Belinda Hutchinson AC, Chancellor of the University of Sydney, was inducted as an Honorary Member of the Sydney Rotary on the 17 May 2021. The University of Sydney and Rotary Club of Sydney. An Association going back 100 years! In 1921 it started with Sir T.W. Edgeworth David and Professor Arthur Mill. |  |
The Rotary Club of Sydney’s association with The University predates the Club’s inaugural meeting which was held on the 17 May 1921 via Sir T.W. Edgeworth David; a worldwide acclaimed geologist and Professor of Geology at the University. He had served as the scientific officer on the Shackleton Antarctic Expedition and later led the party that first reached the southern magnetic pole. During WW1 he served as a Major on the Western Front with the title of “Geological Adviser to the Controllers of Mines in the First, Second and Third Armies”.
Sir T.W. Edgeworth David was one of eight prominent men invited to a luncheon on the 5 May 1921 with two Canadian Commissioners, James W. Davidson and Colonel J Layton Ralston, who had been sent by the International Association of Rotary Clubs (the predecessor of Rotary International) to establish Rotary in Australia and New Zealand. The purpose of this meeting was to select prospective members for the proposed Sydney Club.
Present at the 17 May meeting and becoming The Club’s first Vice President was also Professor Arthur Mills, who had graduated in medicine from the University in 1889 and would go on to be Dean of the Faculty, a Fellow of the University Senate and Deputy Chancellor.
This was the start of a long association between the Club and the University. Over the Club’s first 100 years many of its members have been academic staff or graduates of the University.