Page 38 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

38 An Account of the

13
in all its 160 years the Lodge has had only one clerical member, the Reverend
Moses Porter, B.D., initiated in 1781; two reverend gentlemen, however, occur
in the Rural Friendship list, the Rev. Wm. Love, and the Rev. John Eyre of
“Ommerton” (a queer bit of Cockney phonetics), both initiated on 11 June 1789.
Bro. Eyre was a man of some note in his day in Evangelical circles, and was a
founder of the London Missionary Society.
Bro. Harris seems to have acted as a permanent Steward from 1838 to 1857,
after which his name no longer appears in the minutes, and in 1836 Bro. Colls
had been appointed. Before that Stewards were, it would seem, in the main, an
aspiration rather than an actuality.
In January 1816 the election of Stewards was “deferred” – the first reference to
the office. In January 1817 Bro. Moss was elected Senior, and Bro. Mathias Junior
Steward, but in November 1818 “The Stewards report as to the furniture of the
Lodge was deferred to the next meeting”, only, together with the election of the
Stewards themselves, to be again deferred, and both were once more deferred in 1819.
The Lodge furniture was apparently in the special care of the Stewards, or they
had been deputed to report on its condition.
The years 1820 and 1821 saw the election of Stewards again deferred, and
the minutes have no further allusion to the subject till Bro. Colls’ appointment
in 1836. As we have seen, the Lodge has managed without Stewards for the last
eighty years; in a small Lodge there is little or nothing for them to do.
Stewards are, however, named among the officers in the Signature Book of
1806, described in Chapter Thirteen.
The allusion to Bro. Ruspini in the minutes for 28 January 1814 is obscure.
On 25 March 1814 the Secretary was “directed to apply to the executors of the
r
late Bro . : Ruspini for £37. 7 the arrears due from him to this Lodge”, and on 13
r
m
April 1824, ten years later, “Brother Sir W . Rawlins Treas . : reported that since the
last meeting he had reced payt of £8. 15 in lieu of arrears due by the late Chev . r
Ruspini”, about five shillings in the pound.
It is to be hoped that the Lodge had repaid the £60 expended on its behalf by
Bro. Ruspini during its period of inactivity; but the Account Books of the Lodge only
begin with the year 1835, and the minutes throw no further light on the transaction.

13 Unless Bro. Joseph White, who joined or was initiated on 24 November 1809, can be
identified with J.W., 1745-1814, Professor of Arabic and Hebrew at Oxford; this is unlikely.
On 8 March 1836, the Rev. Geo. Wilson Sicklemore even went so far as to be elected for
initiation, but never presented himself. He was Vicar of St Lawrence in the Isle of Thanet, a
place now overwhelmed by Ramsgate, from 1836 till his death in 1880.