Page 78 - Amo Amass A-muse is some of the fruit of a lifetimes love of Freemasonry - the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235

78 Amo Amass A-Muse - Lodge of the Nine Muses

Guard are put on a regular footing. A Director or Master of the Ceremonies is noted again
in 1834, but we shall see that there was a Mas. Cer. in 1796.
Previous to 1814 there are other references to Officers and their Jewels, and the Lodge
still possessed the unique set of their original Jewels for the R.W.M., SW,J.W, Tres. and
Secy. They consist of Miniatures in Gilt frames having been painted by Bro. Cipriani R.A.,
a founder raised in the Lodge before the date of its Warrant. They must have been painted
between 1777 and 1778 because in the latter year they were worn by the Wardens, Past
Master and Master at a meeting of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Kent, but we are not
told whether the Treasurer or Secretary were also present.
A short History of the Lodge appears in the Freemasons’ Magazine of February 1796.
The first meeting shows that there was a R.W.M. two Wardens and a Treasurer. Perhaps
there was at First a Recorder or paid Scribe but a Secretary as a member must have been
approved because Cipriani had painted a miniature for him. It also states that the Officers
in 1796 consisted of the R.W.M., S.W., J.W., Treasurer, Secretary and the Mas. Cer. (Master
of Ceremonies), and in subsequent numbers of the Magazine are depicted their Jewels,
famous even in those days. Apollo, holding a Square, is the emblem for the R.W.M. and
the remaining jewels have each a Muse displaying the emblem of the Office. There was
no Jewel for the Mas. Cer. but the last in the series was the Jewel worn by the P.M. of the
Lodge of Symbolic Masons. There never was such a Lodge but a Symbolic Past Master was
one that had passed the Chair in a Craft Lodge in contra-distinction to a Geometric Past
Master as a preliminary to Exaltation. The Muse in this case exhibits the earlier emblem for
a Past Master consisting of Square and Compasses with various other emblems between
them. This is the Jewel that must have been worn by the P.M. at the Provincial Grand
Lodge of Kent in 1778. It is no longer in the possession of the Lodge.
In 1902, Brother Trevor Galsworthy, a P.M. of the Lodge of No. 165, the Lodge of
Honour and Generosity, presented the Lodge with a further miniature, representing
Mercury of the same size as the Lodge Jewels. It is not known who or when it was painted
and, although it is clearly the Deacon’s emblem of Lodges working under the Grand
Lodge of the Ancients, it is now worn by the Master of the Ceremonies.
So far there is no sign of a Steward or a Deacon, but there is in the possession of the
Lodge our ‘Signature Book’ which was started at our revival by some members of the
Lodge of Antiquity, then No. 1 in 1805. The Lodge had been dormant since 1803 when