A Royally Good Lecture at the Preceptory of Tutelage

On Thursday 1st June, the Preceptory of Tutelage No 633 in the Province of Northumberland was honoured to receive a talk from RE Kt Dr Paul Richard Calderwood, the Provincial Prior of Monmouth and South Wales, entitled “Royal Support for Knight Templar Freemasonry in Britain”.

RE Kt Paul is a renowned masonic scholar, researcher and author. He is a Past Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge (the premier Lodge of masonic research in England) and was the UGLE Prestonian Lecturer in 2013, taking as his subject the association of Freemasonry with the press in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His latest book, “This Chequered Existence”, was published in 2021 and is a history of Freemasonry in the twentieth century.

His impeccably researched and presented talk described the involvement of many members of the Royal Family in Freemasonry in general, and with the Great Priory of Knights Templar in particular. Our own Order has been privileged to have had HM King George VI as a Past Grand Master, and HRH Edward, Duke of Kent; HM Queen Victoria and HM King Edward VII as a Patron or Grand Patron.

Having lived and worked in the north east of England many moons ago, Paul was delighted to have the opportunity to take a mini-break, with his wife, exploring the many areas of historical and cultural interest in Northumberland and Durham – and even managed to arrange good weather, which stayed uncharacteristically mild, sunny and dry during his sojourn.

The photograph shows the Eminent Preceptor of Tutelage Preceptory, flanked by our guest speaker, the Provincial Prior and Past Provincial Prior, and many members of the Preceptory with their guests from across the Province.