History Club of Melbourne Inc.

Club History The Rotary Club of Melbourne was chartered on 21 April 1921 as the first Rotary Club in Australia. The Club now has over 250 members and is proud to have many women as very active members in the club.

As the first Club, it chartered many new clubs. In 1924 the Rotary Clubs of Adelaide in South Australia and of Hobart and Launceston in Tasmania were chartered, and between 1925 and 1999 the Club directly chartered a further twenty-four clubs. The Club is also the grandparent or great grandparent to a large number of Rotary Clubs in Australia.

Within the charter membership of the Club were many of Melbourne's leading business and professional men, including Sir John Monash, the great engineer and leading general from World War I and John Latham, later Sir John Latham, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

The Club is proud to have had one of its most distinguished members become the first Australian to be elected as the President of Rotary International. Sir Angus Mitchell was a truly great Rotarian. He was a very close friend of Paul Harris and is credited with the re-establishment of Rotary in Japan after the end of World War II.

Also the work, in Australia, of Calgary's Jim Davidson.

This entire section was prepared by Rotary Global History board member, Australia project chair,  the late PDG John Louttit 24 July 2003