Richard Frederick Ince Currie stands out as one only five members of the Lodge who enlisted in the Army rather than be commissioned, and one of only two of those who were not later commissioned.
Currie went to Wellington in 1896 and was in Bevir’s House, now the Benson. He, like Stephenson, went up to Trinity, Cambridge, before becoming a wine merchant for a brief spell and then a tea planter in Ceylon.
He was a founder of the Lodge in 1909, and had been initiated into Rosemary Lodge No 2851, the lodge associated with the Artists Rifles and today the special forces.
During his time as a tea planter in Ceylon he joined Nuwara Eliya Lodge No 2991, a local English lodge warranted a few years before the OW Lodge in 1903. Nuwara Eliya is named after its hill station home in the heart of Sri Lankan tea country. The lodge still exists, one of ten English Constitution lodges in Sri Lanka and still meets at the Hill Club.
Currie served in the 10th Royal Fusiliers, a territorial battalion raised in 1914 and nicknamed the Stockbrokers.
He died at the battle of the Somme on 15th July 1916, and lies in Pozieres British Cemetery, Ovillers-La Boisselle.
He was 36.
