
| Services | News | Sister Clubs | Links | Home |
| Founder of Rotary International President of Emeritus of Rotary International - 1947 |
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| Paul P. Harris (1868-1947) a lawyer was the
founder of Rotary, the world's first
and
foremost international service club. Rotary is an organisation of business and professional leaders, united world wide, who provide humanitarian service, promote high ethical standands in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Paul received the Bachelor of physical culture and L.L.D. degrees from the University of Vermont and the L.L.B. degree from the University of Iowa. He received an honorary Ph.D in 1933 from the University of Vermont. Paul went to Chicago in 1896 to practice law. In 1890, after dinner with a lawyer in a residential section of Chicago, Paul Harris was very impressed by the fact that his friend stopped at several stores and shops in the neighbourhood and introduced him to proprietors, who were his friends. This experience caused Paul to wonder why he could not make social friends out of at least some of his law clients. He resolved to organise a club which would band together a group of representative business and professional men in friendship and fellowship. On February 23 1905, Paul Harris formed the first Rotary Club with three of his law clients each of whom represented a different vocation. The first three members of this soon to be world fraternity organisation were, Silvester Schiele, a coal merchant, Gustavus Lowhr, a mining engineer, and Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor. Paul named the club Rotary because members met in rotation in their various places of business. By August 1910, when there were 16 clubs in America, the National Association of Rotary Clubs was organised. When clubs were formed in Canada and Great Britain, the name changed, in 1912, to the International Association of Rotary Clubs. In 1922, the name was shortened to Rotary International. Today, there are close to 1.2 million Rotarians worldwide in over 29,000 Clubs spanning 528 districts in 162 countries. |
