Page 27 - The Early History of The Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. UGLE

THE CONCLUDING PARADOX

RUTH IS ALWAYS DIFFICULT to discover, a fleeting ‘will-o’the wisp’.
What really happened will probably never be known but at least events
Tended happily for Thomas Harper and the Lodge of the Nine Muses as, in
1810, his expulsion was rescinded.
He was immediately welcomed back into the Lodge by the R.W.M. who was,
of all people, Sir William Rawlins, the very person who had acted as Deputy to Earl
Moira during the expulsion proceedings. However we must remember that these two
had worked together previously in the Globe Lodge for five years, and it is most likely
that Sir William had originally been ‘made’ a Mason in an ‘Antients’
Lodge. We find that Harper was re-elected Deputy Master of the Lodge of the
Nine Muses for many years and he and Sir William regularly attended the Lodge for
the remainder of their masonic careers, supporting each other’s propositions, bringing
their relatives into the Lodge and entertaining each other at ‘Lodges of Recreation’.
All are entered in the Minutes when these begin in 1814. Thomas Harper was made
an Honorary Member in 1827, and he died in 1832, whilst Sir William resigned the
Office of Treasurer in 1835, and he died in 1838.
This hardly seems the merited reward for a brother responsible for ‘failing to bring
about a Union’ even allowing for fraternal principles. We must always remember,
however, that he was responsible to his own Grand Lodge that the efficient machine
of good will and loyalty which had been built up was not destroyed during integration
with a more powerful but less efficient one. However, had the blame been placed
on those who now appear to be largely responsible, the Union would have been
unthinkable.
In such a situation there had to be a scapegoat and if the Act of Union was the
major purpose for which the Lodge of the Nine Muses had so enthusiastically worked
and had been so generously supported it would also explain why it was allowed to
sink into the background. It is fortunate to have survived, largely by the efforts of
Thomas Harper and Sir William Rawlins and it remained a small respected London
Lodge, ignorant of its great past which concerns this Paper.