Page 62 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

CHAPTER SIX

FINANCE

OR many years past, as the annual statements presented by successive
Treasurers have shown, the question of ways and means has ceased to be
Fone of anxiety to the Lodge; but this is far from having always been the
case, and some account of early difficulties, and the expedients resorted to in
order to meet them, may be of interest to present members.
The first minute bearing on the subject is on 25 November 1814, the year in
which the minutes begin. “The Secretary was requested to meet the Treasurer,
ascertain the arrears due from the Brethren & order that application be made for
arrears by the Tyler.”
Members were expected to pay their subscriptions at the February Lodge
meeting, and the Tyler was sent round to the members’ houses to collect such as
were not then paid.
The Tyler also, at any rate upon occasion, took round the summonses to the
meetings, as we learn from the minutes for 24 November 1815:

“The Afs. Tr. paid the Tyler for the last two meetings 10/6 each being an excess of
5/- for delivering the monthly summonses for the last meeting & for receipts 1/- tog . r
£1. 2.” The contraction for “afsistant” is not happily chosen.
Under the date 27 October 1815 we read “The R.W.M. paid Messrs Willis
£17. 6. 6. on further acc . of their bill leaving a bal up to the 28th last inclusive of
t
£32.6.6. (besides waiters) due to Messrs Willis.” Messrs Willis were the proprietors
of the Thatched House Tavern, where the Lodge then met.
Members seem to have been very remiss about paying their subscriptions, and
this state of indebtedness to Messrs Willis was more or less permanent. Messrs Willis
must have been fairly complacent; but indifference to debts, except those of honour,
was characteristic of the age, and tradesmen were too commonly expected to look
on the payment of their accounts as a favour. Whether this attitude of mind on the
part of debtors has even now died out entirely some tradesmen could tell.