By 1927, Freemasonry had been established in Hamilton for more than sixty years. The Beta-Waikato Lodge traced its beginnings to 1865, while Lodge Tawhiri had been part of Frankton since 1909. As Hamilton expanded through the 1920s, so too did the number of Freemasons living and working in the town.
That growth eventually created room for another Lodge.
For Tawhiri, the story of Lodge Hamilton No. 291 would become particularly close to home. The new Lodge's petition was supported at Kent Street, its founders were offered the use of Tawhiri's facilities, and when Lodge Hamilton was formally constituted in September 1927, the ceremony took place in Tawhiri's own lodgeroom.
A third Lodge for a growing Hamilton
Hamilton changed considerably during the years following the First World War. New suburbs were developing, schools were opening and motor vehicles were becoming an increasingly ordinary part of town life. Tawhiri's own records reflect that change. In 1920 the Lodge stopped arranging its regular meetings around the full moon, a practice that had made considerable sense when brethren travelled by horse on poorly lit roads, and adopted a fixed monthly meeting night instead.
Freemasonry was growing as well. The Beta-Waikato Lodge had moved from its historic Grey Street premises to River Road in 1924, while Tawhiri remained firmly established at Kent Street in Frankton. By the middle of the decade both Lodges had substantial memberships, and in 1927 discussions began about establishing another New Zealand Constitution Lodge in Hamilton.
The first reference in Tawhiri's history appears at the meeting of 26 April 1927, when the Lodge confirmed the action of its Standing Committee in offering the proposed new Lodge the use of Tawhiri's facilities for an annual rental of £50.
A petition signed by 24 brethren seeking the establishment of the new Lodge was then presented to Tawhiri's Master. He signed it, together with the Senior Warden, Junior Warden and Secretary.
The proposed Lodge therefore had both the support of an established Lodge and somewhere to meet while it found its feet.
The timing was particularly appropriate. Tawhiri was itself improving its home. In March 1927 it had accepted a tender of £1,052 for the construction of a new lodgeroom at Kent Street. On 25 July, RW Bro George Barclay, Tawhiri's first Master and by then Grand Secretary, attended its first meeting and declared the new rooms open.
Less than two months later, they would provide the setting for the beginning of another Lodge.
Lodge Hamilton No. 291
On Thursday, 22 September 1927, Lodge Hamilton No. 291 was constituted at Frankton Junction.
A contemporary newspaper report recorded an attendance of more than 200 Freemasons. Senior Grand Lodge officers conducted the ceremony and the first officers of Lodge Hamilton were installed, with Bro R. Parker as Master, Bro P. P. Bynon Powell as Senior Warden and Bro H. Mercer as Junior Warden. A banquet followed.
For Tawhiri, it was a significant use of rooms completed only weeks earlier. Eighteen years before, Tawhiri itself had begun without a building of its own, holding its earliest meetings in the Presbyterian Church in King Street. It was now able to provide the home in which another Hamilton Lodge formally began its life.
Lodge Hamilton would not remain at Kent Street for long. Its members had their eyes on a building with an even older connection to Freemasonry in the town: the former Masonic Hall in Grey Street.
The hall had been erected for The Beta-Waikato Lodge in the nineteenth century and had served Hamilton Freemasons for decades before Beta-Waikato moved to River Road. By 1927 it had stood unused for several years and was in poor condition. Ivy had spread across the exterior and into the building, and at one point the property had even been offered to the Hamilton Borough Council for use as a truck depot.
Lodge Hamilton nevertheless saw a future in it.
The Lodge initially rented the property, with an option to purchase, before resolving in December 1928 to buy it for £700. Restoring the old rooms required some eighteen months of working bees. On 18 March 1929, Lodge Hamilton held its first meeting in its restored Hamilton East home.
There was an appealing continuity in the move. Lodge Hamilton had begun in Tawhiri's newly completed rooms in Frankton and then gave a new life to one of the oldest surviving pieces of Hamilton's Masonic history.
Back to Kent Street
Lodge Hamilton grew steadily. Its membership increased from 42 in its earlier years at Grey Street to 86 by 1939, 130 by 1949 and about 150 by the middle of the 1950s. Once again, a Masonic building that had once seemed adequate was becoming too small for the Lodge using it.
Substantial alterations were undertaken in 1957. The old lodgeroom was widened, with new facilities added, and the work was extensive enough that Lodge Hamilton needed somewhere else to meet.
Thirty years after its constitution, it returned to Tawhiri.
Following its February 1957 meeting, Lodge Hamilton moved temporarily to Kent Street while the Grey Street alterations were completed. Tawhiri's records later note a letter of thanks from Lodge Hamilton and a donation of £20 to Tawhiri's funds in recognition of the use of its facilities.
The symmetry is difficult to miss. Tawhiri had provided Lodge Hamilton with a home at the beginning of its existence in 1927, and three decades later opened Kent Street to it again while its own home was being rebuilt around it.
The Grey Street legacy
The Hamilton East complex continued to develop after Lodge Hamilton returned.
Lodge Hillcrest No. 363, which had already been meeting there as a tenant, eventually became an equal joint owner with Lodge Hamilton. In 1989 Lodge Hamutana No. 437 moved to the centre, and by 1998 the trustees of Hamilton, Hillcrest and Hamutana each held a one-third share of the property.
Lodge Hamilton's own story ended in July 2004, when it relinquished its Charter after almost 77 years. Its share in the Hamilton East Masonic Centre then passed from the three-Lodge arrangement, leaving Lodge Hillcrest and Lodge Hamutana as the joint owners.
The Masonic story of Grey Street, however, continued.
In 2017, Lodge Hillcrest and Lodge Hamutana joined with Lodge Te Marama No. 186 in the formation of an entirely new Lodge, Lodge Waikato No. 475. Lodge Waikato was constituted at the Hamilton East Masonic Centre on 14 October 2017 and continues to meet in Grey Street.
Lodge Hamilton did not itself become Lodge Waikato. Hamilton had surrendered its Charter thirteen years earlier. The connection is instead one of place and continuity: two of the Lodges that later formed Lodge Waikato had shared ownership of the building with Lodge Hamilton, and the Grey Street home that Lodge Hamilton restored and developed remains part of Hamilton Freemasonry today.
A place to begin
For Tawhiri, the most direct part of the story remains in 1927.
Twenty-four brethren sought to establish another Lodge in a growing Hamilton. Tawhiri offered them the use of Kent Street, and its Master, Wardens and Secretary supported their petition. On 22 September, its newly completed lodgeroom was filled for the constitution of Lodge Hamilton No. 291.
Thirty years later, when Lodge Hamilton temporarily needed a home again, it returned to Kent Street.
Those two moments sit three decades apart in Tawhiri's history, but together they tell the story neatly. One Lodge had room to help another, and did.