Knight versus Higham - part 7 - Masonic Relatives

BBC Radio 4'S Tuesday Call
13 November 1984

In this live radio broadcast, listeners phoned in to Tuesday Call to ask questions about Freemasonry, under the chairmanship of Sue Macgregor. In the transcript below, her words are printed in italic, and those of the two participants are prefixed with

(K) - Stephen Knight author of `The Brotherhood ` or
(H) - Commander Michael Higham, Grand Secretary of the UGLE

to differentiate them from the questioners.

.....continued from part 6

Thank you Commander, and Mr Bond. We'll move to Reigate in Surrey, we'll talk to Mrs Joyce Allen who is on the phone to us on Tuesday Call, hullo Mrs Allen.

[MASONIC RELATIVES)

(Mrs Allen) Hullo. I would like to say that amongst my mother's papers after she died I found that she'd written in 1926 that my grandfather was a Freemason, I wondered were there any records or registered- even if I wrote in, that could get information about my grandfather? It's for family history reasons.

Where was he a member of a lodge Mrs Allen?

(Mrs Allen) Well I don't know you see, this was just my mother, just one sentence she wrote in 1926, and she was writing about me, and what she wrote was "her grandfather was a Freemason".

Would it be possible to find out with those very sparse clues, Commander?

(H) Well, Mrs Allen, I think we might have to ask you to help us a bit more than that. We'd like to know when your grandfather was born, what his full names were, and ....

(Mrs Allen) He was born in 1856, he married in 1879, my mother was born in 1888 ...

Mrs Allen, we won't go into all the details now. I think Commander Higham' probably inviting you to write in to him, and to see if he can help ....

(H) Dead right.

Do you think it might be possible, Commander Higham?

(H) Certainly, if we can identify Mrs Allen's grandfather we'll tell her something about his masonic career.

(Mrs Allen) He lived in St Giles, Bloomsbury area in London.

Well, it sounds as if it might well be possible to find out. Records are fairly detailed are they Commander Higham, of past members, deceased members?

(H) They're not- I wouldn't say 'detailed', they may well be adequate for Mrs Allen's purpose.

Thank you very much Mrs Allen.

(H) Look forward to hearing from you.

And we'd better give the address of the United Grand Lodge I think for people who aren't familiar with it.

(H) Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London WC2B 5AZ.

I'll repeat that, it's Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London WC2.

...continued in part 8