The History
The Founders
The Hash House was the nickname, given
for its institution food, to the Selangor Club Chambers, by its residents.
The building was used as a mess to provide
temporary accommodation, primarily for new
recruits from Britain for the civil service and
the private sector, in Colonial Malaya,
before World War II.
Available records show, that at the behest of
Albert Stephen Gispert, a small group of
residents decided to form a harrier group and they named it after their ‘home’ and called it
The Hash House Harriers. The inaugural run took place in December 1938. The last run
before the outbreak of the World War II in Malaya, was run No. 117, on 12 December, 1941.
After the war, Britain resumed the colonial role in Malaya in 1945, but was mindful that the decolonization era had begun.
Indonesia gained independence in 1945, India in 1947, Malaya (now Malaysia) 1957 and Singapore 1965. In Kuala Lumpur new recruits from Britain were fewer and Malaysianisation of expatriate
posts had begun; deminishing the pool of hashers.
“The Malayan Emergency added to the worries of keeping going. Problems like having one hare in order to have two hounds and when six was a good turnout.”
Liew Davidson – JM 1948, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1956, 1957
When hashing resumed in Kuala Lumpur in 1946, it was still very much an exclusive ‘British Thing’. Keeping going and maintaining status quo proved challenging.
Membership was opened to non-Brits in 1963. With that the era of inclusion had begun. It opened its doors to the world, enabling Hashing to grow into a sport that knows no borders which evolved into a sport for all.
Today there are over 2000 chapters in some 180 countries, on all continents even Antartica.
