Guernsey Past Master Board

To the left, it looks like a normal Past Master Board, but in closer detail we see a British lodge under German occupation during WW2. It belongs to Doyle’s Lodge of Fellowship No.83 in the Guernsey Masonic Centre which was chartered in 1806.

The lodge was named after a soldier –Sir JohnDoyle –had been born in Ireland. After entering the Inns of Court in London, and subsequently finding the practice of law too dull, he became an ensignin 1771, and subsequently had a hugely successful military career in which he distinguished himself in actions both in the American War of Independenceand in the war against the French in Egypt. (When war broke out with the French in 1793, he obtained permission for the raising of a regiment which, inhonour of his patron, he called “the Prince of Wales’s Irish Regiment”.)

Sir John’s friendship with the Prince of Wales (he was for a time his secretary) resulted in his being appointed Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey. In that capacity, and consequently as Commander in Chief of the Bailiwick, he did more than any other office-holder to defend the Island. One of his more remarkable achievements was to persuade the States of Guernsey to go to the expense of recovering a vast (for Guernsey) area of land from the sea which at that time divided that northern portion of Guernsey from its southern counterpart. All in all, he was a brilliant man and he would have added immense lustre to the new Doyle’s Lodge, of which he became a member.

As a military lodge, it had the usual problems associated with the comings and goings of soldiers at short notice, and with the reduction in number of soldiers in the Island as a consequence of the ending of the threat of French invasion. Meetings of the lodge were suspended between 1825 and 1826, because the number of members had become so few. Meetings of the lodge were banned during the German occupation of the Island between 1940 and 1945.

Happily, the lodge has experienced other, more successful times – no more so than at present, when it has over 50 members.

Thanks to Bro. John Muir for the photos.