Page 8 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

8 An Account of the

material, he found, however, that he lacked the time needed to complete the
work, and it was eventually entrusted to Bros. ALEXANDER SEFI (and P.J.DAWSON)
The choice of Bro. Sefi, a scholar, a man of wide culture, and by profession a
writer, was ideal; but before he had got seriously to work he died prematurely
and tragically to the grievous loss of the Lodge.
After further delays the task devolved, faute de mieux, on the present compiler,
(W. Bro. Alan Foxley whose name was omitted through modesty) who could lay
no claim to Bro. Sefi’s gifts and acquirements, or to the intimate acquaintance with
the social, literary, artistic and Masonic history of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries which the work demanded, and indeed had little qualification for his rash
undertaking beyond superabundant leisure and a share of north-country assurance.
Readers, therefore, must not look for a systematic display of exact scholarship or
profound research; the aim of the book will be reached if it gives the Brethren some
vision of the richness of their inheritance, and encourages them, if encouragement
be needed, in fulfilling the obligation to hand on unbroken to their successors the
fine tradition of the Lodge of the Nine Muses.
The recorded meetings of the Lodge number about 750 , and the holding of
1
another 230 or so may reasonably be inferred – nearly a thousand in all. In the great
majority of cases the work undertaken followed the routine familiar to Masons, and
offers nothing calling for remark. The idea of a consecutive narrative has, therefore,
been abandoned, and the various matters have been grouped together under several
headings in accordance with their subjects. Though this method has its drawbacks,
involving as it does some amount of repetition and cross-reference, it seems on the
whole to make for clarity and the avoidance of a dispersal of interest.
As far as possible the minutes of the Lodge and other documents quoted
have been allowed to tell their own story in their own words, preserving those
idiosyncrasies of grammar, spelling, and punctuation which so often give a human
touch to the driest of narrative.
Considerations of space have strictly repressed the inclination to wander down
the many fascinating byways which open off the main track, but a few divagations
must be confessed and may, perhaps, be condoned. Slips in detail will no doubt be
discovered; it is hoped that they are not many. An apparatus of notes and citations

1 Number in 1939. Since then there have been another 300 or so and by 2012 this figure is
must be about 1250.