Charity is one of the three pillars of Freemasonry.
Freemasons are taught to practise charity and to care, not only for their own, but also for the community as a whole – both by charitable giving, and by voluntary efforts and works as individuals.
The Old Wellingtonian Lodge has supported many worthy causes: those with links to Wellington, those with links to Freemasonry and those unrelated to either.
These include causes as diverse as:
- The relief of those Belgian civilians displaced by the First World War,
- Masonic victims of the 1923 Tokyo Earthquake,
- The Masonic Memorial Fund to build Freemasons Hall (thereby becoming a Hall Stone Lodge),
- The victims of the Quetta Earthquake in 1935, the relief operations after which were in fact directed by Lodge member Sir Alexander Cater, then Commissioner stationed there,
- Help For Heroes , the charity set up by OW Bryn Parry (not a member of the Lodge for the avoidance of doubt),
- Dr O’Conner’s Haematology Unit at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital,
- The South Eastern Kidney Patients Association,
- The PSLC Benevolent and Scholarship Funds, and
- The London Freemasons Charity which has supported London by a series of grants to fund the London Air Ambulance, 2 new incident Control Units for London Search & Rescue, raising £3m for the purchase of a CyberKnife for London’s Barts Hospital Cancer Centre) and in 2022 buying two super-aerial, extended-reach 210-foot turntable ladders for the London Fire Brigade after the Grenfell Tower disaster amongst others.
We have also supported Wellington College in many ways, individually and collectively. Individual member’s bequests have seen the building of Pollock’s Bridge (named after Lodge Founder Dighton Pollock), which leads to Derby Field, acquired by and named after another Founder, the 17th Earl of Derby, and the relaying of the floorboards in Old Hall, bequeathed by Alfred Stanfield.
The Lodge has sponsored a number of projects and trips by members of College. We have also supported the Wellington charities the Herbert Trust, the JL Bevir Memorial Fund (named in memory of Lodge member J L Bevir), and the OW Society Charitable Trust.
We also regularly support the four great Masonic charities which have recently become united under the banner of the Masonic Charitable Foundation whose site gives an insight into how Freemasonry is the second largest donor to charitable causes in the UK after the National Lottery.
For more information about London Freemasonry and Charity please see the Metropolitan Grand Lodge Website.