The Titanic

This was posted from a group I follow on facebook, wanted to share:

ON THE EVE OF THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RMS TITANIC’S ILL-FATED MAIDEN JOURNEY, THE DIRECTOR OF THE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM OF FREEMASONRY, DIANE CLEMENTS, INVESTIGATES THE STORIES OF THE FREEMASONS ON BOARD

With 2012 marking the centenary of its first and only voyage, the RMS Titanic has become one of the most famous ships in history. After setting sail from Southampton for New York City on 10 April 1912 with 2,223 people on board, the ship hit an iceberg four days into the crossing, at 11.40pm on 14 April 1912, and sank at 2.20am the following morning.

More than 1,500 people died – the high casualty rate due in part to the fact that, although complying with regulations of the era, the ship carried lifeboats for only 1,178 people. The Titanic was the largest passenger ship in the world at the time and the loss of this ‘unsinkable’ ship was a major news story around the globe and covered by masonic newspapers.

The Freemason’s Chronicle wondered whether Grand Lodge itself would ‘vote a considerable sum… to one of the funds now being raised in different parts of the country’. This didn’t happen but the Chronicle recorded lodge donations, at the suggested rate of one guinea, to a Freemasons Titanic Fund, which the paper established, and which were then sent on to a larger fund set up by the Daily Telegraph.

FALLEN HEROES

Among the English Freemasons who died on the Titanic was Howard Brown Case, aged 49. Case was the managing director of the Vacuum Oil Company (part of the Standard Oil Company), based in Rochester, New York, and was establishing the company’s operations in the UK. He lived at Ascot with his wife, two sons and two daughters and was described as ‘an exceptionally hard worker’ with a ‘magnetic personality’. Case had been travelling in a first-class cabin and some survivors recalled that he helped women and children into the lifeboats and finally stepped back to meet his fate. He had been initiated in America Lodge, No. 3368, in June 1909.

Percy Cornelius Taylor, aged 32, was a Past Master of Musgrave Lodge, No. 1597, at Hampton Court, and a cellist in the ship’s orchestra. The band famously kept playing as the Titanic went down, with all eight members sadly perishing.

Two Liverpool-based stewards, Robert Arthur Wareham, aged 36, from Toxteth Lodge, No. 1356, and Arthur Lawrence, aged 35, a member of Neptune Lodge, No. 1264, also died.

Henry Price Hodges was a 50-year-old salesman of musical instruments from Southampton who was travelling as a second-class passenger en route to Boston. He had been initiated in Caulsentum Lodge, No. 1461, Woolston (Southampton), before joining Royal Gloucester Lodge, No. 130. Pierre Giuseppe Bochet, meanwhile, had moved to London from Aosta in Italy where he worked in the catering trade. He joined the Titanic at Southampton as a waiter, aged 43. He was a member of Loggia Italia, No. 2687 and also Columbia Chapter, No. 2397.

OFFICER AND GENTLEMAN

One Freemason was known to be among the survivors. Herbert John Pitman, aged 34, was third officer on the Titanic. He helped to load and lower one of the lifeboats and row it towards the nearby ship Carpathia. Pitman went back to sea with other liners and served in the Merchant Navy in the Second World War. He had joined Abbey Lodge, No. 3341, in Hatfield in 1909 and remained a member until his death in 1961. A letter from the lodge congratulating him on his rescue was sold at auction in October 2011.

As the Titanic was bound for New York there were many American passengers. The condolences of several grand lodges, including Hungary and Cuba, to the Grand Lodge of New York are recorded in the proceedings of that Grand Lodge in May 1912. Three New York casualties were also recorded. Henry Harris was a New York theatre manager and a member of Munn Lodge, No. 100. Frank Millet was vice chairman of the Fine Arts Committee, based in Washington DC, and member of Kane Lodge, No. 454. Alexander Holverson was a member of Transportation Lodge, No. 842. Another Freemason casualty was Oscar Scott Woody, a clerk in the on-board post office. He was a member of Acacia Lodge, No. 16, in Virginia.

The passengers on the Titanic were drawn from all walks of life so it is no surprise that the Freemasons, casualties and survivors, were too.

Originally posted by Masonic Vibe. Makes me proud to be a Mason. Thought I would share.

Freemasonry has existed because it teaches the moral law. The man who takes the name of God in vain is guilty of a Masonic offence. It exists because it has never stooped to the intrigues of politicians. It exists because it has a universal language found in no other Society. It exists because it is a science based on the philosophy of that religion in which all men agree-that of the existence of a SUPREME RULER and the immortality of the soul. When kingdoms and republics have fallen, when wars have been fought between nations, it will exist on the side of conqueror and conquered alike.

Its Landmarks are indestructible.




Freemasonry has been established for generations.It has maintained its peculiar characteristics.It has never changed.Its principles have been maintained.Its esoteric teachings are unaltered.Its ceremonial has been conserved.Its traditions are given as in the aforetime.

Its Landmarks are indestructible. The devotion of its associates now is as earnest, sincere, and impregnable as at the beginning.
The history it has made is unassailed.The foundations on which it rests are eternal. These facts will hardly be denied, even among the incredulous profane. Faith in them is the heritage of the true Mason.
What other human institution can make these claims on the intelligent, thinking student of the records time has written on "now" as it becomes "was"?
There must, therefore, be in Freemasonry some special vitality, some indefinable spirit or essence, some superhuman inherent faculty that has operated to secure such results. Through the ages Freemasonry has lived and maintained its character. When the rise and fall of empires, the revolutions in thought, opinions, and forms of government had worked out changes among mankind ; when the iconoclasts had broken images, the laws, social order, overthrown many institutions, made martyrs and victims, and immolated many of their devoted adherents, yet Freemasonry lived. Strong, persistent, reliant, filled with faith, and ready for perils, the Craft never faltered in the performance of its duties.
In caves, on the mountain tops, the Craft met and obeyed the teachings they had received. Thus did the brethren conduct their ceremonies.
They were animated by the spirit of a devotion to their association that seemed to partake of a solemn recognition as a revelation. Their social relations, their identification with the people of the country, their responsibilities as units in the communital organizations of which they were part, while rendering them amenable to the profane laws, in no wise weakened the ties or bonds that bound them to the Fraternity of the Craft. They were ever, always, Freemasons.
Obeying the civil magistrate, engaged in no conspiracy against government, they believed in God and trusted to His care.
These Freemasons were often only a few persons. It may be said, in one sense, their strength came out of their weakness. But, no. It was the strength that the history of the past of the Craft made irresistibly potent. It was a faith that had marked the concurrent evidences of the indestructible organization which came to them from the fathers. The quiet, pervading courage of the Craftsmen would not desert the Lodge. The principles which were the cementing power of the foundations of Freemasonry were the refuge and defence of the brethren.
The teachings of the Lodge inspired them. Duty was never to be ignored. The "Great Light" was a lamp to their feet. From it they were never. to depart. As long as they adhered to an obedience without question, they felt safe and secure.
This, brethren, is your heritage. Your obligations to it command your strict adherence to the principles and teachings which indelibly mark and make manifest what to say is, as in the generations that have passed, true Freemasonry. This is our heritage. It is worthy of our earnest, sincere, abiding devotion. Let nothing separate us from our courageous adherence to every principle which has made our inheritance so glorious.