2-969-938 - /Heritage Images

Anniversary Dinner of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys, 1856. Masonic charity '...established in 1798 for the purpose of clothing, educating, and apprenticing the sons of indigent and deceased Freemasons...[View in Freemasons' Hall, London, at the] the moment when the boys were introduced to the Grand Master by the stewards...The tables were elegantly decorated with vases and candelabra, and the whole presented a very imposing spectacle; whilst the excellence of the viands did great credit to the establishment...the brethren were presided over by the M.W.G.M. the Earl of Zetland...Several prizes (annually presented by Brother Smith...) were given to the boys, and a number of appropriate toasts drunk. The subscriptions of the evening amounted to between £1400 and £1500, two-thirds of which went to the building and the other third to the general fund'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.