Paul Gardner tells the history of the Hall Stone Jewel and its back story embedded in the Great War.
Many masons would have heard of the Hall-Stone Jewel, and some may belong to, or visit, lodges that have that collaret jewel worn by their reigning Master, with pride.
The Emulation Ritual gives the words for presentation:
I NOW PRESENT TO YOU……WHICH WAS CONFERRED BY THE MW THE GRAND MASTER……YOU WILL OBSERVE ITS FORM IS SYMBOLIC…..DATES 1914 1918 FOUR YEAR OF SUPREME SACRIFICE….IN THE CENTRE IS A WINGED FIGURE OF PEACE SUPPORTING A TEMPLE…THIS SYMBOLISES THE GIFT MADE BY THE ENGLISH CRAFT OF A NEW TEMPLE IN MEMORY OF THOSE BRETHREN WHO MADE THE SUPREME SCRIFICE FOR KING AND COUNTRY
It goes on to state:
IN WEARING THAT JEWEL IT FULFILS A DUEL PURPOSE…FIRSTLY IT PROVIDES VISIBLE EVIDENCE THAT THE LODGE DISCHARGED ITS OBLIGATION TO THE FRATERNITY AND….SECONDLY IT SHOULD EVER PROVIDE INSPIRATION FOR EVERY BROTHER TO PUT SERVICE BEFORE SELF
1 Hall-Stone Jewel, collaret worn by their reigning Master
2 The Emulation Ritual gives the words for presentation:
3 Lodge name inscribed on the memorial wall in the vestibule.
4 Memorial Chest Scroll
IMAGE credit: supplied by author
It is passed on from Master to Master at times of Installation and therefore will adorn the Master until time with us will be no more.
This is the Jewel shown above and it is worn with pride and passed from master to master to retain the memory of the great sacrifice.
It was awarded to lodges and individuals who contributed financially to the Masonic Million Memorial Fund which raised £1.3m and built Freemasons’ Hall in London and support other schemes in the Province.
Those lodges that achieved the subscription level also had their lodge name inscribed on the memorial wall in the vestibule.
Those who were masons are recorded and remembered in the Memorial Chest Scroll below the Commemorate window and in the accompanying book.
The book reveals many lodges losing numbers and acknowledging the military lodges the University lodges suffered the most being the cradle of the young willing officer class.
Apollo, Oxford No357 recorded 58 and Isaac Newton No 859, 16, most leading from the front into the fray.
The beautiful stained glass window in the portico of Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street, London
IMAGE credit: supplied by author
The beautiful stained glass window depicts the winged figure of peace holding a representation of the portico of Freemasons’ Hall.
The jewels have a facimile of a Greco-Roman temple instead as the building’s final designe was not known at the time of the jewels being struck. The design artist was Cyril Spackman.
The 1st World War, the war to end all wars, and it nearly did with the annihilation of over 5.1 million troops, British and Commonwealth and Allied plus over 3 million unaccounted for and millions wounded.
British soldiers killed estimated to be 760,000. The Western Front was to become the focus but other theatres such as the Eastern Front for the Russians, allies of the British, was horrendous.
Early in 1915 came the Dardenels and Gallipoli being the Crimea of 50 years before. This was the soft underbelly of Europe planned to take pressure off the western front as Churchill, First Sea Lord, planned but ended in failure.
But the aforementioned millions pale into insignificance when struck by the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919 which came back with the troops wiping out a further 20 million.
What does this number mean by comparison the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1860/64 totalled 634,000 deaths !
WWI Trench warfare map
IMAGE credit: supplied by author
Trench warfare, not known to the Generals, it developed with only a taster in the Boer War at the beginning of the century. The trenches ran through the green fields of France and Flanders finally in total from the Channel to the Alps.
Here is the route:
VIMA RIDGE [27,000 CANADIANS DIED]
ALBERT – BAPUME – ARRAS – AMIENS – ARMENTIERRES
SOMME – OPENING BARRAGE HEARD IN LONDON 170 Miles
CUMBRAI – 1ST TANK BATTLE]
THE MARNE – VERDUN HELD BY THE FRENCH
BEAUMONT HAMEL – THIEPVAL – ULSTER TOWER
MESSINES RIDGE – 10,000 died – TUNNELLED BY TUBE-LINE MENINTO BELGIUM via LILLE – GATEWAY TO FLANDERS – MONS
YPRES – HELLFIRE CORNER – MENNING GATE ON WALLS 55,000
POPPERINGE – TALBOT HOUSE R & R – Toc H CHARITY FOUNDED
ZONNEBEKE – POKEPPEL
BATTLES of YPRES – PASSIONDALE – MUD – ANIMAL DROWNED
LANGERMARK LARGEST CEMETRY
TYNE COT WITH 36,000 WALL INSCRIPTIONS & 12,000 HEADSTONES
Tommy Atkins was ready for action after years of digging-in waiting to take Passiondale. 07.00 over the top you gallant men.
The Northumberland Fusiliers were first over that cold misty morning when the whistle blew with 60lb packs on their backs.
One wag looking over the parapet through the mist to a machine gun emplacement quietly said to his comrade “Doesn’t that look like a cottage on the Tyne”. The cemetery at Passiondale is known as Tyne Cot Cemetery.
WWI recruitment poster
WWI medals
IMAGE credit: supplied by author
Why did they volunteer ! The call to arms ! Doing their bit ! Maybe the adventure and Romance going abroad along with their mates forming Pals Regiments.
These were just workers, craftsmen with the promise of 3 meals a day. Hero’s ALL
“Your Country needs you” claimed Lord Kitchener who sadly was drowned on a Northern Convey to Russia in an attempt to persuade the Russians not to pull out of the war.
Medals were awarded throughout and for the unfortunate deceased they went to the loved ones and family. Early skirmishes in 1914 drew the 1914 Star which later was extended to the 1914-15 Star as the theatre continued.
Then the War Medal and finally the Peace Medal which commonly became known a Pip, Squeak and Wilfred from a mischievous threesome cartoon strip in the Daily Mirror newspaper.
For those not so fortunate a Commemorate Bronze Plaque went with medals to the nearest and dearest. Each was personally moulded by name and small ones often bought by the wife, sweetheart or mum making this commonly known as the ‘death penny’.
Princess Mary Tin
Hall-stone Breast Jewels
Hall-stone Gold Jewels
IMAGE credit: supplied by author
For Masonic link consider the Princess Mary, the Princess Royal in 1914 persuaded her Dad, George V to go to public subscription for a Christmas gift for the troops.
£100.000 was raised and each got a tin within cigarettes, sweets, card, pencil.
Her favourite Brother Edward VIII abdicated and because he was not invited to the wedding of our current Queen to Prince Phillip she also declined. She married Viscount Lascelles in 1922 and he, when he inherited the Earldom of Harewood on the death of his father, he became the 6th Earl.
In 1943 HE became Grand Master although his reign was cut short by his untimely death in 1947, 4 years.
1321 Lodge HSJ’s were awarded – about 25% of lodges qualified at5 Guineas per member. In addition there were 53,000 individual subscribers at 8 Guineas and Gold 100 Guineas.
Hall-Stone Jewels Display
IMAGE credit: supplied by author
Province commitment per lodge when only five Provinces signed-up but only 3 awarded of a style larger and more colourful enamelling.
Buckuckinghamshire, Burma which is in the Museum and Japan which was lost in 2nd World War. Each have a room referencing them in FMH being Temples’ 17,11,12.
Other associated jewels for linked events and commemorations including a 1919 Victory Jewel and 1925 Earls Court Celebration Jewel. Miniatures were also popular.
So why ‘HALL STONE’ simply the property in Great Queen Street was in need of expansion as early as 1816, followed by the laying of the Foundation stone in 1865 for a new and second Freemasons Hall.
This was opened in 1869 but destroyed by fire in 1883. So, a third hall was planned to be a memorial to King Edward VII (who died in 1910 but was GM until 1901).
A poor scheme to knit together a patchwork of buildings that was doomed to failure. The failure occurred because of the removal of labour for war service in 1914-18 when all efforts were halted.
Thus in 1919 the building fund was incorporated into what was to become the Masonic Million Memorial fund. The symbolic foundation stone was laid on 14th July 1927 and the fund closed at the end of 1938.
In 1925 the Pro Grand Master, Lord Ampthill stated ‘Our new Temple will rise not only as a Memorial to the dead but also as a sign and inspiration to the living’
This is why should you ever visit the battlefields of France and Flanders and maybe look for the grave of a loved one you will sit and reflect on man’s inhumanity to man:
THE GREEN FIELDS of FRANCE
Well, how do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although, you died back in 1916
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed in forever behind the glass frame
In an old photograph, torn, battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
And did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There’s a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There’s no gas, no barbed wire, there’s no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
Ah young Willie McBride, I can’t help wonder why
Do those that lie here know why did they die?
And did they believe when they answered the cause
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying, were all done in vain
For young Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
Song by Davey Arthur and The Fureys
Wreath laid at Remembrance Service In Chichester Sussex on 10 November 2024
IMAGE credit: publisher’s private collection
They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them.
Article by: Paul Gardner
Paul was Initiated into the Vale of Beck Lodge No 6283 (UGLE) in the Province of West Kent, England serving virtually continuously in Office and occupying the WM Chair on three occasions.
Paul joined Stability Lodge No 217 in 1997 (UGLE) and now resides with Kent Lodge No 15, (UGLE) the oldest Atholl Lodge with continuous working since 1752, where he was Secretary and now Assistant Secretary and archivist, having been WM in 2002.
In Holy Royal Arch he is active in No 15 Chapter and Treasurer of No 1601, which was the first UGLE Universities Scheme Chapter in 2015.
He was Secretary of the Association of Atholl Lodges which maintains the heritage of the remaining 124 lodges holding ‘Antients’ Warrants and has written a book on Laurence Dermott. - https://antients.org
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