Quill and Key Lodge – New Honours Board

A good attendance to witness the Dedication of an Honours Board by the Right Worshipful Provincial Grand Master Eric John Rymer at Northfield on Tuesday 25th October.

During his address he welcomed those who had gathered together to participate in or witness the dedication of the Lodges new Honours Board. Saying such boards are common in Lodge rooms (and golf clubs) and can often be a welcome distraction during a tedious part of a meeting. We have all seen brethren gazing in rapt attention at the honours boards in a Lodge room. But why do we have them?

Honour is an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or corporate body such as a family, school, regiment or Lodge. Accordingly, individuals (or corporate bodies) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a specific code of honour, and the moral code of the society at large.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), which is very relevant to us, as a good deal of our ritual was developed using the language around this time, defined honour as having several senses, the first of which was “nobility of soul, magnanimity, and a scorn of meanness.” This sort of honour derives from the perceived virtuous conduct and personal integrity of the person endowed with it. On the other hand, Johnson also defined honour in relationship to “reputation” and “fame”; to “privileges of rank or birth”, and as “respect” of the kind which “places an individual socially and determines his right to precedence.” This sort of honour is not so much a function of moral or ethical excellence, as it is a consequence of power.

These definitions are very much a part of the masonic ethos and are personified in the Worshipful Master. And this is why we have Honours Boards, to commemorate those men of honour who have led their Lodge.