Trafalgar Celebrations

Naval Freemasons have pushed the boat out to mark the 200th anniversary of Nelson’s famous victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. For the past two years, Royal Naval Lodge, No.59 and Navy Lodge, No.2612 have been raising money for the Jubilee Sailing Trust, which enables disabled and able-bodied people to experience ‘tall ship’ sailing in specially-built vessels. Recently those two Lodges held a joint meeting at Freemasons’ Hall attended by nearly 150 Brethren, many of them from the dozen or so nautical Lodges who contributed to the fundraising effort. After the meeting, Mr Ian Shuttleworth, a JST trustee and a wheelchair-using sailor, gave a talk to the assembled Brethren about the Trust and received a cheque for £25,000 from the Deputy Grand Master, Peter Lowndes.
    Navy Lodge marked Trafalgar Day with a formal dinner at the Royal Marines Museum near Portsmouth. The museum displays the medals of some of the Lodge’s three Victoria Cross holders. The guest of honour at the dinner was the Assistant Grand Master, David Williamson, whose birthday is on Trafalgar Day, and Brethren travelled from as far away as California to attend.
    Navy Lodge was founded by the then future King Edward VII, and has numbered five Kings among its members, including Edward VIII and George VI. The Duke of Edinburgh, who was initiated in 1952, remains a subscribing member. Membership is drawn exclusively from officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines and their Reserves, and from Royal Fleet Auxiliary officers. The Master, Commander Jonty Powis, is a serving officer, as is the Master-Elect, Lieutenant Commander Ian Franks.

The Heart of Devonshire Masonry

The West Country Ambulance Trust operates some 90 rapid-response cars crewed by paramedics, who give a first response in cardiac arrest cases. Although diagnosis and emergency treatment during the first or ‘golden’ hour in cardiac arrest cases saves lives, budget constraints limit the number of cars which are equipped with portable electrocardiograph monitors. This unit was donated by Brethren and Companions of the Fortescue Lodge, No. 847 and Fortescue Royal Arch Chapter, of Honiton in Devon.
    The first portable monitor which was provided by Freemasons in Devonshire is now operational in the Fast Response car covering the Sidmouth area, and this second one will now be operational in the Honiton area car.
    Richard Steggall of the Trust, said ‘This machine will cover the rural part of East Devon and will enable paramedics to quickly assess a patient’s condition in the case of a suspected heart attack before the arrival of the ambulance or helicopter. By having this vital piece of equipment on board, the car will remain operational for a longer period each day. We are grateful for the continuing support of local Freemasons.’
    The machines cost over £1,100 and it is hoped by Bob Munro of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Devonshire that the emergency cover in the area will be increased by other Lodges and Orders in the Province supporting this cause.

Wiltshire for Charity

The Freemasons of Wiltshire have exceeded their target of £600,000 set in 1998 to raise funds for The Grand Charity.
    In the Bibury Club at Salisbury Race Course, a cheque in excess of £980,000 was presented to Raymond Lye, President of The Grand Charity, by Francis Wakem, Provincial Grand Master for Wiltshire and President of the 2005 Festival.
    Also attending the occasion was David Williamson, Assistant Grand Master and Laura Chapman, the Charity’s Chief Executive, as well as many of the Freemasons of Wiltshire and their guests.
    Speaking about the Festival, Francis Wakem said, ‘Wiltshire Masons can be proud of the manner in which they have shown their support of the three great principles on which our Order is founded – Love, Relief and Truth. Wiltshire is a small Province but we have big hearts – we live well, laugh often and love much – and we have an understanding of the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves.’
    The Grand Charity is the central grant making charity of all Freemasons in England and Wales. It provides support for Masons in distressed circumstances, for non-Masonic charities and responds to national and international emergencies. All of the funding comes from donations by individual Freemasons.

Provincial Grand Chapter Yorkshire North and East

The retiring Second Grand Principal, Iain Ross Bryce, decided to make his last official engagement a visit to his own Province’s Provincial Grand Chapter meeting. His Director of Ceremonies for the day was Second Grand Principal, George Pipon Francis.
    The Provincial team were already on their mettle with a change of venue after 28 years at York University to cope with. Large increases in rental and meal costs at the University dictated the need for change. The Voltiguer Suite at York Racecourse proved to be an appropriate alternative venue. More than 400 Companions attended.
    At the luncheon attended by 250 Companions the Grand Superintendent, Donald Davinson, drew attention to the 28 years of dedicated service given by Companion Bryce initially as Provincial Grand Master and Grand Superintendent for the Province of Yorkshire North and East Ridings and subsequently as Deputy Grand Master and Second Grand Principal. He presented Companion Bryce with an inscribed tankard commemorating the event, together with a selection of beers from North Yorkshire micro breweries and, in recognition of his return to the Province, a Provincial tie and pocket handkerchief.

Academic Masonic Research: A New Base in Sheffield

Work began in February 2005 on the Douglas Knoop Centre at the University of Sheffield. Named after a former Professor of Economics at the university who was also a prominent masonic researcher, this new building is due to open early 2006.
    It will provide a new base for the Centre for Research into Freemasonry which was established at the University of Sheffield in 2001, the first such research institution in a British university. The Centre has been funded by the United Grand Lodge of England, the Province of Yorkshire, West Riding, and by Lord Northampton. Later funding has been promised by the Supreme Grand Chapter of England. The Centre plans to be self-funding in the future as the number of its post-graduate M.Phil. and Ph.D. students increase.
    Its Director, Professor Andrew Prescott, explained that ‘Its mission is quite simply to encourage British scholars to recognise the potential of Freemasonry as a field of research and to put the study of Freemasonry firmly on the academic map in Britain.’
    Freemasonry Today has established one studentship to fund a post-graduate scholar, as has the Regular Grand Lodge of Italy. It is to be hoped that other masonic organisations, and perhaps lodges, can also support this very important base for masonic research, the dissemination of the fruits of that research, and the encouragement of intellectual contacts between scholars and students. Already the Centre has sponsored two international conferences, regular lectures and seminars, and papers published in journals both academic and beyond. Its website has proved particularly informative with papers freely available: www.shef.ac.uk/~crf

Masonic Makeover for Baden Powell Caravan

An association of 38 Masonic lodges has donated over £6,000 to the Scouts for a makeover of Baden Powell’s Caravan. This is part of a £20 million redevelopment of Gilwell Park, the Scout Association’s principal international campsite and training centre.
    To mark the Scouts’ centenary in 2007, the next World Jamboree will be held in the United Kingdom and the caravan was one of a number of projects needing funding as part of the world stage for the event.
    The Kindred Lodges Association, a group that brings together Freemasons that currently are, or have been, involved with youth work, linked some 38 Lodges in a national fundraising project to support the development of scouting.
    Chairman of the Kindred Lodges Association, Steve Gough said ‘Our members have been raising money over the last twelve months for this internationally recognised icon, and it has now been faithfully restored and housed under a protective canopy’.
    Chief Executive of the Scout Association, Derek Twine said ‘It is contributions like this that support young people to recognise a more solid foundation and build towards their future’.
    Bigger than the Olympics, the next World Scout Jamboree will be held in this country during the summer of 2007. It will attract 40,000 of the twenty five million scouts and leaders from some 216 countries and territories worldwide.
    The Kindred Lodges Association is open to membership enquiries. Contact stevegough@hotmail.com

Cornerstone Northern Conference in Salford

As the delegates gathered together for this year’s Cornerstone Society Northern Conference The Three Great Pillars, it was clear from the outset that the Pro Grand Master’s speech at the Summer Conference in June had a far-reaching effect on the perceptions and the outlook, not only of the speakers themselves, but of the audience as well.
    Just as, the year before, John Grange had provided us with images relating beauty to eternity, so Clive Hicks took up the theme of Beauty and Unity. Is beauty a condition in itself, or is it a quality, an experience beyond rational understanding? We can look at a symbol, learn its literal meaning, yet until we have explored its allegory it has no beauty for us. Beauty is seen philosophically as one of the three primary qualities of existence, namely truth, goodness and beauty, which have an analogy with the three pillars supporting a Freemason’s lodge: wisdom, strength and beauty. Yet in such triads there is unity, since the parts of the triad are all interdependent. It makes little difference whether one sees beauty, goodness or truth, because each becomes an absolute awareness of existence – the three become a one.
    Bob Cooper of the Grand Lodge Library of Scotland moved away from certainties about beauty and the analysis of allegory, to take us on a tour entitled Creating Masonic Myth. Who should be responsible for educating Freemasons, those writing for profit, or those writing for the good of the Craft? As regards outside criticism of Freemasonry, such as the churches, he observed that we seemed to be ready to change to accommodate such criticism, yet would not ourselves countenance criticising the churches.
    Karel Musch, in Monastic and Masonic Orders seemed to have no problem with the idea that myth-making was a common occurrence in Freemasonry. Brother Bernardin had asserted that there were no less than 38 different explanations of the history of Freemasonry emanating from 236 authors. We heard here echos of Neville Barker-Cryer’s excellent talk Monastic Custom and Mason Craft which he gave at Cornerstone in the summer of 2004. Monasticism, said Musch, by its adherence to apparently monotonous daily rituals, freed the mind, allowing it to wander and to wonder. Monasticism, in particular the Rule of St Benedict, seemed to have much in common with Freemasonry. The virtue of listening was underlined, and Musch spoke of the nostalgia of older Freemasons in Holland who remembered the days when Entered Apprentices refrained from speaking in the lodge. Loyalty, willingness to accept the new life, and obedience were all qualities common to both disciplines.
    For the closing talk of the day, Kai Hughes chose as his theme The Psychology of Freemasonry. He was concerned with how little we knew of the real meaning of the Craft. As regards the symbolism of our ritual, he said that by presenting specific patterns of symbolism to the senses, initiation lead the candidate to look at the world and himself in a different way. To the thinkers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a symbol was an object that was naturally linked to an innate meaning – a meaning that was not simply a product of individual or collective thought but a presence and power in a realm of its own. He also believed that the method of preparation and the delivery of the ritual was a way of helping the initiate to experience the symbols in a more intense way than ordinary states of consciousness permitted, and was intended to communicate to the initiate some part of the special consciousness of the lodge. As regards ritual books being on open sale, he said that there was a big difference between knowing about the rituals and knowing the rituals. In the Middle Ages this difference between fact and experience was much better understood. Nowadays, if men joined Freemasonry because they wanted a mystical experience, did our rituals actually provide that experience?
    The day was rounded off by the usual very lively question and answer session, which spilled out of the lodge room itself and was continued long into the evening.