Lt. Colonel Beauchamp background Lt. Colonel Beauchamp (Clayton), after whom the lodge is named, was born in India in 1842. He trained at the Addiscombe Military College in Surrey; and in 1865 as a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers he returned to India to be the District Engineer for Gurruckpore, where he was involved with […]

About Lodge Jamrud The Lodge was formed 100 years ago on 14 December 1921 and met in the compound of Fort Jamrud, located in a Mohammedan village near the Khyber Pass in what is now Pakistan. They are proud to celebrate their 100 Year Centenary in 2022. After the Partition of India in 1947 that […]

Among the thousands who … Among the thousands … We tend to think of Masonic gatherings in terms of lodges or chapters; but whilst they are certainly the building blocks of Freemasonry it is the Brethren themselves who are its heart and soul; to paraphrase Brother Robert Burns, ‘The [lodge] is but the guinea’s stamp; […]

Punka not pucka Punka or Punkah - The Sandeman Lodge No.1374, first met in March 1871 at Dum Dum in Bengal. Many of its members were locally stationed military men; it was at the military ordnance factory in Dum Dum that the expanding bullet of that name was first developed. The lodge met in a […]

3rd Bombay Regiment - The Steel Heads 3rd Bombay Regiment - Those of you who know something about the history of the Beauchamp Lodge will recall that its founding Brethren came predominantly from the Royal Engineers and 109th Regiment of Foot, both of whom were stationed at Roorkee in 1872. The military reputation of the […]

Colonel R. K. Ridgeway, V.C., C.B., 44th Gurkha Regiment of Bengal Infantry, awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry at Konoma in the Naga Hills when he was severely wounded. Victoria Cross London Gazette 11th May 1880, Companion of the Bath London Gazette 4th July 1905 Richard Kirby Ridgeway, the second son of R. Ridgeway, Esq., […]

The Mother Lodge - Rudyard Kipling The Mother Lodge - According to the English magazine Masonic Illustrated, Kipling became a Freemason in about 1885, before the usual minimum age of 21, being initiated into Hope and Perseverance Lodge No. 782 in Lahore. He later wrote to The Times, "I was Secretary for some years of the Lodge... which included Brethren of at least […]

The city of Roorkee is situated in Uttarakhand Northern India; in sight of the Himalayas, and about 115 miles north of New Delhi. Today it is a busy university city with about a quarter of a million inhabitants; but prior to 1840 it was just a group of mud huts on the banks of the […]