Education in 18th Century Russia

The Great War 1914-1918

Brother Stuart Jack PM Lodge St. Bryde No. 579 has pulled together over 5 years to research members of the Lodge and Uddingston that served in the First World War. The book is available from Lodge St. Bryde No. 579 at Gardenside Street, Uddingston, G71 7BX on Wednesday 26th October at 7:30pm at £20.

Bro. Stuart has completed the research by pain stakingly trawling website and national records also visiting various locations over the world to complement his research.

Well Kent Glasgow People

In the minutes from 1909, it is noted that a certain A E Pickard affiliated to Lodge Dramatic No.571 from Lodge St Kentigern No 976. The older brethren of the Lodge will remember him as the 'penny millionaire.' Originally from Bradford, he made Glashow his home and his Glasgow empire included the Clydebank Gaiety Theatre, the White Elephant in Shawlands and the Norwood, near Charing Cross, which he dramatically opened in 1936 by smashing the glass doors with a crowbar. My grandfather actually bought the Norwood from him which had a first edition of the Kilmarnock Burns book. He claimed the only landlord with more properties than him was the Glasgow Corporation!

Also in Dramatic’s minute books on Thursday March 2, 1911, we find recorded the initiation of George Gordon Jefferson, the manager of the Metropole Theatre. Although Jefferson was well-known in Glasgow, it was his brother who was to find world-wide fame . . . as Stan Laurel, perhaps one of the best comic actors of the screen. Stan never joined but his partner, Ollie, was a freemason.

The Masonic Centre in Aylesbury was originally built in order to play Fives Court tennis (more similar to squash). Aylesbury is the County Town of Bucks. Aylesbury was a major market town in Anglo-Saxon times, the burial place of Saint Osyth, whose shrine attracted pilgrims. The Early English parish church of St. Mary (which has many later additions) has a crypt beneath. At the Norman Conquest, the King took the manor of Aylesbury for himself, and it is listed as a royal manor in the Domesday Book, 1086. Some lands here were granted by William the Conqueror to citizens upon the extraordinary tenure that the owners should provide straw for the monarch's bed, sweet herbs for his chamber, and two green geese and three eels for his table, whenever he should visit Aylesbury.

Aylesbury Masonic Hall is the home of the first Lodge in Buckinghamshire –the Buckingham Lodge No. 591. It was Consecrated in 1852 when it was No. 861; and was subsequently during the renumbering in the late 19th Century was given the current number. The Lodge purchased the building in 1880.

The building provided the venue for the first meeting of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Buckinghamshire on the 17th July 1890. It is the home to a number of lodges, a Knight Templar Preceptory and a Red Cross of Constantine Conclave.

My thanks to Bro. Malcolm Summers Sec of Aylesbury Lodge No. 4534 for giving me access to the building.