Alfred Robbins Lodge

The Lodge meets at Freemasons Hall, Great Queen Street, WC2 which is in the Holborn and Covent Garden area of London. Sir Alfred Robbins is actually responsible for the construction of the Freemasons Hall, as the Chairman of the “Board of General Purposes” which was tasked with the successful construction between 1927-1933 in the Art Deco style, as a memorial to the 3,225 Freemasons who died in World War 1.

Freemasons Hall is a Grade II listed building – both internally and externally. It is the third Masonic Hall to be built on the site and covers two acres, in an irregular hollow pentagon shape, with the Grand Temple in the centre. In addition to being the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England, the building houses a museum, Masonic shop, bar and coffee shop – all of which are open to the general public.

Alfred Robbins Lodge originated almost 100 years ago, as a journalist’s Lodge. Our mother Lodge is Gallery Lodge, which was formed for the press correspondents in the press gallery at the Houses of Parliament. With demand for membership so great, Gallery Lodge spawned a daughter Lodge which they intended to be called “The Fourth Estate”. Sir Alfred Robbins, as he became and from whom the Lodge takes its name, was both a very prominent Freemason and a distinguished journalist, being publicly well known in the broad-sheet press as the “Prime Minister of Freemasonry”. As well as chairing “The Board of General Purposes” which built Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street, he also did a great deal to promote links and the relationship between English Freemasonry and that in the United States. The Grand Master at the time (1927/1928) ordered that the Lodge be named in honour of the great man, so Alfred Robbins Lodge was consecrated on the 8^th January 1929.

Due to the press correspondents having to cover parliamentary business throughout the working week, Gallery Lodge would meet on a Saturday, a tradition it has maintained to this very day, despite having no members in journalism, let alone at the Houses of Parliament.

In recent years, both Gallery Lodge and Alfred Robbins Lodge were featured in an article in The Guardian newspaper, which implied that journalists in the two lodges, along with MPs that were members of Masonic Lodges, were secretly running the Country! Although we enjoyed the “cloak and dagger” implications of being involved in such a plot, with no members of either Lodge working at the Houses of Parliament or in fact, in journalism, we had to point out their factual inaccuracies and the newspaper was forced to print a retraction.

The Guardian saga however, raises a very important point, about the public view of Freemasonry. Back in Sir Alfred Robbins day – the 1920’s and 1930’s, Freemasonry was very open. Everyone in a town or village would know that the Doctor, Accountant and Solicitor were Freemasons. The local Lodge(s) would parade through the town or village in their regalia. Unfortunately, the advent of the Second World War forced Freemasons into secrecy and hiding as they were persecuted by the Nazis. Masonic records had to be hidden away, not to reveal the identities and addresses of Freemasons. Whilst this secrecy was absolutely needed, it can definitely be argued that Freemasonry stayed secret for far too long after the war and so fed by tabloid paranoia, a persona of distrust of Freemasonry has proliferated, which is a real shame because the publicly stated mission of the United Grand Lodge of England is “To cement our reputation as a force for good in our communities and society at large, and as a thriving organisation that people aspire to join”.

As for Alfred Robbins Lodge, we are far less “James Bond” or the subject of a spy thriller as suggested by The Guardian but much more “Last of the Summer Wine”!