As with any birth there must be a conception and so it is with Abbey Lodge.
Normally the birth of a Lodge is the fruit of a group of Masons from one or more Lodges identifying a need to form a new Lodge, Abbey Lodge was conceived from within The Whalley Union Club Company Limited.
So how did such an unusual birth occur? We need to go back a few more years to 1880 in fact when a plot of land was purchased and upon which was built the Union Club premises.
The members of the Union Club were all prominent men from Whalley and the surrounding area and while some of the members were Freemasons most were not.
Two of the most prominent members of the Club where however Freemasons namely Richard Thompson who was originally part owner of the land and Thomas Longworth a Director of the Union Club. These men were instrumental in developing the idea of establishing a new Lodge in Whalley and the following is an extract from the first Minute Book:-
A meeting long to be remembered by the Masonic members present was held at the House of Bro. Richard Thompson of Whalley on the 12th June 1894 when it was unanimously decided that in the interests of masonry it was desirable to form a Lodge in the ancient village and the right Worshipful Provincial Grand Master Brother Le Gendre Nicholas Starkey having expressed a desire to be Immediate Past Master only it was decided to ask Bro. William Forrest 37 Past Master, Provincial Grand Deacon to be the first Worshipful Master. Fourteen Brethren expressed a desire to become founder members.
Of the original 14 founder members of the Lodge 12 were members of the Union Club but only six of those twelve were Freemasons at the beginning of 1894. To establish a Lodge and include those six non-mason founders they had to arrange that they be initiated, passed and raised prior to September 1894 – a period of less than six months.
It was at this point that the Red Rose of Lancaster Lodge No. 1504 came to the rescue of the proposed founding members W. Bro. William Bear who was initiated into the Red Rose of Lancaster Lodge in 1875 and who was at that time their Worshipful Master solicited the help of his Lodge. This must have involved quite a lot of organisation and commitment by the members of that Lodge and it must have been an interesting meeting not to say an exhausting one when on the evening of the 5th April 1894 five ceremonies took place.
- A Birtwhistle initiated
- J Hargreaves initiated
- Bro. J R Thompson raised
- Bro. A Hanson raised and
- Bro. T H Thompson raised
It is not surprising, therefore, that through this kind of support it was the Red Rose of Lancaster Lodge who sponsored the formation of Abbey Lodge No. 2529 and therefore became our Mother Lodge.
The support Abbey Lodge received at that time and the bond that exists between her mother and daughter Lodge has been an important, valuable and intrinsic relationship between the two Lodges sadly the Red Rose of Lancaster Lodge closed in May 2018.
Abbey Lodge 2529 Family Tree
Abbey Lodge 2529 Consecration
It was at a meeting in the home of Bro. J N Withers on the 19th June 1894 that W. Bro. Forrest indicated his pleasure in becoming the first Worshipful Master (WM) of Abbey Lodge and a petition was prepared ‘praying the Grand Master, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales to grant his warrant’.
The warrant was granted on the 18th July 1894 and the Right Worshipful Provincial Grand Master, Colonel Le Gendre Nicholas Starkie fixed Wednesday the 26th September 1894 for the Consecration.
And so it was that the Consecration took place on the 26th September 1894 at 2:30 pm in the Assembly Rooms, Whalley (now the Night Club) on the left of the accompanying photograph. Whilst the original summons indicates that the Right Honourable the Earl of Latham GCB would be the Consecrating Officer, the ceremony was in fact carried out by W. Bro. Col. G. Noel Money PGSW, Provincial Grand Master for Surrey.
Abbey Lodge: The First 125 Years
In 2019 Abbey Lodge 2529 celebrated its 125th anniversary.
A booklet was put together which captures most of the stories from these decades of existence and is reproduced here in flip book format. Most of the information in the flip book is available across this website.
