Freemasons raise funds for St Barnabas

Faraday House on Chambers Street was built in 1883. It was originally Faraday House School, with headmaster Edward Brown. It was a boarding school for 50-60 boys. In about 1900 it became the Grantham Training Lodge for Young Servants and later a training lodge for young girls. It then became an orphanage for a while and then a hall used for Guides and other groups. In 1935-6, it was bought by the Grantham Freemasons and used as their Masonic Hall.

Another £7,000 has been given by Freemasons to Lincolnshire’s St Barnabas Hospice, supporting its £12-a-minute running costs which mean it has to raise £6.3m every year to keep providing its services.

The money has come from Freemasons’ Lodges in Grantham, Lincoln and Skegness, and has been topped up with matched funding from the Freemasons’s national charity the MCF.

This is in addition to £5,000 given last year. That was made up of £2,500 from Lincolnshire’s Freemason golfers, who were celebrating their Association’s centenary, which was also matched by the MCF.

Lodges involved the latest donation, all of whom gave £500, included Witham in Lincoln and St Clement in Skegness.

All five Grantham Lodges – Doric, Granta, William Peters, Sir Isaac Newton, and Meridian Daylight – donated £500 each.

Lincolnshire Freemasons’ Communications Officer Stuart Pearcey said: “Although £7,000 might seem like a lot of money, it covers less than 10 hours of the Hospice running costs, and illustrates the fundraising mountain the organisation has to climb to to keep being there for the 12,000 people it cares for every year.”

The Lodge donations come from Lincolnshire Freemasons’ New Provincial Benevolent Fund, which gives all of the Province’s 76 Lodges £500 each every year to pass on to the good cause of their choice.