FOUNDERS' PHOTOGRAPHS
The minute books in the possession of the Lodge tell us that a meeting of interested Brethren was called on the 27th April 1875 at the Abercorn Arms Hotel at Great Stanmore. Brother William Andrews chaired the meeting.
The meeting resolved to send a petition to the Provincial Grand Master of Middlesex, Colonel Francis Burdett, asking him to forward it to the Most Worshipful Grand Master, the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. The petition was signed by members of Westbourne Lodge no. 733, Salisbury Lodge no. 435, Royal Clarence Lodge no. 271, Caledonian Lodge no. 134, Surrey Dobie Lodge no. 889, Mount Moriah Lodge no. 34, Euphrates Lodge no. 212, and Watford Lodge no. 580, and supported by the members of our Mother lodge Gladsmuir Lodge no. 1385, which at that time used to meet at Barnet, and Harrow Lodge.
The petition was to allow a lodge to be held at the Abercorn Arms Hotel, the lodge to be called ‘Royal Abercorn Lodge’. Presumably the epithet ‘Royal’ was in allusion to the Abercorn Arms’ famous royal visitor, Louis XVIII who stayed there in 1814, or perhaps from the royal connections of the Abercorn branch of the Hamilton family, but the warrant that was granted allowed only ‘Abercorn Lodge’.
The Lodge was consecrated on 26th June 1875.
Lord Hamilton, J.G.W. and Colonel Burdett P.G.M. were voted honourary members of the Lodge, although neither was able to attend the consecration meeting. The Hamilton family owned a property described as “The Mount, Middlesex” (Bentley Manor?)and presumably, as the Earls of Abercorn belong to this family, that is how the Abercorn Arms got its name. The coat of arms which is reproduced above and on all summonses of the Abercorn Lodge is based on the arms of the Earls of Abercorn and no doubt the same device graced the inn sign of the Abercorn Arms Hotel. The arms are described in heraldic terms as
Arms: Quarterly, 1st and 4th, gules three cinquefoils argent; 2nd and 3rd, argent a lymphad with her sails furled sable.
Crest: Out of a ducal coronet or, an oak tree fructed and transversed with a frame-saw proper the frame gold.
Motto: Sola Nobilitas Virtus (Virtue is the Only Nobility).
Meetings were held monthly and the lodge grew rapidly at first - six brethren were passed to the second degree on the 5th September 1876 and five were raised to the third degree on the 3rd October the same year – and there were around 30 members by 1878, which number seems to have remained more or less constant thereafter.
A Royal Arch chapter, the Stanmore Chapter no. 1549, was founded on 5th May 1880, and the Abercorn Lodge of Instruction held its first meeting in 1902.
The Lodge continued to meet at the Abercorn Arms until 1941 when the proprietor advised the Lodge that they could no longer be accommodated, and a move was made to the Gayton Rooms, Station Road, Harrow. The Abercorn Lodge of Instruction went to the Red Lion Hotel Harrow Weald the following year.
Meetings continued to be held during most of the second world war despite the difficult conditions, and the Lodge and Chapter moved to the Harrow Masonic Centre in 1955, followed by the LOI in 1961.
FOUNDERS' PHOTOGRAPHS
Condensed by Stephen Aleck from a history written by W. Bro. A. J. Jordan for the centenary meeting commemorative brochure, 1975.