Granite Lodge No.2028
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Warranted: 22nd December 1883 Consecrated: 14th February 1884 Centenary Warrant: 14th February 1984 Held at Leicester on the first Monday from October to April and the first Tuesday in May Installation meeting: May |
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History
A special meeting of Provincial Grand Lodge was held at 3.15pm at the Narborough Hotel, Leicestershire, on Valentine’s Day, 14th February 1884 to consecrate the Granite Lodge. Granite Lodge became the eleventh Lodge in the county to be granted its Warrant. The present form of the Lodge Badge first appeared on the Summons of 25th June 1885. However the motto ‘Sermon in Stones and Good in Everything’ has always been depicted – it is thought that the name and the motto are almost certainly connected to the local granite quarries at Enderby and Croft. There is one direct link with the occupations of the founders and early members i.e. Mr G W Rawson who was initiated at the first Regular Meeting on Thursday 6th March 1884. He was the Lodge’s eighth Master in 1891/92, and was a quarry owner.
At that first meeting twelve members were balloted for membership and nine were initiated. A frequent practice in those early days saw more than one ceremony at the same meeting and often four or five candidates were passed and raised on the same evening. The Lodge met on Thursdays on or before the full moon in every month apart from May, August, and September. Members from Leicester were able to use the train, and on production of the Summons they secured a reduced fare. In 1890 the first initiate in the Lodge was installed as W.M., namely Bro. T.W. Everard. Bro. Herbert Simpson was installed in June 1897 at a ceremony where there were only 17 members present and all four wardens and deacons were absent. He became W.M. in 1905 and initiated his father. Later that year he initiated his brother, and three years after (by permission of the then Master), initiated his son, W.Bro. H. Simpson, who became Lord Mayor of Leicester in 1924.
Meetings were altered to the second Thursday in 1903, and in 1914 to the first Monday, as now. The Lodge continued to meet in Narborough until April 1914. In that year representations were made to W.Bro. Everard, the owner of the Narborough Hotel, to carry out certain improvements but these were denied, and therefore Granite moved to Leicester. Granite’s first daughter Lodge, the Enderby Lodge No.5061, was consecrated on 22nd January 1929, and its second daughter Granstone Lodge No.6406, on 29th September 1946.
