Freemasons Magazine & Masonic Mirror 29th Aug. 1863
Report to the General Purposes Committee of Grand Lodge.
A complaint having been preferred against the W.M. of the Lodge of Temperance in the East (No.898, late No.1200), for having appointed a brother to the office of Junior Warden who had not been elected a member of the lodge, the W.M. attended, pursuant to summons, and, on being questioned, admitted that the brother had never been regularly admitted as a member, and that, nevertheless, he had made the appointment. The name of the brother had been put in the summons for joining, but no ballot had actually taken place.
The board, in consequence, resolved that the appointment was null and void; and there appearing to have been great laxity and irregularity in the proceedings of the lodge generally, the board further ordered that the lodge be fined one guinea, and the W.M. was cautioned to be more observant of the laws of the Craft, with which it was Master's duty to have made himself well acquainted. The fine has been paid.
(Reproduced from the Freemasons Magazine and Masonic Mirror 29th August 1863, page 161)
A further examination of the facts behind the situation reveals that no less than 3 Brethren were appointed as Officers of the Lodge at the Consecration meeting who were not actually members of the Lodge, but merely visitors, being Bro. Henry James William Thompson as JW., Bro Swyer, as S.D and Bro F.L. Good as J.D.
After the Consecration, Bro F.L. Good J.D. never returned again to the Lodge.
It was not until September 1863, some 17 months after the Consecration, that the ballot was finally held for Bros. Thompson (by now S.W.) and Swyer to become members of the Lodge, being propsed the month earlier. The ballot for Bro. Thompson proved unanimous (he subsequently became Master in 1865). The ballot in respect of Bro. Swyer was not so favourable, and as a result, he too was never seen in the Lodge again.
