There was much business to be conducted at the early lodge meetings. There were often three degrees to be got through, and supper was generally taken between the 2nd and 3rd degrees. Each meeting typically began at 6 and lasted until nearly 10 o’clock in the first year.
Fine Dining
The first installation was held at the Bull and Royal Hotel on 23 of April 1924 and the cost of the banquet which followed was 7/6d.
Normal Lodge suppers cost 2/6d. and this included two drinks, but 3/6d. was charged for visitors.
These prices may seem modest by to-day’s standard, but of course, incomes were much lower in the 1920’s.
The first Ladies Evening was held on 4th of March 1932, at the Bull and Royal Hotel. 172 guests attended at 9/6d. a head.
It’s interesting to see where the money went………………….
Dinner, including a buffet, cost 6/6d, There were 15 dozen paper hats and two gross medium size jazz balloons for the merrymaking, 25 cigars for the top table cost 17/ 11/2d. and 200 State Express were 13/8d.
The whist prizes and the lucky spots ran away with 23/10d. and a 1/4lb box of chocolates for the 120 ladies present, cost £3.9.s.2d.
Notable Meetings
The year after this, our installation of 1933 was a landmark when the Lodge’s first initiate, Bro. James Walter Jackson, was installed as Worshipful Master.
In the next year, 1934, the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Lodge was celebrated with all the officer’s posts being held by the founders.
The office of I.P.M. was filled by W.Bro.J.M.Worthington who was, of course, to bring credit and honour to the Lodge by being made Chairman of the Preston Group.
The following year, 1935, our first Founders and Past Masters night was held and has been held regularly each January since then.
In September 1944, our first Lodge meeting took place in the new Masonic Temple and our 25th anniversary was celebrated there in 1949 by 43 members and 85 visitors.
A further interesting Lodge meeting was held at the Guild Hall towards the end of the War when Freemasons in the American Forces, who had been regularly visiting our Lodge in the second half of the War, gave a demonstration of the American Working.
Ladies Evenings were resumed after the War, and in 1949 the Lodge had the doubtful honour of holding a Ladies Night at the old Guild Hall only a few evenings before it was burnt down.
W.Bro. E.W.Wells was Master that year, a brother who has brought credit and prestige to our Lodge, being a Grand Lodge Officer, being the second member of the Lodge to be Chairman of the Preston Group, and also being a Group Officer for some twenty years.