Letter of Joseph Lugg, member of Lodge held in the First Regiment East Devon Militia,...

Letter of Joseph Lugg, serving on HMS Lightning to Robert Leslie, Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, London informing the Grand Secretary that he was initiated in a Lodge held in the First Regiment East Devon Militia, No. 216, Exeter on 15 September 1802. Since that date he served as a clerk on a gun brig, HMS Plumper, which was captured off Jersey, Channel Islands, and escorted into Granville, France on 15 July 1805. He was imprisoned but escaped but was apprehended as a spy and his Masonic certificate and other documents were siezed. He asks Leslie for a replacement Masonic certificate and sends the Masonic certificate of William Gleeson, a member of King George III Lodge, No. 79 [SN 465], Portsmouth as bona fides. With a postscript signed by William Gleeson, Master Gunner, HMS Volage, confirming the membership of Joseph Lugg as an Antients' Grand Lodge member. Includes copy response by Robert Leslie, 28 Tokenhouse Yard, London informing Lugg that a duplicate certificate can be posted at a fee of 6 shillings and 4 pence but advises that he should have contacted him through Lodge No. 216 at 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.