Letter of Thomas Channon, Secretary, Lodge held in the First Regiment East Devon...

Letter of Thomas Channon, Secretary, Lodge held in the First Regiment East Devon Militia, meeting at Plymouth Dock, Devon to Robert Leslie, 28 Tokenhouse Yard, London informing the Grand Secretary that the Lodge has relocated from Exeter to Plymouth Dock, Devon and seeking a warrant for a proposed new lodge in the 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards, Exeter. Enquires whether the new lodge might assume the warrant of an unnamed lodge meeting in Liverpool as No. 53 B [SN 906] which surrendered its warrant for unMasonic conduct on 4 February 1807. With a postscript requesting responses to be sent to the Worshipful Master of Lodge No. 216, the Military Arms Inn, Plymouth Dock.

A Lodge meeting in the 1st Regiment of the East Devon Militia was granted a warrant by the Antients' Grand Lodge to meet as No. 216(A) on 24 October 1781. The Lodge met at Roborough Down, Devon but the regiment was soon on the move. The Regiment was stationed usually within counties along the South Coast but it also spent some time in Gloucestershire?, Staffordshire and Ireland. In 1817 the Regiment settled at Exeter, Devon, where the Lodge met at the Golden Ball inn, Mary Arches Street. In 1830 the Lodge relocated to the Market House Inn, Guinea Street, Exeter, where it continued to meet until it was erased in 1835.

There is no record that the proposed lodge in the 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards was granted a warrant. The membership register records that a warrant was granted to a lodge to meet in the 3rd Regiment of Dragoon Guards as Lodge No. 197C [SN 1472} at Exeter in 1806 but they were not permitted to assemble or meet by its Colonel soon after this date. The members listed below sought to obtain another warrant in 1807 but warrants were only issued to travelling lodges with the approval of commanding officers of military regiments.