Page 30 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

30 An Account of the

of wine drunk by the Brethren on various occasions? As will be seen all these
curiosities and many more occur in the earlier minutes, and whatever of
interest there is in the later books, and there is plenty, the inevitable loss of
this human touch can only be deplored.
The first extant minute-book has been originally smartly bound in calf, now
a good deal decayed, with a red morocco panel and gilt lettering on the cover.
The purchase of the book is thus recorded in the minutes for 21 January 1816:
“The Secretary was directed to provide a new Book for the continuation of the
minutes of the lodge which had lately been kept on detached papers (and this
book was subsequently provided).”
There is a title page, finely written in a large, bold hand with some flourishes.
It reads: “Lodge/of/The Nine Muses (No.421)/held at/The Thatched House
Tavern/St James Street.”
Then after a space: “The Minutes of the Proceedings/in the Lodge continued
from the last/meeting in the year 1813 which see/page 135 of the last book.”
After another space “Fred. Turner/Secretary /5 Bloomsbury Square.”
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Bro. Webb points out that 135 pages, on the average of the later minute-books,
would cover a period of 17 or 18 years; if minutes were regularly kept from the
first, as they presumably were, there must then have been at least two lost books
before the first one extant, for from 1777 to 1814 is 37 years; unless, that is, the
pages were numbered in pairs, as in a ledger. The first extant minute-book is
actually so numbered.
The Lodge of Rural Friendship must also have had a minute-book: this too
has disappeared.
Very possibly these books still exist, but all efforts to trace them have so far
failed. Nothing is known of them at Freemasons’ Hall. They may turn up some
time among the archives of another Lodge, or be recovered in the day when the
strong-rooms of the Banks give up their dead.
It may be noted here that since its foundation the Lodge has been allotted
the following successive numbers: in 1777, 502; in 1782, 408; in 1792, 330;
in 1814, 421; in 1832, 286; in 1863, 235, the number by which it is still
distinguished.