Page 23 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 23

6
Of Robert Biggin nothing seems to be known; but the next name, that
of Bro. the Chevalier Ruspini, is or ought to be familiar to all Masons, for
he was the founder, in 1788, of the first of the great Masonic charities – the
Royal Cumberland Female School, now the Royal Masonic Institution for
Girls. Little could he have anticipated that by a strange turn of fortune two of
his own granddaughters were to receive their education there; but so it was.
He was. also a prime mover in the founding of the Prince of Wales’s Lodge
in 1778, was Grand Secretary in 1772 and Grand Sword Bearer from 1791 to
his death in 1813, and had a hand in very many of the Masonic movements of
his day. He was, as has been seen, Master of the Nine Muses in 1796, and very
likely longer, for it was not unusual at that time for the Master and Wardens
to retain office for a number of years in succession. We know that he was
Master also in 1801.
Apart from his Masonic activities the Chevalier’s career was interesting. He
was born circa 1730 at Romacoto near Bergamo in northern Italy, qualified
in surgery in the Bergamo Hospital, and later studied dentistry at Paris. He
came to England in 1750 and in 1766 to London, where, setting up in practice
as a dentist in Pall Mall, he soon built up an aristocratic connection; among
his patients was the Prince of Wales, afterwards King George the Fourth. Bro.
Ruspini came of an old family and passed as a gentleman among gentlemen
when that distinction meant something more than it does now, and his example
did much to raise the status of dentistry in this country from that of mere
tooth-pulling to the specialised branch of the profession of surgery as we know
it. He was a man of extensive benevolence, and interested himself especially in
befriending the many refugees whom the distresses of Italy drove into England.
This interest is reflected in the large Italian element in our early membership.
In acknowledgement of these services the Pope, without solicitation, conferred
on him the Order of the Golden Spur, with the title of Chevalier.
Several curious relics of the Chevalier are on view at the Grand Lodge
Museum. These include a dental mirror and a box for a dentifrice which he
compounded; the box bears his arms on the lid. A business card of the Chevalier’s
is also exhibited there; this, elegantly engraved in the classical taste of the day,

6 The Gentleman’s Magazine for July 1784 records the death at “Brussells” of a “Robert Biggin
efq . ”
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