{"id":128,"date":"2026-09-17T10:14:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ulsterlodge.co.uk\/index.php\/founders\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T19:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:46:42","slug":"founders","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ulsterlodge.co.uk\/index.php\/founders\/","title":{"rendered":"The Founders of Ulster Lodge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LODGE ARCHIVE \u00b7 1903<\/p>\n

The men who founded Ulster Lodge<\/h1>\n

The original register preserves sixteen petitioners at the beginning of Ulster Lodge No. 2972. Later Lodge histories remembered a smaller group. Both records matter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sixteen petitioners in the original register<\/h2>\n

Folio 18 of the surviving membership register begins with a distinct petitioner list. The margin records: “Petitioners; Warrant granted 18th May 1903.”<\/strong> Sixteen men are entered before the ordinary membership register begins.<\/p>\n

This gives us a firmer starting point than the later Jubilee booklet. Some handwriting remains difficult, so uncertain readings are shown honestly rather than silently corrected.<\/p>\n

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A. E. W. M’Camley<\/strong>Register reads MacCarnley [?] \u00b7 from Lodge 1285 \u00b7 first Worshipful Master<\/span><\/div>\n
John Bright Crowe<\/strong>From Lodge 1815 \u00b7 one of the central organisers<\/span><\/div>\n
Thomas Dunwoody<\/strong>From Lodge 1815 \u00b7 long-serving early officer<\/span><\/div>\n
Samuel Crawford Gillis \/ Hillis [?]<\/strong>From Lodge 2191 \u00b7 surname reading is still being reconciled with contemporary reports<\/span><\/div>\n
Walter Vaughan Jones<\/strong>From Lodge 2087 \u00b7 contemporary reports style a Captain Vaughan Jones among the first officers<\/span><\/div>\n
James McCabe<\/strong>From Lodge 144 [?] \u00b7 register reading low confidence<\/span><\/div>\n
John Irwin<\/strong>From Lodge 2195<\/span><\/div>\n
Robert Atkinson McQuilty<\/strong>From Lodge 1803 \u00b7 later sources usually print McQuitty<\/span><\/div>\n
Hugh Knox<\/strong>From Lodge 2743 \u00b7 doctor and major early Lodge figure<\/span><\/div>\n
Richard J. [?]<\/strong>From Lodge 1604 \u00b7 both surname and part of the Christian name remain difficult to read<\/span><\/div>\n
Thomas Foster MacGeagh<\/strong>From Lodge 1223<\/span><\/div>\n
Isaac Clarke<\/strong>From Lodge 2488 \u00b7 this entry needs comparison with the contemporary reference to Max Clarke, A.R.I.B.A.<\/span><\/div>\n
Hugh Hunter McKee<\/strong>From Lodge 1815<\/span><\/div>\n
Dr John Smyth Crone<\/strong>From Lodge 2098 \u00b7 doctor, writer and later important figure in Irish literary life in London<\/span><\/div>\n
Robert John Stevenson<\/strong>From Lodge 1706 \u00b7 later Worshipful Master<\/span><\/div>\n
Henry Hastings Innes<\/strong>From Lodge 2087 \u00b7 contemporary officer reports contain a conflicting reading, H. Hastings Jones<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Why this changes the page<\/h3>\n

The 1953 Jubilee Review<\/em> is invaluable, but it was written fifty years later after many early records had been lost. The register is closer to the founding itself and explicitly labels these sixteen men as petitioners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Why did the 1953 history name only seven?<\/h2>\n

The Jubilee booklet’s Past Masters list marks seven names with an asterisk and treats them as founders: A. E. W. MacCamley, J. B. Crowe, T. Dunwoody, Dr H. Knox, S. Crawford Hillis, Rev. Crawford Hillis and R. A. McQuitty.<\/p>\n

That list is not necessarily “wrong”. It appears to be doing something different: identifying founders who also appeared in the Lodge’s succession of Masters, or preserving the Lodge’s later memory of its principal founders. It does not reproduce the full petitioner list from the original register.<\/p>\n

The contemporary 1903 founder list<\/h2>\n

A report in the Northern Whig<\/em> on 14 November 1903, published the day after the Lodge opened, explicitly says \u2018The founders are\u2019 and gives a much fuller list. Because this is contemporary evidence, we are using it as the stronger working source while the original Lodge register is checked.<\/p>\n