POLISHED CORNERSTONES A History of the Royal Masonic School for Girls 1788 – 2000 Lorna Cowburn, David Armstrong, Bedford, 2001. Hardback, 308 pages, £18.99. ISBN 0-9541560-0-5. Copies available from The Royal Masonic School, Rickmansworth Park, Rickmansworth, Herts. WD3 4HF.

“That our daughters might become as the polished cornerstones of the Temple."
    As a frontispiece to her work, the author uses the well known Stothard portrait of the Chevalier Ruspini leading the children from the Masonic School into the Temple of the Grand Lodge. The little girls, demure and neatly uniformed, may look a picture of rectitude but Lorna Cowburn takes us inside the procession and introduces us to each of the individuals revealing their misdemeanours as well as their achievements and by doing so lays down a template for her approach to the rest of her story.
    She traces the evolution of the charity from the original paternalistic impulse to maintain, clothe and educate fifteen female children of indigent brethren, with the emphasis on protecting them from the dangers and misfortunes to which such unfortunates were frequently exposed, to the more positive aspiration of encouraging the development of 750 fully rounded individuals (some with no Masonic connections) to play their parts effectively in our complex modern society.
    We are taken to visit a procession of premises from Somers Place East via Southwark and Clapham to Rickmansworth and each location is brought to life in anecdote and incident. In the earliest days contact with home or parents was forbidden and the worst crime was to ‘elope’ or escape back home. Precious clothing, prudently handed down from child to child, was protected by a ‘pinbefore’. Food was distinctly unappealing but the nurture provided had its successes and a tradition began early of girls arriving as pupils and remaining to serve. One, Florence Mason, became a pupil at 11 and was successively Pupil-Teacher, Assistant and finally Matron; and others followed.
    Every aspect of the School’s life is explored in considerable depth providing a fascinating insight into how the modest seeds sown at the end of the eighteenth century grew into the fine educational establishment we can be proud of today. This might sound forbidding but Lorna Cowburn writes with a smile on her face and the book, which is lavishly illustrated, contains a great deal of humour. It deserves a much wider readership than I suspect it will receive.
    David Sermon