Harris in Cambridge

In January 2007 Basil Lewis of the Rotary Club of Humberside D1270 sent the following to our club:

75th Anniversary of Paul Harris’s visit to Cambridge

I don't know whether you are aware or even interested but this year is the 75th anniversary of a visit by Paul Harris, founder of Rotary, to your club. The following account concerns this:

Paul Harris went, according to his own report to Ches Perry, straight to Cambridge via Ipswich. Butt had left the group at Harwich to collect Frank Watts, another old friend of Paul's from London, and take him to Cambridge Meanwhile, Harry Hansen and the other two Rotarians accompanied their visitor to Ipswich.

About half way from Ipswich, at Bury St Edmunds, they were met by three Cambridge Rotarians who had driven out to escort Paul Harris into their city. He was booked into the University Arms in a room overlooking "a common of velvety green [Parkers Piece]." That Sunday afternoon he visited the homes of three local Rotarians and was impressed by their houses and gardens As he wrote, "If life is more than business, our homes should be more than conveniently accessible modern apartments." After tea, the group attended evensong at Queens College chapel and spent some time wandering along the banks of the River Cam, the area known as’ The Backs'. This impressed him so much that on the next morning, his host's eldest son, a Cambridge graduate, together with a young house guest from Holland, took Paul Harris for a canoe trip on the Cam. After this, they went on a conducted tour of several colleges led by one about whom Harris says that there was "none more gifted than he, none more faithful to the trust of interpreting the spirit of Cambridge than he." For the evening, he had been invited to dine at High Table at Queens with the college President and some of the university professors. One, the Professor of Greek, asked Paul Harris if he knew the passage from Aristophanes which read "The Rotary movement is King ". Harris had to admit his ignorance but noted that "the great Greek foresaw some of the advantages which the world was to derive from the revolving wheel. Where would civilisation be now without it? "

At lunch on Tuesday August 9 [at the Dorothy Café, presumably with Cambridge President H Franklin], he addressed a splendid inter-club Rotary meeting, quickly organised by the District instead of the club's customary luncheon; there he met Frank Watts who had arrived from London with Bensusan Butt, and for the first time, according to his diary, Hugh Galloway, the President of RIBI. In fact, Galloway had been present at a meeting in Newcastle in 1928, although Harris might not have remembered him. Years later, Galloway was entertained at Comely Bank in Chicago by the Harrises and they remained good friends for, as Paul told him, "Of all interests in life, none is so inexhaustible as making and studying friends." Now in Cambridge, many Rotarians from all over District 8 had gathered to meet Paul Harris. In addition to the local District members, Rotarians had travelled to Cambridge from the Aylesbury, Bangor, Croydon, Hitchin, Kingston upon Thames, London, St Andrews and Welwyn Garden City Clubs. There was even one visitor from Dusseldorf! Also present were The Master of Sidney Sussex College, the Deputy Mayor and the Chairman of the Cambridgeshire County Council. In his reply to the welcome he received, Paul Harris said that he had a feeling that every Rotarian should visit Cambridge and added that owing to the limited time at his disposal in England, he was only visiting Cambridge and London. While he expressed his appreciation of England, he nevertheless told his audience that he was not one of those Americans who did not approve of his own country. Paul Harris did speak about criticisms of Rotary made in America and he admitted that there was some validity in these criticisms. In his own words, as the Daily Telegraph reported, "We have been worshipping strange gods - the God of Prosperity - and we have got into an entirely false appraisement of the essentials of life. It is a period which has been designated by some as the 'Jazz period'. Now we have got to the point when we have to take an inventory. What a wonderful opportunity it is for us to start in a new way." He concluded by saying that, if the vision of the people of England and America could be adjusted to the new order of things, there should emerge from the present situation, which they had thought of as critical, a stronger and better England and a stronger and better America than had ever existed in the past. 'Rotula' described this speech as "thoughtful, refreshing and impressive " and said that "those present will not soon forget the earnestness and sincerity of his belief in the movement."

Before the meeting ended, Hugh Galloway, on behalf of RIBI, congratulated the Cambridge Club on the great honour paid to it in the visit of the beloved Founder."We in Rotary ", he said, "know very well that our debt to our Founder is far greater than can be paid in mere words or hospitality; but what the ultimate debt of the whole country will be to Paul Harris, nobody here or elsewhere yet knows, because the work of Rotary hitherto has only progressed so far as to begin to show us the vast possibilities of the influence of this great Movement in the service of mankind and in the sweetening of all its relationships. We cannot hope to see the ultimate flower and fruit of Rotary endeavour; we are content merely to assist in its cultivation; but we can and do unite in offering to the man who discovered the Rotary ideal our most grateful and affectionate tribute."

This fulsome tribute was typical of many paid to the President Emeritus during his various visits to Britain and is quoted here in full because it embodies the thoughts of most British Rotarians about the founder of their movement

The meeting over, Paul Harris accompanied by Hugh Galloway, caught the train to London.