In the history of Civil Service Lodge, May 14, 1861, marks the beginning of more than a century and a half of devoted service by countless Masons.
In May 1861, the seat of government for Canada was in Quebec City.
Many Masons employed in the civil service, several of whom had previously been members of lodges in Kingston, Ontario, resolved to form a lodge of their own, to be known as Civil Service Lodge. Because the government’s headquarters moved periodically during the 1850s and 1860s, it was proposed that the lodge’s charter grant powers similar to those exercised
by Regimental Lodges, allowing it to function in a travelling capacity. No records have been found to indicate exactly when the idea of forming the lodge first arose, or who first proposed it. Accordingly, the history of the lodge must begin with the dispensation granted by M.W. Bro. T.D. Harington, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Canada, authorizing the formation of this new lodge.
On the evening of May 14, 1861, approximately twenty-eight Masons assembled in the lodge rooms in Quebec City.
At 8:00 p.m., the lodge was opened in the First Degree, with James H. Rowan, a Past Master of St. John’s Lodge, Kingston, in the chair. R.W. Bro. R. Pope, D.D.G.M., acting on behalf of the Grand Master, was received with the officers of Grand Lodge and accorded Grand Honours.
The D.D.G.M. then assumed the Master’s chair and, according to time-honoured custom, proceeded to consecrate
and constitute the lodge as The Civil Service Lodge of Canada. James H. Rowan was duly installed as the first Worshipful Master of the new lodge. The officers were then invested, and the lodge was closed severally in the Third, Second, and First Degrees.
The time was 10:00 p.m.
Thus began the history of Civil Service Lodge.
