Page 49 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

CHAPTER FIVE

MEMBERSHIP
A
LIST of the members of the Lodge of the Nine Muses, from its
foundation in 1777 to May 1939, so far as it can now be recovered,
is given in Appendix A, and for the Lodge of Rural Friendship in
Appendix B.
For the period 1777-1814, for which the Lodge has no minutes, the lists are
taken almost entirely from the Register of the Grand Lodge, supplemented by
the Signature Book (vide Chapter Thirteen). The list in the Register extends to 13
May 1823, and so overlaps the Lodge records, which begin on 28 January 1814;
from the beginning of 1814 the Lodge minute-books have been followed; the
two lists do not agree entirely in detail. The list at the Grand Lodge is no doubt in
the main correct, but the names of a few Brothers who from the Signature Book
or other sources are known to have been members are not to be found there.
Further, before the practice was put an end to by the Grand Lodge, Lodges
initiated at will candidates who did not become members, and it is not always
possible to distinguish those who did so from those who did not. The list is
therefore given subject to these reservations; but from the beginning of 1814
onwards it can be relied on.
Judging from the number of Brothers shown as having joined or having been
initiated in the early years of the Lodge-there are sixty-eight names in the five
years beginning with 1777 the Lodge must at first have been a fairly large one;
it will be remembered that it was “meeting numerously” in 1796. Then followed
the surprising slump between 1802 and 1806, discussed in Chapter Two.
Since the revival the numbers have never been so large
It is not easy to determine the exact number of members in the Lodge when
the minutes begin on January 1814; those actually certain number fifteen, so far
as the writer can ascertain, but 1814 saw seven more members, six initiated and
one joining. Complete returns are filed at the Grand Lodge from 1837 onwards.
In 1837 the number was returned as seventeen, rising in 1839 and 1840 to