Entering from the north, it is not easy to immediately appreciate the size and beauty of the one time Victorian gentlemen’s residence, The Knole, now the Freemasons Hall in Boscombe, Bournemouth. After its completion in 1873 for Edmund Christie, the imposing Mansion was inhabited by a number of famous people including Sir Henry Page Croft, the first MP for Bournemouth. In 1957 it was purchased by the combined effort of the two Masonic centres active in Bournemouth at the time. The building with its three Lodges retains many original features: striking Victorian fireplaces, several stained glass windows and charming panelling.
    The Bournemouth Masonic Buildings Ltd, a company whose directors comprise one representative from each of the nineteen lodges, today administers the building; the Library and Museum fall under its authority. Bournemouth finally established its own Museum in 1985 through the determined effort of Alan Glass, now in his 90s. He persuaded the company to allow a dedicated room, previously used as a Lodge of Instruction, to house the array of masonic objects and the fledgling Library which he had amassed from every conceivable source. From the start the Museum has remained independent of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Hampshire. The contents of the building and all Museum related activities are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the company.
    Michael Drayton, who was appointed joint curator with George Speding in 2000, is the driving force behind a dedicated team of assistants that include John and Brian Spicer and Michael Norris. Almost every object is now on display in glass cabinets. The books are tidily placed on newly constructed shelving, purchased with funds from the sale of Masonic regalia and paraphernalia. The Museum Shop is the main source
    of income for acquisitions and administration of the collection. Plans are in hand to sell duplicate jewels and literature to raise additional funds
    for further improvements. John Spicer, assistant curator, has nearly completed the labelling of every object on display and the books in the library are fully computerised. They are available on loan to the Brethren on request.
    One item that immediately attracted attention was a large scrapbook, with the Bournemouth Lodge of Instruction bookplate attached to the inside cover. It consisted of some 30 pages into which a number of original un-issued certificates of various orders, some pamphlets and a number of facsimiles, had been inserted. Each item is described in neat contemporary handwriting on the opposite blank page with the dating readily evident from the documents themselves. Most striking among these was a 1902 anti-Masonic French propaganda poster published in Paris by Leon Heyard. The frail folded electioneering poster, a genuinely ephemeral item, intended for disposal after use, has survived in exceptional condition protected in the book. It is headed Le Grand Secret de la Franc-Maconerie and comprises thirty-two caricature panels with extended captions ridiculing Freemasonry and exposing the supposed ritual; several of the drawings have a blatant anti-Semitic flavour. Attached to the lower section of the poster is a list exposing government officials as Freemasons. The publication date coincides with many of the anti-masonic and anti-semitic press attacks following on the infamous Dreyfus affair linking freemasonry and Judaism as evil institutions. Leon Heyard, in fact, advertised himself as a publisher of anti-Masonic literature.
    Two more items are worthy of mention in an otherwise small and growing library: a first edition of Peter Gilkes’ ritual The Whole of the Lodge Ceremonies and Lectures in Craft Masonry. Peter Gilkes was responsible for the spread of the Emulation ritual soon after the Union of 1813. With George Claret he published, effectively, the first official ritual book in 1838. The copy in Bournemouth has interspersed pages allowing annotations and has been professionally rebound. The other item is a 15 page scrap book of several dozen published, manuscript and personal obituaries dedicated to George William Speth who died on April 19, 1901 whilst serving as Secretary of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076.
    Excellent use has been made in the small Museum of the available wall space and an interesting range of aprons and certificates hang from frames round the room. Such protection is essential for two outstanding early Masonic aprons which were on the verge of disintegration and are now preserved for posterity. Both are of the end of the 18th century, longer than standard (though not of knee-length) and reminiscent, in their simplicity, of the practice of self-decorating aprons with emblems of degrees and orders added as one joined them. One of the aprons has a black border with a square and compass in the centre flanked by two green columns, the emblems loosely attached unto the white background of the apron. The blue flap with the red border has clear-cut Royal Arch connotations. The Antients Grand Lodge made a point of using the same aprons for all their workings whether Craft degrees or orders beyond the Craft.
    In stark contrast are several elaborate gold embroidered French aprons of the Ancient and Accepted Rite (Rose Croix). One unidentified European apron is highly decorative with the unusual presentation of the Hebrew letters yod he vav he centrally placed. Unusually, a framed Masonic chart is printed on cloth and made to look like an apron with straps along the side. The printed theme is familiar with King Solomon appearing to be standing at the entrance to the temple with the named columns Boaz & Jachin on either side. His two wardens are at the base of the seven steps and in the background a multitude of interrelated emblems and symbols easily identifiable with a dozen or more orders and degrees of freemasonry. At the base are three verses of a Masonic song,
    The Museum is interspersed with several interesting and unusual objects. A leather case, large enough to allow the treasurer to carry his paper work, has been elaborately carved with the dedication To W Bro H G Harris P.P.G.D. Treasurer 1917-1923. In token of appreciation and affection by his Brethren. Horsa (Lodge) 2208. A Masonic barometer property of Worthington Lodge of Friendship No 851 and toasting fork. Unrelated but for the embedded square and compass adorning the base of each of the two objects. There is a unique maul enveloped in silver, heavily decorated and presented in 1909 by Evans Vaughan.
    The most outstanding items, however, are situated outside the confines of the Museum room, though very much part of the Masonic collection on the premises. These are the outstanding twenty-one inch pair of the Celestial and Terrestrial globes dated 1815 and 1799 respectively by John & William Cary. They would have certainly been inside the Lodge room in earlier days and now decorate the Red Robing room. The Cary family was the most prolific of the globe and mapmakers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The firm was founded by John Cary in 1781 and continued by his brother George and son William until 1844 when George Crutchley bought them out. Many lodges possess globes by these makers, the pair at The Knole, however, are beautifully restored and the earliest globes known in masonic premises
    The same room has a wonderful frosted Art Nouveaux lamp of c1900, hanging from the ceiling in the centre of the room. It is held by 5 chains and has several side lamps all decorated with simple and quaint Masonic emblems: the square and compass, the pentalpha, the plumb rule and level.
    In the main temple are an exceptional set of hand painted tracing boards housed in an especially made case of outstanding quality and craftsmanship. The tracing boards are in constant use and there is particular satisfaction to be derived from the use of genuine antiquarian objects in the knowledge that Brethren in past generations used and enjoyed these same self objects.
    The Knole has a friendly ambience and the Museum in particular gives a clear impression of dedicated attention. In the past four years, Michael, with the assistance of John and Brian, has converted an inconsequential accumulation of artefacts and books into a viable Masonic Museum with great potential and an exciting future.

Edouard Engel
The Museum possesses an outstanding display of the masonic and other orders and awards presented to one single man, Edouard Engel, who wrote extensively on Freemasonry under the pseudonym of Edouard Plantagenet. He was an extraordinary man, as is revealed by the documents, medals and biography donated to the Museum by his niece. An international Freemason by any standard, Engel’s jewels include evidence of lodge membership in Austria, Czechoslovakia, France and Germany in the 1920s. He owned and edited the newspaper La Paix in Paris during this same period when he was also a member of the Grand Orient of France. Several certificates attest to his active involvement in the Order. The collection also includes non-masonic awards earned before World War 2 from the Servian, Yugoslav and Polish governments as well as the rare and prized Legion d’Honneur medal. The latter was awarded to him posthumously for his courageous anti-nazi struggle in the French resistance in 1942 when he rose to the rank of sous-lieutenant. He was arrested and ended his life in Buchenwald in 1943. The presentation of these medals within the context of a Masonic jewel collection makes for interesting comparative study.

The Museum is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 09.30 and 12.00 hrs.

Michael Drayton may be contacted at Freemasons’ Hall, Knole Road, Bournemouth, BH1 4DH. E-mail: MichaelRDrayton@aol.com