Telephone & Hampshire Lodge No 3301
We are a London lodge, meeting four times a year at Mark Masons Hall, St James's Street. We work to Emulation Ritual.
The New Lodge Badge
The new lodge badge, designed for the amalgamated lodge, is based on the former badge of Telephone Lodge, described below, with the Royal Arms substituted by an oval panel using elements from the former Hampshire Lodge badge. Within that panel (it's not supposed to be called a shield) is an upper green area representing the hills, a blue area representing the sea and the white line representing the chalk. This is surmounted by three Lancastrian roses, a symbol long associated with the county of Hampshire.
The Badge of Telephone Lodge
At its founding, the Lodge chose a badge featuring the arms of the United Kingdom, with two earpieces from the then current "candlestick" telephones on each side. It is not clear why this emblem was chosen as the National Telephone Company was a private telephone company and unlike its rival the GPO, was not connected with the Crown in any way. Indeed, in later years, Grand Lodge insisted on approving all lodge badges and the use of the Crown Arms was forbidden except in special circumstances. It is thought that the badge was meant to be interpreted symbolically: the meaning being that the telephone was connecting the nation together.
The original printer's block still survives and a computer-enhanced scan of this is shown below left.
More recently a new interpretation of the Lodge badge was produced using modern computer graphics, as shown here.
The Badge of Hampshire Lodge No 3538
The Telephone Lodge Banners
The first banner was presented to the Lodge in 1912 by the then Master W. Bro. Fitzherbert A.B. Lord. It still exists but is damaged and quite unfit to display. In 1933 another banner was created as the first (which had also been a Roll of Masters) was full. A third banner was made for the 50th anniversary in 1958, but sadly the location of both the second and third banners is unknown.
(Left) The first and third lodge banners (click them to enlarge). Aside from the usual masonic emblems found on most lodge banners, at the top of the 1st banner are two images of telegraph poles. On the 3rd banner, a radio transmitting tower appears on the left. Since the 75th Anniversary in 1983, we have used a pair of more robust boards on which to display our Roll of Masters.
Telephone Lodge Jewels
A collection of Past Masters' Jewels
The Lodge possesses five of the original Founders' Jewels and is aware of the location of two others. The first WM's jewel is with the Library & Museum of Freemasonry in London, while the 1st SW's is owned by a lady collector of Masonic jewels in Italy, who included it in a book she wrote on the subject.
