Freemasons took their place in the Gloucester Day parade again this year led by Tim Henderson-Ross for the final time, as he will be standing down as the head of Gloucestershire Freemasonry next year.
The city once again celebrated the lifting of the siege in 1643 during the English Civil War. Prince Rupert’s Royalists had been besieging the town and it was in a desperate situation until it was relieved by Parliamentarian forces who had marched all the way from London. 380 years later citizens of Gloucester still celebrate their liberation with the annual parade.
For at least two thirds of those 380 years Freemasonry has played a significant part in the local community. Edward Jenner, for example, one of the county’s most famous sons who developed immunisation against the erstwhile killer disease of smallpox, joined a lodge in Berkeley in 1802.
Nowadays over 2,600 Freemasons in Gloucestershire belong to 83 lodges spread throughout the county. As a social group it is one of the oldest, largest and most successful; and as a charitable body one of the largest donors in the country and county. Gloucestershire Freemasons donated £243,000 to local charities in 2022. Tim Henderson-Ross started Project 21 to donate mobile scanners to the county’s major hospitals and set Gloucestershire Freemasons a target of raising £300,000 in two years: they smashed that by donating themselves £330,000 in 18 months. That is a legacy of which Tim and his members can be rightly proud: as a famous American Freemason, Albert Pike, said after their civil war: ‘What we do for ourselves dies with us; what we do for others, and mankind, remains.’ That is the tradition that Freemasonry has upheld for over three hundred years and will continue to do so for generations to come.
For more information on Prroject 21 please see the news article on our website
or for information on any aspect of Gloucestershire Freemsonry contact
