Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge

11 March 2015
Report of the Board of General Purposes

Minutes

Minutes of the Quarterly Communication of 10 December 2014 were confirmed.

Election of Grand Master

HRH The Duke of Kent was re-elected Grand Master.

Report of the Board of General Purposes

GRAND LODGE REGISTER 2005–2014

Tables showing the number of lodges on the Register and of Certificates issued during the past ten years.

Charges for Warrants

For the year commencing 1 April 2015 the charges (exclusive of VAT) shall be:

Amalgamation

The Board had received a report that New Southgate Lodge, No. 5187 had resolved to surrender its Warrant in order to amalgamate with New Cross Lodge, No. 1559 (London). The Board recommendation that the lodge be removed from the register in order to effect the amalgamation was approved. 

Masonic standards and values

The Board stated the rules governing masonic standards and values. They said that Freemasonry is above all a moral organisation, founded on the principles of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth – or, as it could more familiarly be put in the language of today, kindness; charity and generosity; and integrity and honesty. Those principles – if they are to mean anything – clearly require the maintenance of the highest standards of behaviour by Freemasons in both public and private life. 

Electronic communication of formal documents

The Board last made recommendations to the Grand Lodge on this subject in June 2009. Since then, as reported in June of last year, the Board has set up a Committee to consider how electronic systems and methods can be used to streamline systems and produce economies. The first result has been the electronic distribution of the Paper of Business and the printed Proceedings of the Grand Lodge, which is already showing a considerable saving in costs. The Board now recommends the introduction of a new Rule into the Book of Constitutions which will specify certain documents as being of such importance that they must be transmitted only in physical form and bear original signatures. It is not intended that the new Rule should supersede the existing guidance, which will, for the time being, remain in force, but it is intended thereby to establish clearly the irreducible minimum beyond which electronic communication will not be permitted whatever relaxation may in future be permitted from the guidance given in 2009. Notice of Motion to amend the Book of Constitutions accordingly appeared on the Paper of Business.

Erasure of Lodges

The Board has received a report that twenty-eight Lodges have closed and surrendered their Warrants. They are: Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar Lodge No. 1903 (Hampshire & Isle of Wight), Sanctuary Lodge No. 3051 (London), St Aidan Lodge No. 3460 (Northumberland) Leoride Lodge No. 3585 (Surrey), Whiston Lodge No. 3614 (Cheshire) Hendon Aero Lodge No. 3895 (London), Sanderstead Lodge No. 4133 (Surrey), Abbeygate Lodge No. 4219 (Essex), Cambridge Heath Lodge No. 4506 (London), Winlaton Lodge No. 4546 (Durham), Priory Lodge No. 4671 (Yorkshire West Riding), London Nottinghamshire Lodge No. 5133 (London), Beaux Arts Lodge No. 5707 (Surrey), Windmill Hill Lodge No. 5843 (Middlesex), Edgbaston Lodge No. 5980 (Warwickshire), Observer Lodge No. 6015 (South Wales), Heworth Lodge No. 6331 (Durham), Burstow Link Lodge No. 6601 (Surrey), Lodge of Good Endeavour No. 6628 (Cheshire), Lodge of Fidelity No. 7237 (Durham), Blackpool Lodge of Loyalty No. 7332 (West Lancashire), London River Lodge No. 7595 (Surrey), Withy Lodge No. 7733 (West Lancashire), Lodge of Solidarity No. 8018 (London), Walcountian Lodge No. 8417 (Surrey) Lodge of Perception No. 8492 (Warwickshire) and Cudlow Lodge No. 8738 (Sussex).

A recommendation that they be erased was approved. 

Masonic Housing Association

There was a presentation by M.C. Clarke, Chairman of the Masonic Housing Association.

New Lodges

List of new lodges for which Warrants have been granted by the Grand Master showing the dates from which their Warrants became effective:

12 November 2014

No. 9903 Lodge of Brevity (Eastleigh, Hampshire and Isle of Wight)

6 January 2015

No. 9904 Sir Louis Mbanefo Lodge (Onitsha, Nigeria)
No. 9905 Glaslyn Lodge of Installed Masters (Porthmadog, North Wales)

Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge

A Quarterly Communication of the Grand Lodge will be held on 29 April 2015 (Annual Investiture), 10 June 2015, 9 September 2015, 9 December 2015, 9 March 2016 and 8 June 2016.

Convocation of Supreme Grand Chapter

Convocations of Supreme Grand Chapter will be held on 30 April 2015, 11 November 2015, 28 April 2016 and 9 November 2016.

Croydon Freemason Cyril Spackman was a man of many talents, including winning the design competition for the Hall Stone Jewel, as Alan Chard explains

At a special meeting of Grand Lodge in June 1919, the Grand Master, the Duke of Connaught, expressed a wish that a memorial be established to commemorate those brethren who had made the supreme sacrifice in the 1914-1918 war.

It was agreed that this memorial should be a building of a central home for Freemasonry on a site to be selected in London.

The Masonic Million Memorial Fund was then launched in September that year and brethren both at home and overseas were invited to contribute to raise the £1m needed to finance the work.

The contributions from individuals and Lodges were to be recognised by the award of a commemorative jewel.

For the jewel design it was decided to hold an open competition with a £75 prize for the winner, and at the Grand Lodge meeting in June 1921 it was announced that the design selected was that submitted by Cyril Saunders Spackman.

He was initiated into Panmure Lodge No. 720 on 21 January 1918 when 30 years old. The Lodge was to become a Hall Stone Jewel Lodge, although Spackman resigned in February 1923.

But in 1937 he thought there was a need for a new Surrey Lodge to be formed to cater for professions such as engineers, architects, surveyors etc. This led to the founding of Beaux Arts Lodge No. 5707, consecrated at Sutton Masonic Hall on 28 January 1938. Spackman and Sadler, his father-in-law, were both founder members, Spackman being the first secretary, and Sadler the first Master.

With the coming of war, Surrey County Council requisitioned the Hall for use as a rest centre, but Spackman came to the rescue and offered the Lodge the use of his studio for its meetings.

As a result, the Lodge met there regularly from 1939 to 1948. Spackman became Master in January 1940, and had the unique distinction of being installed in a ceremony conducted in his own home.

He remained secretary right up to his death, and even during his year in the chair, he continued to deal with Lodge affairs, although another Brother was secretary by name.

He was a man of many talents – architect, painter, sculptor, teacher, writer, Freemason. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio on 15 August 1887, the only son of a Welsh Methodist minister the Rev. John and Adele Saunders Spackman.

Educated in schools on both sides of the Atlantic, in 1922 he was commissioned to paint the portrait of a prominent Croydon Freemason, Richard Joseph Sadler.

Mr Sadler had a daughter, Ada Victoria, and romance blossomed, and later that year they were married. The Croydon Times (19 August 1958), in an interview with Spackman, reported:

A high-ranking Surrey Freemason, he recalled that it was Freemasonry that led to his marriage with Miss Queenie Sadler, the well-known Croydon violinist in 1922, and to his coming to live in Croydon. He first met her when he was asked to paint the portrait of her father, who was then a prominent Freemason. “And it was a real Masonic wedding, in St Matthew’s, George Street” Mr Spackman remembered.

They had one daughter, who became a writer, and a son who became an RAF pilot, and who then flew with British Overseas Airways Corporation. Then he became a designer and test pilot with Miles Beagle Aircraft. Tragically he was killed during a flight at the age of 35.

At their home in East Croydon, Cyril Spackman had a splendid studio built to his own design in which he could exhibit his own works and hold meetings.

Hall Stone Jewel

The Masonic Million Memorial Fund Commemorative Jewel, issued to individual subscribers. The design was described at the time as follows:

“The jewel is in the form of a cross, symbolising Sacrifice, with a perfect square at the four ends, on the left and right squares being the dates 1914-1918, the years in which the supreme sacrifice was made. Between these is a winged figure of Peace presenting the representation of a Temple with special Masonic allusion in the Pillars, Porch and Steps. The medal is suspended by the Square and Compasses, attached to a ribband, the whole thus symbolising the Craft’s gift of a Temple in memory of those brethren who gave all for King and Country, Peace and Victory, Liberty and Brotherhood.”

In 1930 he was elected a Licentiate of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Although he trained as an architect he had always wanted to be a painter, and in 1913 he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition at the age of 26.

The work accepted was Westminster Abbey – the West Front. In 1916 another work was accepted – Crickhowell Bridge, Wales and the following year The Edge of the Coppice was approved.

One commission he must have enjoyed was for Queen Mary’s Doll’s House. Queen Mary had always been an enthusiastic collector of antiques, especially miniatures, and the Doll’s House was intended to be not just a gift, but also to promote the work of leading British artists, designers and craftsmen.

Built on the scale of 1:12 it was completed in time to appear at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924. After the exhibition closed it was taken to Windsor Castle for permanent exhibition, where it has remained to this day.

The architect of the house was Sir Edward Lutyens – one of the three assessors for the design competition in 1924-1926 to select an architect for the new Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen Street, London.

More than 1,500 craftsmen and artists were invited by him to participate in the construction of the house and its furnishings, including Spackman, who contributed Fir Trees against a Sunset Sky.

Honours now came to Cyril Spackman, and in 1916 he was elected a member of the Royal Miniature Society and the Royal Society of British Artists (RSBA).

For Freemasons, his most important commission was the design in 1921 of the Hall Stone Jewel for the United Grand Lodge of England, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1922.

He was very proud that the jewel is a main feature in the central panel of the stained glass window behind the shrine on the first floor vestibule at Freemasons’ Hall.

However, there is one interesting change in the jewel in the panel. When he designed it in 1921 this was prior to the architectural competition for the new building.

When the window was designed several years later, the façade was now known, so the winged figure of Peace, instead of holding a model of a classic temple – as in the jewel itself – is actually holding a model of the Tower façade for the building.

The Duke of Devonshire was Grand Master 1947-1950, and in 1950 Spackman exhibited at a Winter Exhibition of the RSBA a bust of the Duke, and in December that year he presented it to Grand Lodge.

In 1944 he was admitted into the Worshipful Company of Masons, which had its origins in the operative guild formed to control the stone trade in London.

Spackman was generous with his time and talents and was a well-known and active figure in the local community. He was chairman of the Croydon University Extension Committee, the Committee of the Croydon Writers Circle, an Honorary Vice-President of the Croydon Symphony Orchestra and a Vice-President of the Croydon Camera Club.

Not only were Lodge meetings held at his home, but he let it out to local cultural groups, and in the studio he took private lessons and held classes in architecture, painting, sculpture and drawing.

He had an international reputation, and his works were widely exhibited from the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool to the Cleveland Museum of Art in the United States. As a writer his one major publication appears to have been Colour Prints of a Dream Garden and Old World Garden, a collection of prints taken from original drawings, some of which had been exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Some of his work has been left to posterity. There are prints in the British Museum, drawings in the permanent art collections in some City Art Galleries, and works in private collections in the UK, USA, France, Holland and Sweden – and, of course, the Hall Stone Jewel.

Cyril Spackman died of a heart attack on 16 May 1963 at the age of 76.

Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank the National Art Library, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Arts Commerce and Manufacture, the Royal Institute of British Architects, Croydon Local History and Archives, Westminster Central Reference Library and the Library and Museum of Freemasonry. Particular thanks are due to Dr Susan Owens (Royal Collection Trust), Peter Clark (Worshipful Company of Masons), Stephen Freeth and Juliet Barnes (Corporation of London), Stephen Briney (Panmure Lodge No. 720), Douglas Burford (Beaux Arts Lodge) and James Nye (Remigium Lodge No. 7343).