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Brief histories of the first clubs of Europe

Rotary Club of Amsterdam, The First Club of Holland

Rotary International District 1580

The Amsterdam Club owes its origin to two Dutchmen who had both experienced Rotary in the United States.  During the first World War when Holland was neutral, Jan van Tyen who had been living in the U.S.A. for some years, became a member of the RC of Port Arthur, Texas. Whilst he was there, he received a written request signed by Ches Perry at the Rotary HQ in Chicago, to ask if he could help take Rotary to The Netherlands.

About the same time, another Dutchman, Anton Verkade on a business trip in 1919, visited some American Rotary Clubs among them the Seymour Club of Indiana.  During this visit, he went to Chicago and there was entertained at Comely Bank by Paul Harris, who urged him to try to start a Dutch Rotary Club.

 It appears that neither Perry nor Harris knew of the other's involvement, a situation similar to that some years earlier in Britain. Luckily, when both were back in Holland, Jan van Tyen and Anton Verkade contacted each other and pooled their enthusiasm.  They were joined by Bert Snijder and George Brusse. Bert and George also knew about Rotary in the U.S.A. and probably had also attended

some of the clubs there.

Anton and the three others held talks about starting Rotary in Amsterdam and also in Utrecht.
There, J. van Dillen and H.A.M.van Hoffen became actively interested. H.A.M.van Hoffen moved to Amsterdam and became the fifth member of the new Amsterdam Club. Throughout most of 1922, the interim club there held weekly meetings,and the following year, on 10 March 1923, the RC of Amsterdam was chartered.  The Dutchmen were helped by John Bain Taylor of the RC of London who had also been involved earlier in the formation of a Rotary club in Paris.   Anton Verkade was President of the RC of Amsterdam from the beginning until 28 April 1925.

 
During the 1939/45 war, Rotary was banned by the Germans as it had been in all the other occupied countries of Europe, and Harris wondered what had happened to Verkade and the many other Rotarians now prevented by the Germans from Rotary pursuits. When the Occupation and the war ended in 1945, the 4 men who had originally brought Rotary to The Netherlands, restarted the RC of Amsterdam. All former members had to be screened.

 
Based on information from Rtn Tom Verkade of RC Zaanstad and PDG Arnold Verkade of Zaandam-Oost.

Basil Lewis

Charter photo from Dr. Wolfgang Ziegler From the June 1923 issue of The Rotarian.
 

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The contents of this website, our electronic features and newsletters have been researched, collected, compiled, and written by Rotarians. RGHF Mission: As an effort to serve others, RGHF accumulates and preserves the complete history, values and philosophy of the Rotary movement, as well as encourages others to do the same at every level of the Rotary movement, and publishes those histories, values and philosophies on the internet, as well as other forms of media as expedient. 17 March 2003, amended 20 December 2007, Rotary Global History Fellowship Board of Directors.

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