Rabaul Masonic Lodge

Revived

Thus the Sydney “Masonic Club Journal” of June 25, 1947: FOR the second time in its twenty-four years’ existence, Rabaul Lodge has been revived.

After the major eruption of 1937, when the town was evacuated, brethren set to work to clear the neat, reinforced con crete building of the mass of volcanic dust and dirt which had covered the Temple, both externally and internally.

Later, during the Pacific War, every building in the town was flattened as a

brethren, headed by Wor. Bro. Gilbert Renton (who was WM in 1930). and on Anzac Day (April 25) last they reaped the reward of their hard work, when Wor Bro. Renton conducted the installation of officers, and some fifty-six brethren, rep resenting eight different Constitutions, were present.

To old members of the Lodge the ceremony was tinged with sadness when they recalled that the last Sitting Master (Wor. Bro. Jack Edwards), as well as his Senior Warden (Bro. A. A. Chauncy) had been lost during the war and many other brethren drowned when the prison ship “Montevideo Maru” was sunk with over 200 Rabaul civilians on board.

The following office-bearers were in stalled:—Senior Warden, Bro. Ernie Britten; Junior Warden, Bro. Chas. Bates- Senior Deacon, Bro. John Gannon; Junior Deacon, Bro. P. Duval; Inner Guard, Bro. W. Bailey; Tyler, Bro. W Dix; Chaplain, Bro. A. J. Gaskin; Director of Ceremonies. Wor. Bro. C Smith; Secretary, Bro. J. Kidnie

The Masonic Temple, 1939. result of Allied bombing and Japanese vandalism, and the Temple was used dur ing the enemy occupation as a telephone exchange, until the greater portion of the building had been wrecked by bombing.

But, even so, the Lodge has arisen again through the activities of energetic