Page 91 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 91

It reads:
Resolved that a Summer Lodge be held at the Castle, Richmond on Tuesday June
13th at 6 for ½ p 6 if 5 members of the Lodge will promise to attend, each bringing
one or more members of his family each member paying the actual cost for himself
& his Visitors – a deposit of £1 to be paid down to be forfeited on nonattendance.
Though the meeting in 1848 was the last to be minuted, the first Account
Book to some extent fills the gap. From this it is learnt that the 1848 meeting
took place at Richmond.
We find further that in 1849 a dinner was held at Greenwich, in 1850 and 1855
at Blackwall, in 1856 and 1858 again at Greenwich, and in 1861 at Richmond.
Blackwall is not the place one would choose now for a social evening, but at one
time it shared the fame of Greenwich. As late as 1885 Timbs’s Curiosities of London
tells us that “In the large taverns at Blackwall gourmets flock to eat whitebait, a
delicious little fish caught in the Reach and directly netted out of the river into the
frying-pan.” The Court, the Lord Mayor, the Royal Society and the Cabinet are
mentioned as patrons; but docks and shipbuilding were already encroaching.
After an interval of fourteen years, a Lodge of Recreation was once more held
at the Star and Garter, in July 1875.
No details are given in the Account Book beyond the bald statement of
receipts and expenditure; but in 1855, 1858 and 1861 at least ladies were present.
The last entries of the kind in the Account Book relate to what is called a
“water-party” or “picnic” in July 1884. This was on an ambitious scale; the figures
suggest that about a hundred people, members, ladies and friends, were there.
The occasion took the form of a river party on the Thames, for which the
well-known old barge, the “Maria Wood” was chartered, as we learn from Bro.
Luxmoore Marshall, who was present.
Bro. Marshall writes: “The weather was fine & so of course was the catering,
but to my mind it was too long a day; perhaps people were bored with each other,
any way it was never repeated.”
On the last page and the back end-paper of the first minute-book is a list of
the Lodges of Recreation held at the houses of members, and another of the