This unique Masonic item is going under the hammer at The Auction Room in London. The estimate is £800-1,200. It is especially valuable for the Craft in South Wales. The fascinating description reads: COMMEMORATIVE MEDALS BY SUBJECT, Masonic, The First Provincial Grand Master’s Jewel for South Wales, Gilt-silver Openwork Jewel with central square, compasses and star, SOUTH WALES, rev BENJAMIN HALL ESQR Provl. GM, 70mm, London Hallmark, 1815, maker DS, integral ‘level’ shaped suspender with hinged loop, in red leather case of issue with maker’s label, with Masonic Sun and compasses, on inner lid, “LEWIS Embroiderer Laceman & SWORDCUTLER to his Royal Highness the DUKE of SUSSEX No 10 St James’s Stt Masonic Embroidery Neatly Executed”. Extremely fine and unique in Welsh Masonary.
Benjamin Hall, MP, FRS (1778-1817), was the first great industrialist to enter Parliament. He served first as MP for Totnes (1806-1812), Westbury (1812-1814), and from 1814 for Glamorganshire. It was at this time in 1814 that Benjamin Plummer was trying to reform the lodges in Wales. The country was divided into four sections of which 172 lodges of the Province of South Wales formed the largest part and Benjamin Hall was no sooner MP than, to Plummer’s great disappointment, he was admitted a Freemason and promoted to Provincial Grand Master. It was not known that his Jewel had survived.
A ‘Worshipful Master’ in masonic regalia (Picture: Getty Images)
An investigation has been launched into whether the secretive Freemasons held too much sway over police decisions at the time of the Hillsborough disaster.
The fresh inquests into the disaster heard Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield had been a Freemason since 1975. He was made a ‘worshipful master’ – head of his local lodge – in 1990, one year after the 1989 tragedy.
He was also promoted within South Yorkshire Police in the weeks before the disaster, but he told the inquest he did not know if his membership of the Freemasons had influenced this.
‘I would hope not,’ he said.
Jurors heard Duckenfield’s predecessor Brian Mole, who is now dead, was also a member of the same masonic lodge.
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Former chief superintendent David Duckenfield in 1989 – the year of the tragedy (Picture: PA)
Timeline of horr
2pm: The Leppings Lane turnstiles began operating smoothly, but after 2.15pm the volume of fans increased.
2.30pm: The road was closed. Fans were asked over the PA system to move forward and spread out in the space. Officers considered delayed the kick-off but did not.
2.40pm: Large crowds had built up outside the turnstiles.
2.44pm: Fans were asked to stop pushing, though crowding was already bad and the turnstiles were struggling to cope.
2.47pm to 2.57pm: Some external gates were opened to relieve pressure on the turnstiles – which caused fans to rush forward and crowd the pens even more. Pressure built up, and narrow gates in two of the pens were opened. Officers thought fans were deliberately invading the pitch.
2.58pm: 2,000 fans rush through Gate C
3pm: Kick-off. By this time the crush at the front of the pens was intolerable.
Now the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) is looking into concerns from the victims’ families about police officers being members of the so-called ‘secret society’.
The United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) – the headquarters of Freemasonry in Britain – has provided assistance by handing over historical attendance records.
Investigators are using this to see if there was any correlation with people involved in decision-making around Hillsborough.
A police constable also told the inquest hearings in Warrington that he’d heard ‘a substantial meeting’ of senior officers – which allegedly included Duckenfield – in the days after the tragedy.
The officer said there were rumours that most of those officers were Masons, and that they were trying to pin blame on Superintendent Roger Marshall for asking for the exit gate at Leppings Lane to be opened.
However coroner Sir John Goldring warned the jury that there was ‘not a shred of evidence’ that this meeting actually took place, or that those named were all Freemasons.
A giant banner unveiled in Liverpool after it was ruled the victims of Hillsborough had been unlawfully killed (Picture: PA)
Freemasons Hall in London – the HQ of the United Grand Lodge of England (Picture: Getty Images)
