News
W. Bro. Bill Kirk Celebrates 50 Years in Freemasonry!
The brethren of The Royds Lodge were delighted to celebrate the Masonic birthday of W. Bro. Bill Kirk during their Lodge meeting held on Thursday 17th April 2008. On this happy occasion, the Provincial Grand Master, R. W. Bro. R. G. H. Goddard, presented W. Bro Bill with a Certificate of 50 Years Service to Freemasonry and praised the contribution he had made within the Province.
W. Bro. Bill was born in December 1918. He was a widow's son, his father having been killed during the final months of the war. He was educated at Worcester Royal Grammar School and went on the become the managing director of a civil engineering contractor in Worcester. His traffic lights and road barriers were the cause of many a hold-up, particularly in the south west of England!
W. Bro. Bill was initiated into The Royds Lodge on the 17th April 1958, served as Senior Warden at our Centenary in 1967 and became our 101st Worshipful Master on the 16th May 1968. He served the Lodge in many capacities, most notably as Director of Ceremonies, an office in which he excelled and held for seven years. His work was of such a high standard that he was appointed Provincial Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies in 1973, an office that he very much enjoyed. Following this, W. Bro. Bill was promoted to the rank of Past Provincial Senior Grand Warden.
For many years, W. Bro. Bill served as the Preceptor of The Royds Lodge of Instruction, maintaining the high standards and strong traditions of the Lodge. He has remained a loyal member of the Lodge of Instruction and still attends regularly, sharing his knowledge and experience of the Craft, and helping the junior brethren to learn and enjoy their ritual.
Aid for Victims of Earthquake in China
The President of the Grand Charity has approved a ££20,000 grant to the Red Cross to support relief efforts following the recent earthquake in south-western China. The Freemasons' Grand Charity is the first organisation to support the British Red Cross' response to the worst earthquake to strike China in more than 30 years.
The Red Cross Society of China's local branches have been active in the 48 hours following the quake, providing emergency relief to the affected areas. Although the official death toll stands at 12,000, this is expected to rise sharply as rescuers gain access to previously cut off areas and thousands of people remain trapped in the debris of collapsed buildings.
The grant of £20,000 from The Freemason' Grand Charity will be an important contribution to the continuing rescue and relief efforts and is enough to provide approximately 200 relief tents which will provide shelter for many of those affected and act as a first aid point to treat casualties.
Aid for Cyclone Nargis Victims
Following cyclone Nargis, Save the Children's relief work in Burma has been supported by a £20,000 emergency grant approved last week by the President of the Grand Charity. The Freemasons' Grand Charity is also in discussions with District Grand Lodges in the affected region to identify what support it may be able to provide to their own efforts.
More than 32,000 people are now believed to have been killed by the high winds and resulting tidal surge which struck Burma on the 2nd of May 2008, destroying homes, crops and infrastructure. Following the cyclone, Save the Children quickly redirected the efforts of 500 staff already in the country to the emergency relief response. Thanks to their efforts, essential supplies including food and clean water have already been distributed to over 100,000 people.
The grant of £20,000 from The Freemasons' Grand Charity will be an important contribution to this ongoing work and is enough to provide plastic sheeting for temporary accommodation to 1,400 families, including around 33,000 children.
Freemasons Approve £1.5 Million for Non-Masonic Charities
A number of non-Masonic charities, across England and Wales, will benefit from generous grants announced by The Freemasons' Grand Charity and totalling an incredible £1.5 million. The grants have been awarded to worthwhile causes in the areas of medical research, youth opportunities and vulnerable people. The sum includes £600,000 for adult and children's hospice services and £180,000 for air ambulance charities to be distributed during the current year.
One of the largest individual grants awarded will contribute to a new Breast Cancer Haven centre in Leeds providing support, information and complementary therapies before, during and after medical treatment of breast cancer. In the same category, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA), who provide support for serving men and women in today's Armed Forces, also received a substantial donation of £100,000.
Other grants included support for research into deafness and help for unemployed young people to learn skills of a trade. Smaller charities are also set to benefit with grants totalling £50,000 and beneficiaries will be announced during the course of the year.
Grand Charity Support for Kenya
Following civil unrest in parts of Kenya, The President of the Freemasons' Grand Charity has approved a grant of £10,000 to the District Grand Lodge of East Africa's Grand Charity, complementing local relief efforts.
The District Grand Charity has already made £1 million Kenyan Shillings (approximately £8,500) available through its own Fund for Internally Displaced People, supporting the immediate relief efforts of the Kenya Red Cross Society and Lodges in some of the areas most affected by recent events.
As part of this assistance, the Chairman of the District Grand Charity recently visited Jamhuri Camp in Nairobi to donate milk, bread, rice, beans and drinking water to 3,000 displaced people, including children.
Violent clashes and rioting following the results of the Kenyan Presidential election left hundreds dead and tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes. Many families are now living in makeshift camps and are desperately in need of essential supplies like food, clean water and basic household items.
The grant from The Freemasons' Grand Charity will be used to increase the current support for Masons, their dependants and other needy individuals from the wider community.
£20,000 for Bangladesh Emergency Aid
Following the devastation of parts of Bangladesh by Tropical Storm Sidr, The Freemasons' Grand Charity is supporting the relief work of the Red Cross with an emergency grant of £20,000.
Around 1 million people are believed to have been affected by the storm which hit the Southern Coast of Bangladesh on 15 November, destroying homes, crops and infrastructure and triggering a tidal surge that swamped three coastal villages.
The official death toll stands at over 3,100 people, but this is expected to rise as rescuers continue to recover bodies from amongst the debris. Some remote areas are still inaccessible and many survivors are without fresh water and food.
The emergency grant approved by the President of the Grand Charity will help to fund the work of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, providing for the needs of some of the most vulnerable people affected by the storm, including the provision of blankets, food, shelter, medical supplies and basic healthcare.
The Royds Lodge No. 1204 visits The Royds Lodge No. 816
The Worshipful Master and three Past Masters of The Royds Lodge No. 1204 visited The Royds Lodge No. 816 on Thursday 13th September 2007. The Royds Lodge No. 816 meets at Todmorden, in the Rosendale District of the Masonic Province of East Lancashire. Today, the two Lodges maintain a strong friendship and their respective members visit one another whenever possible.
Both Lodges are named after Albert Hudson Royds, a prominent Lancastrian Freemason who held office in the Provincial Grand Lodge of East Lancashire from 1850 to 1856, and as the Deputy Provincial Grand Master from 1856 to 1866.
After taking up residence in Worcestershire, Albert Hudson Royds was elected a joining member of the Worcester Lodge No. 349, later No. 280, before being appointed as the Deputy Provincial Grand Master in 1857. His installation as the Provincial Grand Master of Worcestershire took place at the Guildhall, Worcester, on the 21st June 1866. He remained in that high office until the 7th March 1878, when ill health and the untimely death of his daughter led to his resignation.
Before attending the Lodge meeting, the four Malvern Freemasons visited St Edmund's church in Rochdale, which has a long association with the Royds family and is steeped in Masonic history. Albert Hudson Royds spent between £20,000 and £30,000 on the building and was determined that it should bear evidence of his Masonic convictions in all its features. This was a considerable sum, as the average cost to build a church at that time was approximately £5,000. Raised on a roughly hewn plinth, the overall dimensions of the church are proportional to those of King Solomon's Temple; its length being three times and its height one and a half times its breadth.
Continuing to Todmorden, the Malvern Freemasons were received with open arms by the Brethren of The Royds Lodge No. 816. W. Bro. Colin Dunn, Worshipful Master, presented all four visitors with a recent Lodge history compiled by W. Bro. Ken Orton, Director of Ceremonies. Following this, the Malvern Freemasons once again extended an invitation to all members of the East Lancashire Lodge to visit them in Worcestershire in the very near future.
Re-dedication of Victoria Cross Holder's Grave
At 12 noon on Tuesday 26 June, exactly 150 years after the first investiture of the Victoria Cross by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, over one hundred people gathered at St Mary's Parish Church, Kempsey, to witness the unveiling and dedication of the restored tomb of the only Victoria Cross recipient to be buried in Worcestershire.
Major-General Edward William Derrington Bell received his Victoria Cross for outstanding bravery in the Battle of Alma on September 20th 1854 when he seized a Russian gun and took command of his regiment after all the senior officers had been killed or wounded. He is one of over one hundred and forty freemasons who are recipients of the Victoria Cross.
The funding of the restoration of his grave, which had sadly fallen into disrepair, was provided by W. Bro. Granville Angell, who has delivered his Prestonian Lecture on Masonic Victoria Cross recipients.
In attendance were the Lord Mayor of Worcester, the Deputy Lieutenant, councillors, and members of the Welsh regiment who guarded the Victoria Cross itself, which was carried by Major General Bell's great, great, great grand-daughter, Lucy, one of many proud members of his family there to honour him.
The service was conducted by W. Bro. John Guise, a member of The Royds Lode and the Provincial Grand Chaplain. The citation was read by W. Bro. Angell, and the address given by the Provincial Grand Master, R. W. Bro. Richard Goddard:
"I feel most honoured to be a part of today's celebration when we salute the memory of a very brave man. As you may already be aware, exactly one hundred and fifty years ago today Her Majesty Queen Victoria personally presented the first 62 Victoria Crosses in Hyde Park before a crowd estimated at over 100,000. Although Edward William Derrington Bell was, in chronological order, the fourth of the one hundred and eleven recipients of the Cross awarded in the Crimean War - all of them, incidentally, backdated as the warrant for its issue was not signed until the war was nearly over - he was unfortunately not one of those original 62 recipients as, three days before, his regiment had sailed for China, although it was soon to be diverted to India when news of the mutiny was received.
One of the reasons for my presence here today is that Major-General Bell was a Freemason, initiated at Montreal, Canada, on 12 December 1848 in St Paul's Lode No. 374, a lodge founded in 1770 and which still exists.
It is a curious fact worth pondering that whereas Freemasons have always accounted for considerably less than one percent of the adult male population, over ten percent of holders of the Victoria Cross are known to have been Freemasons - currently 143 out of 1,356 recipients, and I say 'currently' since W. Bro. Granville Angell is still discovering others.
And this brings me to how we all come to be here today. A few years back, Granville formed the idea of researching Masonic holders of the Victoria Cross. Knowing that the sesquicentenary of the institution of the Cross was coming up in 2006, he then applied to become the Prestonian Lecturer for that year. I should explain that the Prestonian Lecture, dating from a bequest by W. Bro. William Preston in 1818, is the only Masonic lecture officially recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England. I am delighted to say that Granville was so appointed, as far as we know the first Worcestershire Freemason to have been accorded that honour.
The Lecture is delivered on many occasions during the year and afterwards and, quite literally, to lodges all over the world. And it is customary for the Lecturer to be given the alms collection for the charity of his choice. Granville further conceived the idea of establishing a fund to help restore the graves of Victoria Cross winners that had over the years become dilapidated, and asked me for my approval, intimating that one of the first he wished to tackle was in a Worcestershire churchyard: Kempsey. He could not possibly have known that I and my three children were each baptised in this very church; I readily gave him my support.
I feel sure Major-General Bell's descendants would wish to be associated with me in thanking Granville for his vision and his commitment. I also wish to include in my thanks another Worcestershire brother, Andrew Devereux who, apart from being a speculative Freemason, is by trade an operative stonemason and has been responsible for the work associated with this fine restoration.
But I feel on an occasion such as this the thanks of our community should be much wider and should be expressed to all those brave men, and now women, down the years and still, unfortunately, to this day who have hazarded and continue to hazard their own lives on a daily basis to enable us to enjoy the freedom of assembling as we are now in a quiet and peaceful country churchyard."