Major William Warwick Slade Crampton Neville MC* BEM was born in 1894 and went to Wellington in 1907. He was in the Beresford. After Wellington he won a place in the Civil Service by competitive examination which saw him become a clerk in the Estate Duty Office.
The start of the Great War saw him commissioned into the Grenadier Guards where he served with the 3rd Battalion for the duration. He was wounded, mentioned and given two Military Crosses, and by May of 1918 he was an acting Major (but still a substantive Lieutenant and paid as such). The Grenadier Diaries make several mentions of his gallant leadership of 3 company at the first day of the Battle of Pilckem Ridge on 31 July 1917. He was belatedly granted substantive rank as a Major on his retirement in 1920 when he returned to civilian life.
His first MC citation reads:
“Lt. (A./Capt.) William Warwick Slade-Crampton Neville, MC, G. Gds., Spec. Res. For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led his company with great skill, and gallantry during an attack, in which, he was responsible for protecting the right flank. By his judicious reinforcement at the right moment he very materially contributed to the success of the advance. Later in the day, when wounded, he refused to have his wounds attended to until he had given clear instructions to his subordinate for the consolidation of his company. His pluck and energy were worthy of the highest, praise.” (gazetted 4th June, 1917.)
He joined the Lodge in 1926 DWM 1933. Grand Steward in 1943, JGD 1939
He was initiated into Waterloo Lodge No 3475, joined the OW Lodge in 1926
He was Deputy Master of the OW Lodge in 1933, joining Royal Somerset House & Inverness Lodge No IV the same year. He would go on to be JGD in 1939, No IV would nominate him as a Grand Steward in 1943 before becoming their Master 1944.
Lieutenant Colonel Frederick William Lawrence Sheppard Hart Cavendish CMG DSO joined the Lodge in 1910.
Cavendish went to Wellington in 1891 along with fellow Lodge members Duncan Warrand and William Shakespear. Cavendish was in the Wellesley and was made a Prefect before going to Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the 9th Lancers, where he served under fellow lodge member Lord Dorchester.
As a young Lieutentant he went to the South African War as was at the relief of Kimberley with Col Sankey. He then served asADC to the Lt General India, the first of a series of staff officer roles in which he excelled that took him through the Great War, receiving Haig’s praise for his role as Haig’s representative at French General Headquarters, before commanding 1st Cavalry Brigade between 1924 and 1928.
He was awarded both the Queen’s and King’s medals for service in South Africa, and for the Great War he was made CMG and received the DSO and oak leaves for his four Mentions. From our Allies the Order of Leopold with four clasps, the Order of the Crown, 3rd Class and Croix de Guerre from Belgium together with the Legion of Honor, 4th Class and Croix de Guerre avec Palme from France.
He was initiated into Ligonier Lodge No 2436, a lodge that met in Muttra on the NW Frontier that transferred to the Indian constitution in 1961.
A friend wrote on hearing of his death wrote of Cavendish “his outstanding quality was a robust and active joie-de-vivie, which no mischance could quell. With a nature as generous as his he could not help radiating this, with the result that a meeting with ” Caviare ” always left one with the sense of a touch of colour added to the gaiety of life.”
Colonel Sankey was born in 1877 who went to the Lynedock in 1890. He followed his father into the Engineers by way of Woolwich.
He joined the Lodge at the November 1912 meeting alongside two other West Block Boys, the Murray’sFrederick Richard Gerrard Forsyth, of Triune Lodge No 2121, who would also rise to the rank of Colonel, latterly with the 4th Dragoon Guards and earn the MC into the bargain; and the Hopetoun’s Ernest Brandon Macnaghten, a Gunner who, not to be outdone by his fellow joining members, would become a Brigadier.
Sankey would save the Lodge for 49 years, becoming Worshipful Deputy Master in 1926, and be made Grand Sword Bearer by Grand Lodge. His mother Lodge was Pentacle Lodge No 1174.
After Woolwich Sankey saw service in South Africa from 1899 t0 1902, and was present at the Relief of Kimberley alongside his fellow OW and joining member Frederick Cavendish.
At the time of joining, he was serving as First Assistant Instructor of Fortifications at the School of Military Engineering in Chatham, once again following in his father’s footsteps. He went on to command 1st Field Troop at Aldershot, during which time he would be Master fo the Aldershot Beagles. He would serve throughout the Great War rising to Colonel.
Not man to do things just once, he earned a pair of DSOs, the Croix de Guerre aves Palmes, three clasps to his Queens Medal for the actions in South Africa and the oak leaves for his three Mentions into the bargain. The citation for the bar to his DSO reads:
“For great gallantry in making personal reconnaissances of the Sambre-Oise canal, south of Catillon, during the period 28 October – 3 November, 1918. Owing to the able way in which he carried out his work the crossings over the canal were negotiated with comparatively few casualties in the face of a large number of machine-guns and heavy shell fire. The success of the operations may be very largely credited to the skill and personal gallantry of Lieut.-Colonel Sankey.”
In a sad footnote, the family tradition of service to the Engineers would see Sankey’s son serve with the 1st Airborne. He was part of the first landings on Sicily in 1943 and was Killed in Action in Operation Market Garden at Arnhem.
William Resbury Few was born at Putney, Surrey on 15 July 1860.
He was the son of Charles Few, a solicitor and his wife, Jane née Garrard. Few was educated at Wellington College, and was in the Picton before training as a solicitor.
He was initiated as a freemason in Royal Somerset House and Inverness Lodge No IV, London on 27 May 1889, where he was passed on 25 November that year, raised on 24 March 1890 and served as Grand Steward in 1898 and Worshipful Master in 1899.
He became a joining member of Old Wellingtonian Lodge, No. 3404, London in 1912, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1920. He also served the Lodge for several years as Treasurer.
He was also became a member of Jubilee Masters Lodge No 2712 in 1915 and Letchworth Lodge No 3505, the Lodge for those at FMH, in 1912, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1917.
He was appointed Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies by the United Grand Lodge of England in 1911, Assistant Grand Secretary in 1912 and Past Grand Junior Deacon in 1922.
In Royal Arch he was exalted in Royal Somerset House and Inverness Chapter No IV on 4 February 1901, where he served as First Principal in 1915. He became a Founder and inaugural First Principal of Letchworth Chapter No 3505, London in 1912. He was appointed Assistant Grand Scribe E by the Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England and Wales in 1912, Past Grand Standard Bearer in 1913 and Past Assistant Grand Sojourner in 1922. In Mark Masonry he was advanced in Bon Accord Lodge, T. I. , London in 1913. He supported the Masonic charities and became a Life Governor of the three Masonic Institutions.
He died at his home at Hampton Hill on 18 November 1926.
HRH The Duke of Kent M W The Grand Master, R W Bro Philip Kay and R W Bro Edward Latham Baillieu Past Deputy Grand Master. The PSLC Festival 1992 at Wellington College
Lieutenant Commander Philip Jervis Kay VRD was born at Northwood, Middlesex on 15 June 1918.
He was educated locally until his parents moved to Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, when he attended Wellington College. He was in the Anglesey, before going up to read history at Peterhouse College, Cambridge from 1936.
A keen sportsman, he was Suffolk Junior Tennis Champion and played at Junior Wimbledon. He was also a talented cricketer and hockey player, who captained the winning Peterhouse Hockey XI at the University Inter College Championship in 1939. He was also a Cambridge Wanderer, played for the LX Club and was elected to the Hawks, an unusual distinction for a non-blue.
After university, he intended to read for the Bar and became a member of the Middle Temple, however he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1939 he was posted to the destroyer HMS Intrepid as a junior officer, serving until 1942, serving at Dunkirk, the Norway campaign, the sinking of the Bismark and on the Russian Convoys.
He was promoted to Lieutenant and transferred to the Coastal Forces in March of 1942, serving as a commander on motor gunboats and motor torpedo boats. He was stationed initially at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, then in the Mediterranean and finally, as Commander of a flotilla in the Dalmatian Islands. He returned to general service in 1944 in the destroyer, HMS Calpe, transferring to HMS Mercury, the Royal Naval signalling school, in 1945.
He was attached to the Royal Naval Mission to the Netherlands, where he was the staff officer responsible for dismantling German submarine communication equipment. While on this mission, along with an Admiral, a few fellow officers and sixteen ratings, he took the surrender of sixty thousand German troops. He was promoted Lieutenant-Commander and remained in the RNVR until the 1950s.
He married his wife, Pamela, in 1945 and they raised a son and a daughter. Later that year, after demobilisation, he joined a firm of insurance brokers at Lloyds, C. E. Heath & Co., where he rose to Managing Director, retiring in 1975.
His passion however was sailing. He became a member of of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, the Lloyds Yacht Club and was a founder member of the OW Sailing Association. He was instrumental in commissioning HMS Mercury’s ‘Meom Maid’, a crewmember on HM the Queen’s Dragon ‘Bluebottle’, and skippered the Lloyds boat ‘Lutine’.
He also enjoyed horse racing and was the part owner of several steeplechasers with his wife.
After his first wife died, he married Daphne Fairbanks, the daughter of the film actor Douglas Fairbanks junior. At the time of his death he was living at Pettistree, Suffolk.
He was initiated in Lutine Lodge No 3049, London, the lodge associated with Lloyds of London, in 1949, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1959. He became a joining member of the Old Wellingtonian Lodge No 3404, London in 1960, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1963; Prince of Wales Lodge No 259, London in 1961, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1968, and was made a Grand Steward; Grand Stewards Lodge, London in 1966, British Union Lodge No 114, Ipswich, Suffolk in 1974; Suffolk Installed Masters Lodge No 3913, Ipswich in 1983, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1992; Suffolk Provincial Grand Stewards Lodge No 9215, Ipswich in 1989 and Methuen Lodge No 631, Marlow, Buckinghamshire in 1995. He became a Founder of Philip Jervis Kay Lodge No 9300, Pettistree in 1988, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1993.
He was appointed Deputy Grand Director of Ceremonies by the United Grand Lodge of England in 1969, a role reprise by his son and fellow Lodge member Jervis, and served as Provincial Grand Master of Suffolk from 1982 to 1993. In the Royal Arch he was exalted in the Chapter of Felicity No 58, London in 1955, where he served as First Principal in 1966, and established a connection between the Chapter and the Old Wellingtonian Lodge that remains strong to this day. He also became a joining member of Triune Chapter No 114, Ipswich in 1988. He was appointed Deputy Grand Director of Ceremonies by the Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England in 1969; Grand Sword Bearer in 1984 and Grand Scribe N in 1990.
Whilst serving as Deputy Grand Director of Ceremonies and IPM of the OW Lodge, he gave an address to the Grand Master, during the 1992 PSLC Festival that was being held at Wellington that year, drawing on the historic and far reaching relationship between the Royal Family, Wellington and the Craft, and the guiding influence The Duke of Connaught & Strathearn and the Duke of Kent had both had to the benefit of the College, the Craft and the Lodge.
George Latham was the Lodge’s first Lewis1 being the son of one of the Founders and 1915 Worshipful Deputy Master Alexander Mere Latham. Our only photograph of him was taken in 1915, his father’s year as WDM, when George was a subaltern the Western Front (detail above, full photo below).
Born in 1893, Latham went to Wellington in 1906, was in the Stanley and was made a College Prefect. He went to the Royal Military College and passed out first in his class in 1913. Commissioned into Corps of Royal Engineers he saw service in both world wars, and was a Regimental Colonel immediately before World War Two.
He was initiated in June 1914 at the age of 20, as was his right. He served the Lodge for 55 years. He was the only member to serve the lodge as both WDM, in 1927, and as WM, in 1947. He is our youngest initiate to date, and at 33 one of our youngest Masters.
Outside the Army and Masonry he was noted for creating a two-pack variant of the Patience card game call Robin Post.
He passed away in 1969.
Notes
By the Constitutions of England, a lewis or son of a Mason may be initiated at the age of eighteen, while it is required of all other candidates that they shall have arrived at the maturer age of twenty-one.
For ladies interested in Freemasonry – OW, SCR or otherwise – we would be happy to make an introduction to HFAF where there are plans afoot for a schools’ lodge
You could email our secretary if you wanted to chat to someone about our Lodge specifically: secretary@owl3404.org
You may be an Old Wellingtonian or member of Common Room who is merely curious what this is all about?
Even if you are not thinking about becoming a Freemason, UGLE’s publication Are you thinking of becoming a Freemason? is a very useful starting point and answers many questions
As a member of Common Room you may be interested to learn about the Masters who were members (Malim or Stainforth) and indeed some of the Assistant Masters or Tutors (Larmour or Kemp or Stanfield amongst many others) and this page highlights many of the links between Wellington and the Lodge
This page gives an overview of how and why our Lodge was founded and by whom, more than a century ago
The lodges that make up the Public Schools Lodges’ Council or PSLC celebrate their association and fellowship each year with an annual festival which is hosted on rotation by the member schools, normally at the school in early summer.
The Old Wellingtonian Lodge has hosted the festival on three occasions, 1922, 1992 and most recently in 2015. A list of the festival past and planned can be found on the PSLC Website.
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