|
 Although
there is and has been no direct link between Rotary and
Freemasonry as
organisations, many non-members have considered the two to be similar,
in that they both have restrictions on membership by election rather
than application, and both, if not shrouded in secrecy, have in the past
kept themselves to themselves with a minimum of publicity. For many
years, the Roman Catholic Church, a long time opponent of freemasonry,
banned members of the church from joining Rotary as well, believing it
to be 'masonic' in character if not in name. Bans on the meetings and
existence of the one by certain political regimes inevitably included a
ban on the other.
 It
is difficult to be precisely accurate about the links but some items
have recently surfaced which confirm that some Lodges were largely if
not entirely composed of Rotarians. The discovery of a badge with the
Rotary wheel encircling the Masonic pair of compasses and the letter 'G'
is evidence of this (see 'Rotary, Freemasonry and
the Roman Catholic Church); similarly an envelope recently
offered for sale had a label attached reading as follows:
ROTARIAN
LODGE. No. 4195.
A Masonic Lodge for
Members of the Rotary Movement whose Badge is in the Emblem.
Rotarian Lodge No. 4195, London was granted its warrant
by the United Grand Lodge of England on November 3, 1920. The lodge had
29 petitioners (founder members),
all of whom would have had to have been Freemasons before
they petitioned Grand Lodge to form a new lodge. A letter accompanying
the petition, from one of the founders, Charles Dewey, states that the
petitioners were all
members of the London Rotary Club, which at that time had
over 300 members. |
The original name for the lodge was the London Rotary
Lodge and it was to meet at the Holborn Restaurant. There is another
letter in the petition papers, in which the petitioners agree to a
suggestion from the Grand
Master that the lodge be called the Rotarian Lodge,
opening it to all members of Rotary, not just those in the London club.
The lodge is still going strong and now meets at Freemasons Hall in
Great Queen Street.
This is not the only Rotary lodge under the United Grand
Lodge of England and it was not the first. The first was the Nottingham
Rotary Lodge No.3941, formed in 1919 and mentioned in the Dewey letter.
Another was the
North Notts Rotary Lodge (see below). in more recent
times there have been five other Rotary Lodges, the Rotary Lodge of
Suffolk No. 9306, East Lancashire Rotary Lodge No. 9359, Rotary Lodge of
Norfolk No. 9367,
Rotarian Lodge of Hong Kong No. 9378 and Rotary Lodge of
Hampshire No. 9389. These last five have all been formed in the last
twenty years.
Older Rotarians have said that there used to be Rotary
Clubs that only accepted Masons as members. However, an edict came down
sometime in the
late 1930s from R.I. that quietly instructed such clubs
to admit non-masonic members or they would lose their charters. After
WW II, it was found that there were no Rotary clubs that were excluding
possible members
due to their membership in other organzations apart from
those in other service clubs, something which was already prohibited in
the manual of procedure.
Interestingly, Round Table Lodges are far more common
today. Nearly every Province has a Round Table lodge and some have more
than one.
RGHF Senior Historian
Basil Lewis
with information supplied by the Librarian at the
Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London, and with assistance from
Senior Historian,
Dr. Wolfgang
Ziegler 17 October 2003, revised 2 May 2007
|
  Another interesting item,
which Dr. Ziegler bought at auction, is the medal from the North Notts
Rotary Lodge No 8998, with the Masonic symbols and the Rotary wheel.
The connection of Rotary and Freemasonry is of old - as we both know
- and in most cases should not be regarded with suspicion ("however, as
I understand, in some Easteuropean countries, newly founded Rotary Clubs
are sometimes the exclusive domain of Masons"). In any case, the medal
proves, that the connection is still strong today.
Dr. Wolfgang
Ziegler |
Subscribe to RGHF's weekly email
features free: