Pro Grand Master's Announcement Regarding the Grand Secretary

At the Grand Lodge meeting last autumn the Pro Grand Master announced that the responsibilities of the office of Grand Secretary would in future be divided. Following the deliberations of the Strategic Working Party set up under the Deputy Grand Master, Peter Lowndes, to consider the appointment, there will now be three areas of responsibility instead of the single role of Grand Secretary. A Chief Operating Officer will be appointed to manage Freemasons’ Hall, London. The Grand Secretary will remain responsible for all matters masonic in England and for Districts and Lodges overseas, but will in future not have sole responsibility for external relations with other Grand Lodges on the continent and overseas. This function will be carried out by the new appointment of a Grand Chancellor, and it has now been announced that that post will be held by Alan Englefield, who in consequence is to retire as Provincial Grand Master for Oxfordshire. He will have available to him a Secretariat and he will be a member of both the Grand Master’s Council and the Board of General Purposes.
    This is not a new concept and many Grand Lodges entrust their external relations to a Grand Chancellor. This will in effect mean that the Grand Secretary will be able to concentrate his energies on masonic matters for the benefit of English Freemasonry in England and Wales and its Provinces and Districts.

Surgical Research Fellowship

The Royal College of Surgeons of England was invited recently to give a presentation at the 50th anniversary of the consecration of the Euclid Lodge of Installed Masters, No. 7464, at Freemasons’ Hall, London. The College presentation was opened by the President of the College, Mr Bernard Ribeiro, who was Senior Grand Deacon in 2005, and was followed by four presentations by recipients of the College’s prestigious Research Fellowship Scheme. The subject matter ranged in scope from developments in the cure of cancer to reconstructive surgery and was followed by a question and answer session. Afterwards the audience posed many questions to the research fellows at greater length. After this, the President received a very generous donation to establish a Euclid Lodge Research Fellowship at the College. This donation will help to ensure the future of surgical research and improved surgical techniques and technology.
    As a registered charity No. 212808, independent of the National Health Service, the College relies on the support of its friends and donors to further the aim of advancing surgical standards in patient care. The College is proud to be able to count individual lodges as well as the Grand Charity among its supporters.
    Speakers are always available for local or national events to talk about present advances in surgery, the Research Fellowship Scheme or the history of surgery. Contact Hywel Jones, The Royal College of Surgeons of England, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2A 3PE. Tel: 020 7869 6082. Email: hjones@rcseng.ac.uk:

250th Anniversary Meeting of Grand Master's Lodge No. 1

The celebratory meeting of the Grand Master’s Lodge, No. 1, was held by permission of the Lord Mayor of London at the Mansion House recently to mark the 250th anniversary of the Lodge. Seventeen Lord Mayors of London have been members of the Lodge. It was founded in 1756, by English Freemasons who objected to the ‘modernisation’ on the part of the newly created Grand Lodge, in reaction to the rash of Masonic ‘exposures’ following its creation in 1717.
    They styled themselves the ‘Antients’, on the grounds that they were devoted to the restoration and preservation of the Antient Working. The founding secretary of the lodge, and first Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of the Antients, was Laurence Dermott, author of Ahiman Rezon (A Help to a Brother) – the Antients’ rebuff to Anderson’s Constitutions. The two Grand Lodges were reconciled and united in 1813, and legend has it that Grand Master’s Lodge took the Number ‘1’ from the Lodge of Antiquity (now No. 2) on the toss of a coin, resulting in much acrimony. All this was forgotten at the splendid celebrations, presided over by the current Master, Bill Hanbury-Bateman.
    The meeting was attended by the Grand Master, HRH The Duke of Kent, the Pro. Grand Master, Lord Northampton, Deputy Grand Master Peter Lowndes and, Assistant Grand Master David Williamson, and other Brethren. During the meeting a brief history of the Lodge was presented, by Andrew Montgomery and an Oration was delivered by Canon Neil Collings. Special mementoes of the occasion were presented by Lord Cornwallis, to Sir Kenneth Newton, Paul Nicholls and Sir Gerrard Peat, marking the sixtieth anniversary of their initiation into the Lodge. At the festive board, in the Egyptian Hall, the Grand Master spoke with great warmth to the members and their guests, and a witty speech was delivered by Sir Lawrence Verney.

Federation of School Lodges Elects New President

At the 59th Annual Meeting held recently under the Banner of Old Veseyan Lodge, No. 7924, in Sutton Coldfield, the retiring President Dennis Phipps, Past Provincial Grand Master of Surrey, invested his successor Jeffrey Gillyon, Deputy Provincial Grand Master for Yorkshire North & East Ridings. The Federation currently represents in excess of 160 Craft Lodges.
    The Federation was founded in the belief that masonic lodges mainly deriving their membership from school ‘old boys’ have a unique quality. It provides an easy way for such lodges to be aware of each other’s existence and so makes it possible for them to make contact with another lodge similar in atmosphere to their own. The fact that each federated lodge agrees to welcome any member of another federated lodge and allow him to ‘pay his way’ is a privilege of no little importance, since many Brethren are willing regularly to accept hospitality without feeling any embarrassment.
    The Diamond Jubilee Business Meeting and Festival will be held under the Banner of Old Brentwoods Lodge, No. 5342, at Brentwood in Essex on Saturday 1 September 2007.