SHROPSHIRE MASONIC MANUSCRIPT

SHROPSHIRE MASONIC MANUSCRIPT. Minute book of the Loyal Hope of Netley Lodge from its foundation in 1840 to 1865. Small 4to. Circa 200 neat hand-written pages. Details fines and suspension of members. Sample entres: "John Jones Upper Pulley expelled for being convicted of taking game from the estate of Sir E Smith of Acton Burnell". "I did not know that Bro. Langford was in receipt of the sick gifts he was working in his own garden on the Saturday digging I saw him at 9 o'clock and then three & four in the evening. I saw him on the Monday following carrying implements of different description. P G Gamble did threaten to knock my head off my shoulders if I said any more about the case". "James Williams states that Thomas Heighway is living in adultery with a girl called Harriet Jones... It has been for years the talk of the country their co-habiting together when she lived a servant there" (7 pages of evidence). Joseph Hill is accused of falsely claiming sick pay. "I asked the woman where he lodged if he had been ill, she said no. I said I had been informed he had been three weeks in bed ill from injury he received from timber falling on his arm, she remarked, the lying old monkey he had not been ill. I asked if he had any doctor and she said no, the doctor called one day about buying some wood". (6 pages of evidence)