By 1 August 1909, the proposed Lodge at Frankton Junction had moved well beyond the conversations first held at RW Bro George Barclay P DepGM’s home. The name Tawhiri had been confirmed, Frank Jolly had offered the Kent Street section opposite the railway station, and Barclay had been selected as Master alongside Bro C N Flyger as Senior Warden and Bro George Watts as Junior Warden. The eligible Brethren then signed the petition seeking a Charter from the Grand Lodge of New Zealand. Tawhiri’s history records twenty-eight Brethren as petitioners.
The weeks that followed were spent turning the proposal into a functioning Lodge. On 10 August a committee considered the junior offices that would be required and sought information from Brethren interested in filling them. The organisers were now dealing not only with the idea of a Lodge, but with the people, offices and arrangements it would need once formally established.
On Tuesday 21 September the Brethren held what Tawhiri’s history describes as their first meeting “as a lodge” in the Presbyterian Church in King Street. It was a Lodge of Instruction rather than a meeting of a formally constituted Lodge, but it marked another step away from the informal gatherings at Barclay’s home. A second instruction meeting followed on 28 September and, for the first time in the surviving Minutes, the proposed Lodge appeared with the number 166. The remaining officers were elected on 12 October.
Then came the document on which the next stage depended.
The surviving Warrant of Lodge Tawhiri No. 166 is dated 8 November 1909 and bears the signature of MW Bro Oliver Nicholson. It provided the authority under which the new Lodge could proceed to formal Constitution and remains one of the central documents in Tawhiri’s history.
The date matters, but it is not Tawhiri’s birthday. The Warrant authorised the Lodge to be constituted; it was not itself the act of Constitution.
The practical work therefore continued. At a meeting on 11 November, the Brethren turned their attention to the ceremonies planned for twelve days later. A banquet for eighty people was quoted at three shillings a head if waiters were supplied, or two shillings and sixpence without them. Tawhiri chose the cheaper option and resolved to provide its own waiters. One hundred and fifty programmes were ordered from the Waikato Argus at a cost of £4 15s, and the design of a founder’s jewel was approved.
Those details are a useful reminder of what establishing a Lodge actually involved. Alongside the petition, Warrant and formal offices were men raising money, arranging venues, ordering programmes, organising a meal and deciding who would serve it. By November the idea first discussed in the Stationmaster’s house had acquired a name, a number, officers, a site and the authority of Grand Lodge.
All that remained was for Lodge Tawhiri No. 166 to be formally constituted. That would happen on 23 November 1909.