{"id":146,"date":"2026-09-17T10:37:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ulsterlodge.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/distinguished-members-ulster-lodge-1953\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T11:01:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T11:01:49","slug":"distinguished-members-ulster-lodge-1953","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ulsterlodge.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/distinguished-members-ulster-lodge-1953\/","title":{"rendered":"The remarkable men connected with Ulster Lodge by 1953"},"content":{"rendered":"

By its Golden Jubilee in 1953, Ulster Lodge No. 2972 could look back on a membership that included an extraordinary range of public, military, legal and Masonic figures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Lodge\u2019s own Jubilee Review<\/em> included a section naming what it called \u201cdistinguished members past or present\u201d. The list is valuable because it shows the kind of people who had become associated with the Lodge during its first fifty years.<\/p>\n

A Duke of Abercorn<\/h2>\n

The booklet begins with the late Duke of Abercorn, who had been one of the Lodge\u2019s early members and, when his health allowed, a regular visitor while in London. He was also a senior figure in Irish Freemasonry.<\/p>\n

Military, legal and public life<\/h2>\n

Others named in the 1953 review included Major-General Sir William Menus O\u2019Keeffe; Sir Robert McCall, a King\u2019s Counsel and senior Freemason; and Sir Robert H. H. Baird, who had served as Grand Registrar of Ireland.<\/p>\n

There was also the Rt Hon Sir William J. Jordan, who had served as High Commissioner for New Zealand; Major-General W. Brooke Purdon, later Ulster Agent in London; and Air Vice-Marshal Sir William Tyrrell.<\/p>\n

The roll-call continued with Sir David Reid, the Marquess of Londonderry, Professor Cyril B. Falls, Dermot Campbell MP, Dr Henry MacCormac and Sir Lynden Macassey.<\/p>\n

Not simply famous names<\/h2>\n

What makes the list interesting is not celebrity for its own sake. It demonstrates the reach of a Lodge formed in 1903 to give Ulstermen in London a Masonic home.<\/p>\n

Within its first half-century, men connected with the Lodge had served in senior positions in medicine, the armed forces, politics, law, civic life and Freemasonry in Britain and Ireland.<\/p>\n

Some were central to Lodge life. Others appear more occasionally in the surviving record. The 1953 booklet nevertheless regarded them as part of the Lodge story and deliberately preserved their names for the Jubilee generation.<\/p>\n

A starting point for a much larger history<\/h2>\n

This list is also a research programme in its own right. Each name can be checked against the membership registers, newspapers, census records and public archives to establish exactly when he joined, what office he held and what brought him into the Lodge.<\/p>\n

That work has already begun. Dr Edward Andrew Gregg, another notable Past Master, has his own biography on this site. More individual biographies will follow as the Lodge archive is reconstructed.<\/p>\n

The important point is that the Lodge\u2019s history is not abstract. It is the history of people \u2014 and by 1953 Ulster Lodge had accumulated a remarkable cast.<\/p>\n

Related reading<\/h2>\n