OLD

CHELTONIAN

LODGE

 

No: 3223

 

 

A HISTORY

 

 

 

 

W.Bro Harry F.Waddy , PGStdB, PM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A HISTORY”

 

 

Preface

 

At a Committee meeting in 2000 I was asked to write a brief history of the Lodge with a view to it being incorporated in a “Retrospect” for the centenary in 2007. Having completed this, I found that there was a great deal of further information which might be of interest and I have, therefore, expanded the “Brief History” to include as much of this as possible.

 

Those of you who have read a “Brief History” will recognise that I have repeated most of it in this “History”, albeit in a different form on occasions.

 

In preparing this “History” I have received a great deal of assistance from many sources. I would, however, wish to record my particular thanks to Ms Rebecca Coombes, of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, for copies of various documents, including the petition.

 

My thanks are also due to Bro R.J.Pearson, secretary of Foundation Lodge No: 82, and Bro M.J.Stevens, of the Old Cheltonian Lodge, for tracking down the 1965 Festival gavel, and to Quatuor Coronati Lodge No: 2076 for permission to reproduce extracts from Bro Quentin Gelder’s paper “School Freemasonry – A Very English Affair” [“Transactions” volume 110:1997].

 

Harry F.Waddy

 

August 2001

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

“The tremendous number of school Lodges which exist in Freemasonry as practised under the United Grand Lodge of England are of great significance. Together, they would represent a substantial Province; and being composed, as they are, of Brethren who by and large belong also to other Lodges and Masonic bodies, they have an influence, both direct and indirect, which can not easily be ignored. Whilst this influence is less obvious than that of the Military Lodges, to which as a body the School Lodges might be seen as having similarities, it is nonetheless important to the development of British Freemasonry, as being in many ways a microcosm of the social development of the nation, which in turn has shaped the development of Freemasonry”.

 

 

[Reproduced from “School Freemasonry – A Very English Affair” by Bro Quentin Gelder in the “Transactions” of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No: 207