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Earlham Lodge No. 7266 

  

Updated 08 July 2005 10:09

Approved by United Grand Lodge

 

 

The Earlham Lodge was Consecrated 30th April 1953 at Freemasons Hall London

Original Founders

Chingford Combined Craft Meeting

 When         Wednesday 27th July 2005-02-09

 Where        Chingford Masonic Hall

 Time          17:00

 Hosts        Earlham Lodge No 7266

 Speaker     Elkan Levy Assistant Grand Registrar

 Subject      Brotherhood in Conflict- Freemasonry in the American Civil War

 Cost           £25

ALL MEMBERS ARE WELCOME the PGM will be in attendance

 

Our Meetings are held On the 1st Tuesday in the Months of  March and June 2nd Tuesday in the Months of November and January The Installation Meeting is on 1st Wednesday in September.

 

OUR NEXT LODGE MEETING:-

Wednesday 7th September @4pm Sharp

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Click Here For Nostalgia Central 

Minutes 7th June 2005 Click Here

Click Here for the Province of Essex Home Page http://www.essex-lodges.org/

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What’s in a Name???

  EARLHAM takes its name from the village of that name on the banks of the River Yare near Norwich in Norfolk.

  Earlham Hall, the family seat of the family of Earlham (forebears of the Gurneys) stands above the River Yare, flowing under an old stone bridge outside Norwich, winding under overhanging trees and round the park of the Hall.  Since 1925, this has been the property of the Norwich Corporation.

  The original family of Earlham were squires of the village, churchgoers and one member of the family became incumbent of the parish.  A decade or so later the Gurneys became owners of the Earlham Hall, a family of Quakers, philanthropists and City bankers.

  Elizabeth Gurney married Joseph Fry of Upton House, Plashet, near Epping, and later became famous for her championship of the cause against slavery in which she allied herself with William Wilberforce.  She is best remembered, perhaps for her work as a prison reformer, particularly with regard to Newgate Prison.

  Both she and her brother Joseph John Gurney were born in West Ham in 1788, and Joseph Gurney died at Earlham Hall in 1847.

  Another brother, Samuel Gurney, in whose memory an obelisk drinking fountain was erected in Stratford Broadway, lived at Ham House, Upton, near Plashet, upon his marriage to Elizabeth Sheppard.

  Sprowston Hall in Forest Gate became the home of Samuel Gurney’s grandson, John Gurney who, it will be remembered, was instrumental in the conveyance of West Ham Park to the Corporation of the City of London for the benefit of the people of West Ham.  The estimated value of this Park at the time was £25,000 of which sum John Gurney generously gave £10,000.  The Park is under the control of a committee of fifteen persons, four of whom are nominated by the Gurney family.  It seems in the order of things that West Ham Park, so long the residence of two such people as Samuel Gurney and Elizabeth Fry, whose names were for a long period household words for deeds of pure philanthropy, should be dedicated forever to the healthful enjoyment of all classes of people and thus be preserved as a blessing for all time.

  The association of Earlham with the actual Lodge is that a School of Instruction originally met in Earlham Grove, and at that time many of its members lived in the vicinity (Earlham Grove, Norwich Road, Sprowston Road, Upton Lane, etc) all of course associated with the Earlham and Gurney Family.

We are celebrating our 1st Half Century in April 2003..........

Here's to the next 50 years......................
 

This is just a sample from a vast repository of information, facts, and figures please watch this space.....................

If you have comments or suggestions, email me at gerald@computerservices.ltd.uk

Site Maintained by Gerald Chevin PProvAGStB, PPGReg LGCR.

  

 

The Earlham CHAPTER  

 

 

To read the Minutes for 7th July 2005 Click Here

The Next Chapter Meeting Thursday 1st December  2005

Chingford Masonic Centre at 5 pm Sharp

The Earlham Chapter was Consecrated in 1987 by a dedicated team of Freemasons whose names are recorded on the summons:- Our meetings have an average attendance of 33 and our Preceptor E Comp Ronnie Marks LGCR is responsible for the highly acclaimed Ritual that is performed. If you wish to learn more about the Earlham Chapter or indeed wish to become a member please contact the Scribe E E. Comp Gerald Chevin LGCR  ukchapter@aol.com

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ANNO LUCIS & OTHER DATING SYSTEMS 

Most Companions are aware of the Masonic practise of adding 4000 years to the present date to give the Masonic year or 'Anno Lucis', meaning the year of light; so that the present 2000 A.D. becomes 6000 A.L. in the Masonic Calendar. This is a survival from the period when Freemasonry was essentially Christian and is based on the ancient idea that the Messiah or Christ would be born 4000 years after the creation of the Universe. Everyone now knows that the world is thousands of millions of years old, but this was not known in the 17th Century so the calendar in those days counted the Creation (Anno Lucis) as 4000 B.C.

In 1611 the Irish Bishop, James Usher published his famous 'Chronology', wherein by working back through all the characters and events in the Bible he 'proved' that the world began in 4004 B.C.

A famous couplet of the time went thus: 

'How strange it is for us to see That Christ was born in 4 B.C.'

However, Usher's computation became so popular that certain King James' Bibles were printed with each page dated according to Usher's dates. There is no trace of Usher's work in any Masonic documents in late operative times, so the speculative Craft would seem to have adopted it in the 18th - 19th Centuries, where for convenience the round 4000 years was used. The Jewish calendar itself counts the creation as 3760 years before the present Christian era so that the dating for 2000 would be 5760, but because the New Year begins in September or October (according to the old Julian calendar) 3761 years must be added after the Jewish New Year has begun. Some of the different Masonic orders use different dating systems.

ROYAL ARCH dating is from the commencement of the Second Temple in 560 B.C. so that 2000 A.D. becomes A.Inv. (Anno Inventionis or the Year of Discovery) 2560.

ROYAL & SELECT MASTERS date from the completion of King Solomon's Temple or the Year of Deposit in 1000 B.C., so that 2000 A.D. becomes A.Dep. 3000.

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR usually date from the founding of the Medieval Order of the Temple in 1118 A.D. Thus they deduct 1118 from the present year and 2000 A.D. becomes A.O. (Anno Ordinis) 882.

THE ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE count from the creation (Anno Mundi) and they use the Jewish dating, sometimes with the prefix A.H. (Anno Hebraico) as above.

The present system of A.D. and B.C. was put forward at Rome early in the 6th Century by Dionysius Exigius to mark the birth of Christ, but modern research and scholarship has shown that the year he chose is too late and that the probable true date is actually around 4 - 5 B.C.