The Prov. Grand Lodge Of Cumberland And Westmorland.

The Prov . Grand Lodge of Cumberland and Westmorland .

By Bro . W . F . LAMONDY , P . P . S . G . W ., P . A . G . D . C .

N'EITHER Cumberland nor Westmorland can boast the antiquity that attaches to some counties in England in connection with Freemasonry , and unfortunately there is an obscurity surrounding the working of the Craft during the greater part of the eighteenth century that now seems will never be dispelled . Five-and-twenty years ago I had

occasion to advertise in local newspapers for any old minute books or documents that might possibly be in existence relating to the two provinces formerly holding sway in the two Border counties ; but the result was a bitter disappointment , as not a scrap of paper came to light .

Inquiries also of old county families , whose ancestors were connected with both provinces in an important official capacity , or who were known to be members of private lodges , long ago extinct , ended fruitlessly ; indeed , as a matter of fact , the bulk of the archives date no farther back than the opening of the nineteenth century . In effect , then , one has little other material or source of information than

that which is to be gathered from lodge returns and the like stored up at Freemasons' Hall , London . In this connection , I may observe that , when engaged in the before-mentioned researches , very many useful suggestions and much knowledge were kindly supplied me from time to time by the late Bro . John Hervey , Grand Secretary .

The maritime town of Whitehaven has the credit of introducing Freemasonry to the county of Cumberland . This was in 174 1 , when John , Earl of Kin tore ( two years previously head of the Scottish Craft ) , was Grand Master of England . This lodge was struck off the roll , with

several others in different parts of the world , twenty-eight years later . Meanwhile another , styled the Sun , Square , and Compasses Lodge , was warranted in Whitehaven in 1761 , and existed for twenty-five years . The variouslystyled " Antient , " " Seceders , " " York , " and " Athol " institution was , however , in full blast in the " sixties , "

TEMPLE OF TUB SUN , SQUARE , AND COMI'ASSKS LODGE , No . Ill ) , WIIITKHAVBN . —( -7 'Wo ]) ,-o . IMIUHW ) .

and in 1768 a lodge was warranted by it in Whitehaven , the first of the seven lodges—one the Royal Cumberland Alilitia—warranted by the " Antients " time after time before the Union in 1 S 13 , and is the only one existing in the Province of Cumberland and Westmorland . Its title is the Sun , Square , and Compasses Lodge , No . 119 , though , strange to say , the name was unknown to the Grand Lodge authorities earlier than the year 1851 .

This old lodge can boast of an eventful and interesting history . Its places of meeting are recorded in the late Bro . Lane ' s Masonic Records , from 1768 to 18 59 , and the changes number no less than twenty-five , the last being the Freemasons' Hall , in College Street , the interior of

which is here produced . It is unquestionably the finest Alasonic Hall in the province , and amongst its relics are old furniture , firing glasses , & c , belonging to the defunct Concord Lodge ( Antient ) , locally and socially known as the " Gentlemen ' s Lodge . " The most interesting object ,

however , in the hall of this old lodge , is the original warrant , in a mahogany cabinet , merely a sheet of foolscap , the writing on which is well nigh illegible .

In 1873 , tne late Right Hon . G . A . Cavendish Bentinck , ALP ., an affiliating member , presented the lodge with a massive set of pillars , and in doing so , remarked that " on his last visit to the lodge , when he had the pleasure of hearing Bro . Gibson ( subsequently P . G . Secretary ) explain the

Second Tracing Board , he regretted to observe that the columns representing the Ionic , Doric , and Corinthian orders of architecture were very improperly represented by those in the lodge . He had therefore conceived it to be his duty and privilege to provide others , which would correctly

represent those orders , and enable the lecturer to teach with accuracy and precision , and by them help the lofty and sacred truths which they symbolically represent . "