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Lumley Lodge
No. 1893
History
A Brief History of Lumley Lodge No.
1893
(Consecrated 21st. April
1881)
It is difficult after
a lapse of over 100 years to determine the circumstances that led to the
formation of the Lumley Lodge. The lodge nearest to Skegness was Shakespeare No.
426 and one can imagine that the local freemasons endured considerable
discomfort travelling by horse and trap to and from Spilsby. This was presumably
one of the factors that inspired the formation of a lodge in Skegness and on the
28th. November 1880 seven brethren, six from Shakespeare Lodge and
one from Lodge of Harmony No. 272 in Boston, signed a petition. The founders
held twenty meetings prior to the consecration but minutes of the proceedings
were recorded at only seven of these. The warrant of the lodge is dated 15th.
February 1881 and the consecration ceremony was held at the Earl of
Scarborough’s Estate Offices on Thursday 21st. April 1881.
For the first ten years of
its life the lodge struggled to survive. It was sparsely attended and on several
occasions meetings were adjourned owing to the fact that there were less than
seven present. One Installation Ceremony was deferred to the following month due
to the fact that only two Installed Masters attended. The Bye-Laws provided for
twelve regular meetings but it became the practise to close for the months of
July and August and in 1885 no lodge meeting was held for the five months June
to October. Finance was also a problem in the first twenty-three years as the
lodge was more often in the red than the black. The number of members did not
exceed twenty until 1891 and the Installation Meeting in 1892 attracted the
record attendance of twenty, five of whom were visitors. Membership gradually
increased to thirty seven at the turn of the century, ninety three at the
Jubilee meeting in 1931, and one hundred and eleven members in 1959. The present
membership in 2006 is seventy two. (It should be noted however that there are
now two lodges in Skegness. St. Clement Lodge No. 4300, Lumley’s daughter lodge,
has a current membership of fifty nine).
Over the years the Lumley
Lodge has had a number of meeting places starting at the Earl of Scarborough’s
Estate Offices in 1881, the Library, (now the National Westminster Bank), for
the period 1882 to 1885 then back to the Estate Offices until 1902. Meetings
were held at The Baths, Scarborough Avenue from 1902 until October 1942 when
damage by enemy action necessitated a move to the Lumley Hotel. With the
cessation of hostilities in 1945 accommodation was no longer available at the
hotel and for a brief period the lodge met at the Church Hall, Ida Road. On the
17th. October 1945 the lodge met for the first time in the present
premises, Masonic Hall, Rutland Road.
The first recorded Ladies
Evening was held at the Sea View Hotel on the 23rd. January 1899. For
this and other occasions, such as funerals, dispensations were obtained to
enable the brethren to wear Masonic clothing.
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