Ar00100

ffiontents . SAGE . FREEMASONS' M AGAZINE : — Laying the Foundation Stone of Thornton New Church 361 Notes on American Freemasonry 364 Masonic Jottings—No . 43 366 Masonic Notes and Queries 367

Masonic Saying's and Doings Abroad 368 MASONIC MIRROR : — Masonic Meins 369 CRAFT LODGE MEETINGS : — Metropolitan , 369 Provincial 370 Scotland 373

Nova Scotia 373 ROTAL ARCH : —Supreme Grand Chapter 374 MARK MASONRY : —Grand Lodge . _ Installation of the Provincial Grand Master of Lancashire ... 375 New Libvavy aud Museum for the City of Loudon 376 Obituary : —Bro . William Laurie 379 Poetry 379 List of Lodge , & c , Meetings for ensuing week 3 S 0

Laying Of The Memorial Stone Of Thornton New Church.

LAYING OF THE MEMORIAL STONE OF THORNTON NEW CHURCH .

LONDON , SATURDAY , NOVEMBER 5 , 1870 ,

The laying of the memorial stone of the new church of St . James , at Thornton , Yorkshire , with clue Masonic honours , recalls some incidents in connection with the old building that will form an interesting prefix to our report .

Preemasonry seems never so fitly fulfilling office as in assisting in the erection of Churches ; and Thornton owed its first church to a freemason , who had left a record of the fact in a tablet still existent , which has been put in the south-west corner of the chapel , and reads as follows : —

THIS CHAPPELL WAS BULLDED BY IIII ( E FREEMASON IN THE Y E A R E OP OUR

LORDE J 1612 Whether the erasure of the name of the pious builder be the result of posterior malignity , or of the eating tooth of time , its obliteration is a theme for the Archceologisfc . If the former be the

cause , we may venture a guess that the chisel may have also been at work in defacing the letters which now seem to bet our successive Ps with a slightly curved portion of a letter , another letter being wholly erased before the final E . There is a

rude stone built in the wall above this tablet bearing the figures " 1587 ; " which James , in his History of Bradford , took to be a remnant of a

former church ; but it bears no such appearance ; and if there had been a former chapel , surely the tablet would , have stated that it was " rebuilded . " Tho position of the chapel and the graveyard ( so far from Thornton village

and so close adjoining Thornton Hall ) points to the Lord of the Manor as the builder ; and if the downstrokes still left have been tampered with they may have once formed 0 TJ and part of G , and thus would indicate a WATMOTJGHE , with

space for a Christian name of four letters . The original mesne lords of Thornton ( who bora that name ) ended in an heiress , by whom the manor

passed into the Boilings , from which family it passed by another heiress to the Tempests , a family remarkable for their religious zeal against the coming Reformation .. Mr . James ( p . 837 ) says rather ' vaguely that Sir Richard Tempest

sold the manor about 1620 to — Watrnongh ; and that in 1630 , John Wattnough , then a minor , was Lord ofthe Manor , but adds nothing of the family . He overlooked the fact that the panelling- of the Thornton Hall pew ( on the south side of the

Communion place ) preserves the record of the Watmoughs with the initials " I . W ., 1634 . " ,. To distinguish the two Thorntons , in Yorkshire , this one is called "Thornton in Bradford-dale , " and the other " Thornton in Craven . " And a

little after the period to which we refer there was a Hugh Watmoughe , clerk , rector of Thornton ( in Craven ) , who was instituted 30 th August , 1599 , by Queen Elizabeth , and who died in the rectory , his successor being instituted 28 th

August , 1623 . It is more than probable that the purchaser of the Manor of Thornton in Bradforddale was either this man or some member of his

family ; and it is in some degree explanatory oi the unusual record of the builder ' s name iu Thornton Chapel that the name of the founder of the tower of Thornton in Craven in 1510 is fully inscribed there . Hugh Watmoughe owed his

appointment co Queen Elizabeth , and bis sister , Margaret , in her nuncupative will , made at Halifax , 12 th February , 1604 ( and proved at York , 3 rd October , 1611 ) , gave " to her brother , Mr . Watmough , the Angell which the Queene gave

her / '' The connection of the Watmoughs with Thornton was , however , brief . The manor was sold before 1638 to the Midgleys , John Midgley in that year being named as Lord . The . Midgleys had been established some years before at Headley