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In Memoriam - Lord Cornwallis

 

Rt Hon Lord Cornwallis, OBE, DL  - this obituary may be read out in Lodge

The death on 6 March of Lord Cornwallis breaks a chain of more than one hundred years of continuous distinguished service to Freemasonry by the Cornwallis family.

Fiennes Neil Wykham, 3rd Baron Cornwallis was born in 1921, educated at Eton and served in the Coldstream Guards during the Second World War. As a Farmer of extensive orchards he served on major committees in the House of Lords and the European Commission protecting the interests of fruit growers and small businesses in general, for which he received his OBE. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent in 1976,

He was initiated in Douglas Lodge No. 1725, Maidstone in 1954 and was Provincial Senior Grand Warden of Kent in 1962 and Senior Grand Warden in 1963. An interest in charity took him to the former Royal Masonic Institution for Boys, of which he was Chairman 1966 – 1972.

In 1971 he was appointed Assistant Grand Master. Shortly after, the Bagnall Committee was set up to make a fundamental review of Masonic Charity. On its report being accepted he was asked by the Grand Master to chair the Grand Master’s Committee to implement the major changes which resulted in the reorganisation of the Charities into their present form, no mean feat.

In 1976 he became Deputy Grand Master and Second Grand Principal and in 1982 succeeded the late Lord Cadogan as Pro Grand Master and Pro First Grand Principal, serving for ten years.

His period as Pro Grand Master was not an easy one. Public perceptions of the Craft, political interference, major enquiries into the compatibility of Freemasonry and Christianity by the Methodist and Anglican Churches and the problems of the former Royal Masonic Hospital took up a great deal of his time. He gave real support to the then new policy of openness (not popular at that time) and lived to see it begin to bear fruit.

After his retirement in 1992 he continued to serve on the Grand Master’s Council and his experience and wise counsel were much appreciated by his successors.