The Manawatu Freemason

  Bro Joseph Rudyard Kipling 30th December 1865 - 18th January 1936 Bro Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay India on the 30th December 1865, and was known to the family as Ruddy.  At the age of five he was brought over to England and spent five years living with a foster family in Southsea where he was miserable due to mistreatment, beatings and being victimised.   As a result of this he suffered from insomnia and poor health for the rest of his life.  At the age of 17 Rudyard returned to India and began his career as a writer beginning as the sub-editor of the Civil and Military Gazette and Pioneer in Lahore.   According to Lodge records he was Initiated on 5th April 1886.  Passed to the Degree of a Fellowcraft the following month on 3rd May 1886 and Raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason on 6th December the same year into Lodge Hope and Perseverance No.782.  He also went on to become a joining member of Independence with ...

Is Father Christmas a Freemason? I have a very serious question to put to you all. I would like to raise it with you and then do some detective work, examining the evidence that might lead us to answering it. It is a most important question that I am sure you have often asked yourself, and relates our Craft to the wider society in which we live and concerns several major issues of this season. This very serious question is "Is Father Christmas a Freemason?" Let us consider the facts of this case: Of whom does this remind you? A worthy gentleman, who is (we must admit) getting on a bit in years and is perhaps a little overweight,  who wears a very distinctive costume as the badge of his activities,  who provides the opportunity for friends and visitors to meet in fellowship,  who is surrounded by secrecy and mystery, dispenses goodwill and the charity of gifts all over the world (avoiding ostentatious public display while doing so) and is there doing it year after year! We...

  Henry Seegers Palmerson Born about 1844.  Bremen, Germany - 19 August, 1888.  Palmerston North. Henry Seegers Palmerson came to New Zealand in about 1864.    He moved to Palmerston North and went into business on his own account as land agent, surveyor, and dealer.   He was elected to the Palmerston North Borough Council, and Horowhenua County Council. He became a surveyor with the Wellington Provincial Government in the Manawatu during the 1860’s and 70’s, being responsible for the survey of the Rangitikei Manawatu block which includes Awahuri township which he subdivided for its Maori owners, and they honoured him by naming one of the streets after him. Unfortunately it is now signposted incorrectly as ‘Palmerston Street’ instead of ‘Palmerson Street’. A Foundation Officer and Treasurer of the Manawatu Kilwinning Lodge 1883, H.S. Palmerson is noted as being a member of the first Town Board which held its first meeting on April 15th, ...

  7 SEPTEMBER 1846  •  County Cork, Ireland -  11 JULY 1916  •  Nelson, New Zealand Our first Secretary - Thomas Robert WALTON was initiated into Freemasonry at the first Initiation meeting of the United Manawatu Lodge in 1877.  He married Lucy Kibblewhite in Masterton 4 September 1869.   He is shown as a Schoolmaster.  Lucy's father was a very early settler, arriving in 1842.  He emigrated from England on the ship Clifton arriving in Port Nicholson.   He was also known as a Methodist preacher. Thomas was a general store keeper in partnership with a Mr James KING. Their premises were situated in the Square about where Millar & Georgi is situated today. They called it Palmerston MarT (Big T), from about 1877 to the early 1880’s.  He was a member of Town Board formed in 1876, then a member of the first Borough Council in 1877-9, polling 5th highest in the elections, and was elected a second time 1886-7....

 When people speak of Mozart they think of the child prodigy and the genius whose music still fills concert halls. But Mozart was more than just a composer. He was also a Freemason. Behind the apron he wore as a brother stood the same man who wrote music that touched the divine. His life in the lodge was not a side note. It was a central part of his journey.  The Initiation In December 1784 Mozart entered the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit in Vienna. He was welcomed into a circle of men who believed in truth, brotherhood and moral duty. Not long after, his father Leopold joined as well. For Mozart the lodge was more than a meeting place. It was a sanctuary from the rigid social classes of his time. Inside those walls a man was valued by his character, not by his rank or fortune. Music as a Masonic Voice Mozart did not leave his Masonry outside the lodge door. He carried it into his music. His Masonic Funeral Music speaks with solemn dignity, echoing the ritual and gravity of th...

  William Henry SMITH.  1854 - 1929 William Henry SMITH was born in in England in 1854, and came came to New Zealand when eleven years of age and learned the printing trade in the Wairarapa.  He was an apprentice at the age of sixteen and was earning 3/- a week  at the "Wairarapa Mercury". He founded the "Wairarapa News" in Masterton with Mr O'Mera  in 1874.   Then  was the Editor of the ‘Marlborough Times’ 1880-1882. He married Sarah Navara Loasby in 1877.  They had two sons (Lt K.G. Smith who was killed at Passchendaele and G. Smith who died in the 1918 epidemic in New Zealand) and four daughters. He came to Palmerston North in 1882 as Sub Editor of the ‘Manawatu Times’.  He purchased the ‘Times’ in 1884 and turned it into a daily.  He owned the ‘Times’ till 1915.   Also during that period he purchased the ‘Rangitikei Advocate’ in Marton, and edited it for many years  and was closely associated with it until his ...

Bro. Snelson was a foundation member of the Manawatu Kilwinning Lodge, being appointed to the rank of Junior Warden on 29 January 1883.  Born in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire on 23 November 1837 and on leaving Grammar school at the age of 15, he served an apprenticeship in ironmongery and general merchandising, continuing working in that trade until he emigrated to New Zealand.  At the age of 25 he arrived in Wellington on 21 February 1863 and gained employment as a clerk for E. W. Mills; a firm of ironmongers and general merchants.  He met and later married Louisa Matilda Buck on 6 July 1865.  They had a daughter; Frances Mary Halford, in 1866 and a son; George James Halford in 1868. Both died as infants.  In 1870, the Government began to make arrangements for the immigration of Scandinavians to the Manawatu district.  E.W. Mills agreed that George, who was by then his partner, should move to Palmerston (Palmerston  North) to open ...