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.
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