Freemasonry In Victoria (Ausfralia).

Lodge can be considered constitutionally formed , or entitled to recognition as a regular and lawful Masonic bod } - , unless the whole , or at least a great majority of the constituent lodges formerly working under Sister Constitutions , agree to throw in their lot with a new Grand Lodge . This regrettable and undesirable state of affairs continued

in Victorian Masonry for well on to five years , and the situation engendered , it may readily be imagined , a bitterness of feeling and personal rancour—frequently between old friends—that could scarcely be conceived at this end of

MASONIC llALfi , MEI . IiOURNE .

the world . But an end to the vcndciia was bound to come sooner or later , and the visit of the late Earl of Carnarvonat that time M . W . Pro Grand Master of England—tn Australia , fortunately paved the way to a happier regime . Beginning first with New South Wales and finishing with Victoria , the opposing Masonic elements in both Colonies ,

one in the year 1888 and the other the year following , consolidated their forces , and formed the United Grand Lodges of New South Wales and Victoria respectively , with Lord Carrhigton and Sir William Clarke as the first M . W . G . Masters . Kit pussniii a Grand Lodge had before this been

started in South Australia on the British basis , which , of course , was recognised at once , and now Victoria followed New South Wales in the happy consummation and the burying of the hatchet . The United Grand Lodge of Victoria started on its successful career with a total of one hundred and forty-one lodges , ninety-four of them hailing

from the English , sixteen from the Irish , thirteen from the Scottish , and eighteen from the hitherto unrecognised Victorian Constitution . Two English lodges held aloof from the movement , namely , the Meridian Lodge of St .

John , No . 729 , of which Bro . Colonel Brownrigg , P . G . D ., at that time Commandant of the Victorian Military forces , was W . M ., and the Combermere Lodge , No . 752 , both in Melbourne . The refusal of these two lodges to join the new body was in consonance with one of the conditions under which the Grand Lodge of England grants

recognition to a Grand Lodge formed out of a body of its constituent lodges . The Meridian Lodge of St . John not long after joined the new Grand Lodge , but is now extinct ; whilst the Combermere Lodge—warranted , by the bye , in 1858 , and named after Viscount Combermere , the