Romsey Freemasons
The first Romsey Lodge of Freemasons was not Norman Lodge, but the Lodge of Peace and Harmony No.359 which was consecrated in 1819. Their meetings were held in the Star Inn, the Swan Inn (now the Romsey Conservative Club), and the White Horse, before leaving Romsey for Southampton in 1856, where they are to this day.
The 2nd Romsey Lodge
It was another 64 years before there was another Romsey Lodge and Freemasonry would return to Romsey.
That was when the Norman Lodge was consecrated on September 9th 1920 at Romsey Town Hall, with the then Prov. Grand Master Rt. W. Bro. Augustus Webster officiating.
The first Master of the Lodge was W. Bro. C. T. Waters a Past Master of the Lodge of Emulation No. 1990, who was the Mayor of Romsey at the time. He was installed before a Board of 54 Past Masters, and when one considers how few lodges there were in the province at the time, he was off to a good start.
There were 25 founders, and as would be expected many were local businessmen. The Founder Wardens were two brothers, G.H. and A.T. Mitchell of Mitchell Bros. Garage which I am sure older members of the Lodge will still remember.
Annual subscriptions back then were £2.12.6d (about £2.62) and the Festive Board cost was 12/6d (about 62p).
On the front of your Summons, you will have noticed the date and No. of this meeting. Our Bro. Secretary will record this particular meeting in the Minute Book as “the 897th Regular Meeting of the Norman Lodge”. However, in the 1920s. 30S, and 40s only the date and place of the meeting was recorded. The first secretary did record ‘in pencil’ the No. of each meeting until October 1941.
In November 1948 the Secretary started the system still in use today by recording “the 249th Regular Meeting”. He must have spent some time checking back through the Minute Books all the way back to 1941. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, a mistake had been made in April 1922 when the Secretary had pencilled in Meeting No. 16 – the same as the previous March meeting.
So, Brethren, tonight is actually the 898th Regular Meeting of this Lodge!
Meetings were held in Romsey Town Hall, with rehearsals usually being held in the Town Hall Committee Room. In 1938 the ceiling of the Town Hall was in such a state that they moved meetings and rehearsals to Abbey Hall.
As we all know September 1939 saw the outbreak of the 2nd World War, and this brought about quite a few changes to one and all. The Lodge did not meet in September or October and in November they met, by Dispensation, at the Cubs Lair, Mill Lane. One can only assume that the Abbey Hall had perhaps been requisitioned for other purposes.
Consequently the Installation was held at the November meeting, and the Installing Master, W. Bro. W. L. Stares, not only Installed his successor, but presented the Working Tools in all 3 degrees, followed by giving the Address to the Master, the Wardens and the Brethren. Sadly, a few months after this, W. Bro. Stares resigned his Membership, with no reason having been recorded.
It was also resolved at this time that the Lodge would meet on the 4th Monday of each month, and it has remained so to this day.
In 1940 meetings were moved to the Junior Infant School in The Hundred, which many, many years later the Lodge was actually interested in purchasing to convert for Lodge meetings. Unfortunately, that was unsuccessful.
This move was very short lived as the Lodge moved to “temporary” accommodation at The Crosfield Hall.
This move turned out to be far from temporary with meetings continuing there until our move to Kings Court in 1989.
The first mention of the possibility of moving to Kings Court was in the late 1960s, but for various reasons it was nearly 20 years before we actually moved here. It is coincidental that at the meeting when a mention was first made of a possible move to KCMC, there was an Initiation – that of a Mr. David Bond. When the Lodge eventually moved to KCMC W. Bro. David Bond was the Master of this Lodge.