Some Notes On Freemasonry In Austraiasia .– –(Continued).

Some Notes on Freemasonry in Austraiasia . – –( Continued ) .

By Bro . W . F . LAMOXBV , P . D . G . M . of Victoria , and P . A . G . D . C . of England .

IN contradistinction to the foregoing , we conveniently turn for a moment or two to the latter clay provisions of the English Book of Constitutions . As for instance , as regards Grand Officers , it is laid clown that the Grand Registrar only must be an Installed Master , while in Provinces and Districts the requirement is merely applied to the Deputy and to the

Wardens . Inconsistency is consequently most apparent here , while in late years there have been occasions when Provincial Grand Masters and Grand Wardens have not been Installed Masters at the time of their appointment and induction into office . A very creditable contrast , though , to this anomaly is

shown in the Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of Victoria , a body with less than two hundred lodges from which to make selections , and yet they enact that every Grand Officer ( Heralds and Organist excepted ) must be an actual Master or Past Master of a lodge .

THE CLARKE MEDAL . Willi this slight digression let us close the progress of English Masonry in Victoria with a curious item culled from the minutes of the Provincial Grand Loclge , dated June 29 th , 18 57 , on which occasion provisional warrants were granted for six new lodges . In regard to one of them it is noted : —

" Bro . P . M . Levick inquired whether ( he Ballarat Lodge had formerly been a society meeting under the title Rameaii d'Ord . Eleusis ¦ ! if so , he considered it objectionable to have granted the dispensation . A full explanation of the former proceedings of this society was given , and it was stated that the Victoria

Lodge ( at Ballarat ) had recommended a dispensation being granted , with the understanding that certain conditions proposed by them should be agreed to . It was reported that the conditions had been assented to , and the matter then chopped . "

We now turn to the introduction of Scottish Freemasonry into Victoria . In the year 18 43 the Grand Master Mason of Scotland warranted the Australasian Kilwinning Lodge , ^' ° - 337 > m Melbourne ; but , compared with New South Wales , and later , Queensland and Western Australia , the Scottish Craft never attained any great hold in Victoria . The following were the Provincial and District Grand Masters •—

James Hunter Ross ... ... ... jg 17 Hon . William Clarke Haines , M . L . C . 18 ^ 8 Thomas Reid ... j 866 Alexander Kennedy Smith 18 74 Hon . Sir William John Clarke , Bart ., M-L . C Z 88

Between the two first Provincial Grand Masters there was a long hiatus , in point of fact , Bro . Ross never held a meeting during the whole of the eleven years he was nominally head of the Scottish Craft .

Irish Masonry , also , like the Scottish , made slow progress from the year 18 43 , when the first loclge was opened , under dispensation , and styled the Australian Felix Loclge of Hiram . It was not warranted , however , by the Duke of Leinster nntil four years later , with the number 349 . The Provincial

Grand Masters of Victoria under the Irish Constitution were only two in number , but the first reigned from 1854 till the clay of his death in 1 S 79 . Bro . John Thomas Smith , a member of the Legislative Assembly , and several times Mayor of Melbourne , was an energetic Mason and an inflexible

administrator of the laws of the Craft , lie had the distinction of installing Capt . Clarke , the first Provincial Grand Master of the English Masons in the colony , and he was the charter Master of the first Irish loclge , the Australian Felix Loclge of Hiram , besides being one of the first initiates in the mother

lodge of Victoria in 1840 . For many years , up to the inauguration of the Grand Lodge in 1889 , there was an Irish loclge in Melbourne known as the Provincial Grand Master's Lodge , without a number , the membership of which was confined to Installed Masters . One of the ordinary lodges ,

( he Washington , No . 3 68 , had also attached to it a chapter and a Mark lodge . One of the most notable personages under the Irish Constitution , for many years prior lo the fomidnfion of the present Grand Lodge , was the late Bro . George Baker . As

Deputy Provincial Grand Master his indomitable courage and firmness kept ( lie Province intact during very critical ; ind troublous times , and his honours of Past Grand Master md first Deputy Grand Master under the present regime

RIGHT HON . BARON BHASSICY , G . C . M . G ., SKL'OND Gil . VNI ) MASTSR OF VICTORIA . were thoroughly deserved . He was , during the period indicated , very materially and ably supported by Bro . Angell Ellis as Provincial Grand Secretary , subsequently Past Deputy Grand Master and firjt Grand Treasurer of Victoria .