The Old Shirburnian Lodge No.3304 meets four times a year; twice in London at Freemasons' Hall and twice in Sherborne. Members and their guests enjoy our convivial meetings and Festive Boards (dining).

 

Membership is open to Old Shirburnians over the age of 18, sons of OS and Masters (past and present) of Sherborne School. We donate to a variety of charitable causes, support Sherborne School  by sponsoring the Foundation Prize and Charity Prize at Commem and continue to disseminate the good name of the School. 

 

The O.S. Lodge was founded and consecrated on 28th May, 1908, and given the number 3304 in the Register of the United Grand Lodge of England. The Grand Secretary, V.W. Bro. Sir Edward Letchworth, F.S.A., assisted by a number of eminent Freemasons installed the first Master, V.W. Bro. Colonel Sir William Watts, K.C.B. in the Temple at Frascati's. Sir William was the leading light in the formation of this Lodge where there were 51 founder members.  A year later, The Standing Committee of the Public School Lodges was founded by the lodges of Sherborne, Westminster, Charterhouse, Cheltenham, and Clifton to promote Public School Freemasonry. The 'Public School Lodges' Council' now has 35 public school lodge members.   

 

A most interesting ceremony-unique in the annals of Sherborne School was performed on 8th December 1909. The Right Hon. the Earl of Shaftesbury, K.C.V.O., KW. Provincial Grand Master, supported by eminent freemasons including the newly appointed Headmaster of Sherborne School, Charles Nowell Smith (Provincial Grand Chaplain at the time) and three Old Shirburnians:- V.W. Colonel W. Watts, K.C.B., W.M. Dr W. Hammond, and W.M. J. S. Granville Grenfell, laid the foundation-stone of The Carrington Building. The scheme provided for two commodious new classrooms, lecture room, and an extension of the science department. It further included a new art school, which was erected by the Old Shirburnians as a memorial to the work of the retired Headmaster Frederick Brooke Westcott, who later became Archdeacon of Norwich. 

 

At a largely attended dinner of Old Shirburnians, held at the Trocadero in January 1919, Field Marshall Sir Claud William Jacob (Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge and Member of Old Shirburnian Lodge) was in the chair and the Headmaster stated that up to date he had received something over £6,000 towards the War Memorial Fund, for which an appeal was in course of being circulated. There was a general consensus of opinion that the first call upon the fund was for the enlargement of the School chapel, for which Mr. Reginald Blomfield, R.A., had been asked to prepare plans. There was also a strong feeling that any surplus should be devoted to the establishment of a fund to enable sons of Shirburnians killed or incapacitated by the war to be educated at their fathers' school.  

 

After 116 years, the Lodge continues to prosper and remembers, with pleasure and awe, those stalwarts of the past.

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Meetings are held on the third Tuesday in February (London), the second Saturday in April (Sherborne), the third Saturday in June (Sherborne), and the fourth Tuesday in October (London).

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We would be pleased to hear from OS's who are interested in joining.

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'Vivat Shirburnia'

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