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The Stonehouse Papers

From WBro Damien of Lodge Devotion (Webmaster and Lodge Secretary)

WBro Richard Stonehouse (PM 117) is the son of VWBro Alexander George Stonehouse PGIW (1909-1984) who was Master at Lodge Devotion 1968-69. In February 2018, I met twice with Richard.

Richard has kept many documents in relation to his and his father’s time in Freemasonry. Very generously, Richard has donated several of these to Lodge Devotion while I have been able to photograph others.

Items include letters, photographs of Freemasons, summons papers and Installation cards, not only from Lodge Devotion, but from many of the Lodges meeting at Gipps Street in the 1960’s and 1970’s. These will be placed either in the historical collection of Lodge Devotion or Collingwood Masonic Centre as appropriate. They are a wealth of information and have allowed us to further detail the list of Devotion’s Past Masters while giving snapshots of lodges in the 1970s & 80s.

It was once tradition at Devotion on the Master’s last night, to present him a bound copy of the Notice Papers for his year. I have seen this done, notice papers stapled together between covers. Richard has given us the book presented to his father, however this reveals that these were once professionally bound into a book for a Master (and his decedents, and now Lodge Devotion itself) to keep as a memento of his year in the Chair.

Below are some of the papers we now have, they even include a photo Frank Deveney.