| Main Performers | Mr T F Hasey (Deputy Grand Master),
Duke of Connaught (Grand Master),
Bishop of Birmingham (Grand Chaplain) - speakers |
| Secondary Performers | Lord Rhondda (Senior Grand Warden),
Lieutenant-General Sir Farnic Lloyd (Junior Grand Warden) |
| Set List | Sermon (Bishop of Birmingham) |
| Royal Presence | HRH The Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn |
| Performance Notes | "More than 8000 brethren assembled in the Albert Hall on Saturday afternoon at an Especial Grand Lodge of Masons to celebrate the bicentenary of the foundation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717.
The Lodge was opened by the Deputy Grand Master, Mr T. F. Hasey. A procession was formed and the Duke of Connaught, Grand Master, took his seat on the Grand Master's throne, supported on his right by the deputy Grand Master, and, in the Warden's chairs, by Lord Rhondda and Lieutenant-General Sir Francis Lloyd, the Senior and Junior Grand Wardens for the year. There were also present Lord Donoughmore, Grand Master of Ireland, with six other of the Grand Offices of Ireland; Brigadier-General Sir Francis Gordon Gilmour, Grand Master Mason of Scotland, with Lord Blythswood, Lord Montgomerie, Sir Robert Inches, and four other of the Grand Officers of Scotland; Major T. F. Cooper, District Grand Master of Malta, the District Grand Masters of Argentina, Ceylon, and Bengal; the Provincial Grand Masters of Gloucester, Surrey, Yorkshire (West Riding), Hereford, Berkshire, Essex, Lincoln, Bucks, Cambridge, Oxford, Northumberland, Worcester, Kent, Devonshire, Norfolk, and Middlesex.
The Duke of Connaught announced that in the name of the brethren he had sent the following telegram to the King, 'Eight thousand Masons are assembled in the Albert Hall to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of British Freemasonry in England. I desire on their behalf to take this opportunity of renewing our expressions of loyalty and devotion to your Throne and person and to wish you long life and happiness. We pray that victory may crown your Armies and that a just and lasting peace may be the result. - Athur, Grand Master.'
His Majesty's reply was as follows, 'I have received with much satisfaction the message which you, as Grand Master, have conveyed to me from 8,000 Freemasons who to-day celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of British Freemasonry in England. Please thank them most cordially in my name. The traditional loyalty of British Freemasons is a force upon which the Sovereign of this country has ever reckoned and has been to me a proud memory during the anxious years through which we are passing. - George R . and I."
(The Times, Sunday 24 June 1917) |