Consecrated 26th August 1893
Meeting at: Johannesburg - Freemasons Hall, 8 Park Lane, Parktown
3rd Monday of Feb 19h30, Apr 19h30, Jun 19h00, and Oct 19h00. Aug (I) 18h30.
Contact 084 209 4951
Lodge History
One of the twelve lodges constituting the District in 1895.
Well before the Lodge was formed the Ford and Jeppe Estate Company offered the intending founders a stand and in the event the masonic hall was completed by June 1893, two months before the Consecration. The signatories to the petition included two District Grand Masters to be, George Richards and J Waldie Peirson and a third, G S Burt Andrews, was initiated in the Lodge in January 1894. The Lodge financed the erection of the masonic hall partly by issuing debentures of £5 each, free of interest, to members and partly by way of a loan of £400; but thanks largely to many of the early members donating their debentures to the Lodge, all indebtedness had been cleared by 1897.
Up to the time of the South African War, There were twelve regular and fifteen emergency meetings in the first year. On 20 December, 1897, in Bulawayo, Sir Alfred Milner decorated Bro Herbert Stephen Henderson with the Victoria Cross. Bro Henderson had been put through the three degrees in Jeppestown Lodge, in May of that years, at successive weekly meetings and there could have been a military reason for this haste. He had earned this rarest of decorations 'for valour' in Rhodesia a year earlier, during the Matabele rebellion, when he had led his horse, bearing a wounded colleague, on foot for 35 miles through dangerous country to Bulawayo. (For Valour; Ian S Uys.) Hardly a month went by without one or two emergency meetings, and two degrees were often conferred at one meeting. However, the Edwardian era saw quieter days.
The Lodge premises in Hans Street served Jeppestown Lodge and its tenants well for many years but eventually became very expensive to maintain. So in 1977 an offer from the District Grand Mark Lodge was accepted, the premises were refurbished, and Jeppestown Lodge became a tenant. But in the event fewer Mark and Royal Ark Mariner Lodges moved to Hans Street than had been hoped and in 1991 the Mark District sold the hall to an outside organisation. Thus, after just under a century at Hans Street, Jeppestown Lodge moved - with some sadness - to Kensington Hall.
Overall the Lodge has maintained steady progress over the years and it can count many stalwarts among its members, including one Grand officer in W Bro Graham Granger, who has been very active, in recent years, in both the Craft and Royal Arch Districts. The Lodges pairing with Barberton Lodge has worked to the benefit of both Lodges.
Reference: 'A Century of Brotherhood' by A A Cooper & D E G Vieler