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DISTRICTING IN RIBI
In the early days of Rotary, there was no need to have any
regional or area organisation, but as the number of clubs
increased so there was a need for some smaller units than just
the one organisation. A system of 'Divisions' was introduced by
the Rotary Convention in 1912 in Duluth, and three years later,
these became 'Districts', a name that has remained in use ever
since. Each was given an identity number. As the number of these
districts grew from the original six to the present figure of
over 525, it became necessary to create a further division
called 'zones', each comprising between 12 and 18 districts;
that, however, is another story.
In 1915 the Rotary Clubs in Britain were combined into a single
district, then known as Rotary District 19, the other 18 all
being in North America. When the World War ended in 1918, there
were only 22 clubs in the country. It was clear, however, that
in the following years many more clubs would be created and to
take account of future development, a British districting system
was organised in 1918 with 6 districts. These were:
1 The North of England which had four clubs,
Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds
and Newcastle,
2 The Midlands with Birmingam, Derby, Leicester and
Nottingham
3 The South East with London, Southampton, Brighton,
Bournemouth and
Portsmouth
4 The West and Wales with Bristol, Cardiff and Llanelly
5 Scotland with Aberdeen , Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth
6 Ireland with Belfast and Dublin.
The continuing growth of Rotary led to this being modified in
1920 with 2 extra districts; the old number 2 being split into 2
'Midlands West', and 3 'Midlands East' while the old 4 became 5
the South West and 6 Wales. These were British Districts as
opposed to the Rotary International one which in 1921 became
Rotary District 24 for the whole of GB and I.
However, the following July, RIBI was separated out of RI's
Districting System and for some 15 years British Rotary used its
own numbers and district organisation, although these became
recognized by RI's official
directory in 1931. By then there were 16 districts in RIBI with
Scotland having 1 and 2 and Ireland 15 and 16.
For various reasons, both Scotland and Ireland refused to be
divided. In 1927, a new District 14 covering Surrey and West
Sussex was created, and in 1928, Devon and Cornwall became
District 17. There were other minor boundary changes in the
following years with new districts being formed for North Wales
(1935) and another for North West England (1947). In 1951,
Scotland finally agreed to a division of their country into 2
districts.
In
August 1937, the RI Directory combined all the RIBI
Districts with the rest of the world, keeping the RIBI
numbers unchanged. This remained the situation until July
1957 when the Board of RI changed the RIBI numbers by adding
100 to the base figure so that, for example, 4 became 104
and 7 became 107. In the succeeding years, there were
occasions when some districts were split or re-aligned
again; thus, in 1972-73, District 107 split and some clubs
were allocated into District 122. A further change occurred
in 1985 when a new District 127 was created out of parts of
District 104, 107 and 122.
In
1986 District 105 was divided and part became 128 while 3
years later district 117 was also divided so that part
became 129. After this,
there were no more changes until 1991 when, throughout the
Rotary world, district numbers were increased to four digits
so that 101 became 1010 and so on.
RGHF
senior historian Basil Lewis
26 October 2005, amended 3 August 2006, amended 21 July 2008, with acknowledgements to
Norman Proctor's 'RIBI 1975-2005' Annex C |
