Chapter 9 - Moving On – The Next Ten Years

Moving On – The Next Ten Years

The next few years in the Lodge were busy ones, with most of the meetings having two Candidates. Although there were only two Initiates and four Joining Members during the remainder of the centenary year, by May 1967 there were a further seven Brethren Passed to the Second Degree and six Raised to the Degree of Master Mason. In the March 1967 meeting, still as part of the Centenary year commemorations, the Senior and Junior Wardens’ columns were presented to the Lodge by WBro. D. Bellinger and WBro. W. G. Baxter. It was also in the summons for that meeting that the first reference appeared of there being a Junior Lodge of Instruction. At that time, the Junior Lodge was on the Monday after the Regular Lodge of Instruction, rather than before. But not always! At some stage it changed from the week prior, so may have been something of a moveable event. The total of 173 Lodge members recorded in 1966 increased to 174 by 1976, including 51 new Masons and 16 Joining Members. The net growth of only one member was the impact of resignations, some expulsions and sadly the passing to the Grand Lodge Above of 23 Brethren. The Installation Meeting in September 1967 saw Bro. K. A. Lintott installed as Worshipful Master, and for reasons which are unclear, he was again installed as Master the following year. WBro. Flisher was the Installing Master on both occasions. This was only the fourth time in the Lodge History that a Master has served for two consecutive years.

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It was at this meeting that the recent Installation of HRH The Duke of Kent as Grand Master was formally announced. A change to the Lodge By-laws was also announced; the Initiation Fee was to be raised from 20 guineas to £30. (A guinea was £1. 1s, or £1.05 in today’s currency). This represents, in 2016 value, an increase in the fee from £350 to £500. In October 1967, WBros. Flisher and Baxter were appointed to represent the Lodge at a meeting of the Club Management Committee, to consider the housing of all five Island Lodges under one roof. At the November Lodge meeting they reported the details of the proposal to the Lodge. A show of hands confirmed that the members were in agreement that an amalgamation would be advantageous to all concerned. The April 1969 meeting saw two candidates for Initiation, one of them being Mr. Ronald Reveley. Now a senior Past Master, WBro. Reveley is our longest serving “active” member and still a regular attendee at meetings the Lodge, Lodges of Instruction and the Committee. In another three years we hope he will be celebrating 50 years in Masonry, and even after all this time still volunteers to stand in for any officer absent from Lodge meetings or Lodges of Instruction There appears to be no documented reason for the proposed change, but at the October 1967 meeting there was recommendation from the General Purposes Committee as to the desirability of changing the day of the Installations from Wednesday to Saturday. A Notice of Motion was discussed at the November and December meetings, with the intention of having a ballot in January. In January, on hearing the views put forward by some Brethren, both in favour and against the motion, it was temporarily shelved in favour of an application being made for a Dispensation to hold the Installation meetings of both 1970 and 1971 on a Saturday.

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1970 - Events Outside the Lodge

In April 1970, the world held its breath when Jim Lovell, the captain of Apollo 13, on its way to the moon, sent the now famous message “Houston, we have a problem”. Despite a serious set of disasters, starting with an exploding oxygen tank, Houston and the astronauts managed to get the spaceship back safely back to the earth with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. In the Risings at the April 1970 meeting, the Secretary read the official notification that WBro. K.A. Lintott had been appointed a Provincial Grand Steward, and that a Dispensation had been received to permit the Installation meeting to be held on Saturday 19th September 1970. The Installation meeting of September 1970, one of the first pieces of business was for the Secretary to read the letter from the Provincial Grand Secretary granting the necessary Dispensation to hold the meeting on Saturday 19th September, rather than on the 17th. This was possibly a mistake in the minutes; the 17th was a Thursday, and it should have read the 16th. Clearly no-one spotted the error! The Signature Book for that meeting showed that 26 Officers and Past Masters, 20 other Members and 30 Visitors attended this meeting. This total of 76 attending compares very favourably with the 71 and 66 attendees at the previous two Installation meetings. The move from Wednesday therefore seemed to be quite acceptable. Bro. C.W. Hammond was installed into the Chair of King Solomon that year. Before the next Installation meeting in September 1971, four new Masons were initiated, six Brethren were made Craftsmen, and four were raised to Master Mason

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The 1971 Installation meeting was again held on a Saturday, with another very good attendance of 67. Despite the evidence of good attendances for these two Installations, at the December 1971 meeting there were further discussions about the Installation day. A ballot in favour of returning to a Wednesday was passed by 50 votes to 13. We are now beginning to see the names appearing in the minutes of more Brethren that many current members will have known. January 1972 saw a ballot for a candidate for Initiation, Mr Samuel Arthur Johnson. He was Initiated in the May meeting, in a double ceremony with Mr R. Marsden. At the Installation meeting in September 1972, Bro. J.B. White was installed into the Masters Chair. Sadly the Lodge rose in respect to Departed Merit for WBro. C.N. Woodley PGStdB, who had been one of the Lodge’s longest serving Secretaries. At the next two meetings there were Obituaries for a further five Brethren, with a further two early in 1973. This was a sad time for the Lodge indeed. At the February meeting the following year, the Secretary read a letter from the Provincial Grand Master, detailing the proposed split of the Province into two smaller Provinces of East and West Kent. This was to become effective at the Provincial meeting on 31st May 1973. The Summons to the April 1973 Regular Meeting of De Shurland Lodge, for the first time, bears the heading ‘Province of East Kent’. The January meeting in 1974 was a First Degree, and once again a Past Master was given the Chair; WBro T. S. Watkins had the honour of initiating his son Ashley, a “Lewis”. WBro. Watkins was, of course, the author of the Centenary Lodge history. At this same meeting an explanation of the First Degree Tracing Board was given, something now very rarely delivered.

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Number six on our 2016 list of Members, still seen at every meeting is WBro Tom Lambkin. Along with Mr A. L. Bargrove, The then Mr Lambkin was initiated at the May 1975 meeting. At the Provincial meeting in April, two Brethren received active Provincial honours, WBro. R. B. Mansom, as Provincial Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies, and WBro. D. Bellinger as Provincial Grand Standard Bearer. The following year also saw another of our well-known names receiving active Provincial Office. WBro. A. Flisher is appointed Provincial Junior Grand Deacon.

In the ten years following the Centenary meeting, the Lodge was still doing well. There did not appear to be any signs of discord in the Lodge (unlike the initial years in its life), and there is no record of the Master Elect’s list of officers being challenged, as had happened in earlier years. Charity donations are proposed and donated on a regular basis to the main Masonic charities; the Royal Masonic Institute for Girls, Royal Masonic Institute for Boys, the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution and the Royal Masonic Hospital. October 1975 also saw a donation of £250 to the United Masonic Club building fund. At the end of the same year, Grand Lodge announced the creation of the new Office of Charity Steward. It also, recommended that lodge dues should not include dining fees, not that this affected De Shurland.

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