Rotary Club of Stoke-On-Trent meets at 6 - 6.15pm each Monday evening (with the exception of Bank holidays) at the Newcastle (Staffs) Rugby Union Football Club, on Lilleshall Road, N-U-L ST5 3BX
Come and visit us. The club, made up of members from various business and professional vocations active within the City, has always worked to the aims and objectives of Rotary International whose motto is
:
'SERVICE ABOVE SELF'
During the club's 80 plus years of existence, its members have continuously devoted their time and energy in promoting fellowship and service to the community and in raising funds for local, national and international charities. Our Charter from Rotary International was signed on 22nd February 1927. The first President was Major Frank Wedgwood, a member of the famous pottery manufacturing family. Frank Wedgwood (1866 - 1930)
Eldest son of Clement Francis Wedgwood, partner at Etruria from 1889 following the early death of his father. After the incorporation of the firm as Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Limited in 1895, and the retirement of Laurence Wedgwood, three first cousins Cecil, Frank and Kennard, represented the fifth generation of the family at Etruria. Gray
One of AE Gray's chief interests between 1926 and 1946 was the rotary movement, and he is credited with the founding of the Rotary Club of Stoke-On-Trent. A surviving minute book records that on the 17th October 1928 he presided at a meeting of six local business and professional men at which he reported a meeting with major (later Sir Charles) Mander, then Chairman of the Rotary District in which Stoke would come and later the President of Rotary in Britain and Northern Ireland. Three more meetings were held during which more potential members were recruited and the Rotary club was inaugurated with sixteen founder members on the 31st January 1927. Gray having presided over all the preliminary meetings would have been the natural choice for founder president but was able to recruit for this position Major Frank Wedgwood, head of the family firm and Great Great Grandson of the first Josiah. Gray following him as president a year later.
