The Masonic Million Memorial Fund
The Masonic Million Memorial Fund was the appeal that financed the present Freemasons' Hall in London. Its initial target was £1 million. The building combined a headquarters for the United Grand Lodge of England with a memorial to Freemasons who died in the First World War.[1]
Appeal and construction
Arthur, Duke of Connaught, the Grand Master, proposed a memorial hall at a special Grand Lodge meeting in 1919. A letter circulated to lodges in January 1920 announced the appeal under its formal name.[1]
Ashley and Newman won the architectural competition in 1926. Work on the new building continued from 1927 to 1933; it was dedicated on 19 July 1933. Its contemporary name, the Masonic Peace Memorial Building, expressed the commemorative purpose of the project.[2][3]
Fundraising included a large lunch at Kensington Olympia on 8 August 1925. The appeal continued after the building opened: its final report in 1938 recorded receipts of almost £1.4 million.[1]
Participation and commemoration
The appeal addressed individual members through their lodges. Each received the Grand Master's letter, details of the scheme and a subscription form. The Olympia lunch was a substantial organisational undertaking: the Museum of Freemasonry records additional trains for the guests, a five-course meal for 7,000 members and 1,250 waitresses.[1]
The appeal produced several distinct commemorative objects. The Peace Jewel marked attendance at the special Grand Lodge meeting of 1919; the later Hall Stone design resulted from a competition offering a prize of 75 guineas. The Olympia lunch of 1925 had its own jewel, with a design differing from the standard Hall Stone badge.[2]
The memorial also drew on a Roll of Honour assembled during and after the war. The Museum dates its final version to 1921. It recorded the names and lodges of members killed in the war.[2]
Hall Stone jewels and lodges
Cyril Saunders Spackman's winning design for the appeal's jewel combined a cross, an angel of peace and a model temple. Different versions recognised contributions by individuals, lodges, and provinces or districts. A separate Special Collector's jewel recognised members who assembled substantial lists of contributions.[2]
A lodge qualified as a Hall Stone Lodge by contributing an average of ten guineas per member. The Museum of Freemasonry records 1,321 qualifying lodges. Their names were inscribed in the new building. Provincial or district awards went to Buckinghamshire, Burma and Japan.[1] The Hall Stone designation records participation in this building appeal; it is not a Masonic degree.
The appeal's imagery also appears in the Memorial Window outside the Grand Temple, where the angel holds a model of the completed hall.[2]
Related articles
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Museum of Freemasonry, One in a million.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Museum of Freemasonry, The Hall Stone story.
- ↑ United Grand Lodge of England, History of Freemasons' Hall.
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