The New Welcome Lodge, No. 5139, is a British

Masonic Lodge A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered ...

open to all men working in the Palace of Westminster. At its founding, membership was limited to Labour Party

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

, but its scope was broadened soon after. The lodge is alleged to have influenced the outcome of the 1935 Labour Party leadership election.

Founding and history

The lodge was consecrated in 1929, shortly before the formation in 1929 of the

second Labour Government The second (symbol: s) is the unit of Time in physics, time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally t ...

. Its founding was reported in a number of national newspapers including the Daily Telegraph, and Sporting Life. It was created at the suggestion of the then

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

, afterwards

King Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 19 ...

, who was concerned by the antagonism between Freemasonry and the British left, and the fact that a number of Labour MPs were blackballed when applying to join Masonic lodges. The New Welcome Lodge was intended to form a link between Freemasonry and the new governing party, and was open to Labour MPs and for employees of trade unions and the Labour party; its members included Labour's deputy leader

Arthur Greenwood Arthur Greenwood, (8 February 1880 – 9 June 1954) was a British politician. A prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s, Greenwood rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department f ...

. Hugh Dalton alleged that he had been approached to join the lodge, being told that the association was useful and that Greenwood (then deputy leader) was a member. When the

Parliamentary Labour Party In UK politics, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is the parliamentary group of the Labour Party in Parliament, i.e. Labour MPs as a collective body. Commentators on the British Constitution sometimes draw a distinction between the Labour ...

was reduced in strength after its split at the 1931 United Kingdom general election over Ramsay MacDonald's formation of the National Government, numbers were reduced, and in 1934 membership was opened to all men working in the Palace of Westminster. Sir Walter Liddall was the first Conservative MP to be initiated in the lodge in 1937. By 1940, MPs from the three main parties were in the lodge and, since the Second World War, the membership of the lodge has been chiefly drawn from the staff of the Palace of Westminster.

Herbert Dunnico Reverend Sir Herbert Dunnico (2 December 1875 – 2 October 1953), at Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages was a British Baptist minister, leading Freemason and Labour Party politician. Born in Wales, he started work in a factory aged ten, but studied ...

was Master of the New Welcome Lodge in 1931. In 1989, the lodge was the subject of a House of Commons motion put down by the Labour member Max Madden, who stated that it was then meeting five times a year at Freemasons' Hall in London. In 1992 it was mentioned in parliament by

Chris Mullin Christopher Paul Mullin (born July 30, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player, executive and coach. He is a two-time Olympic Gold medalist and a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (in 2010 as a memb ...

, who claimed that the members included

Tony Baldry Sir Antony Brian Baldry, (born 10 July 1950) is a British Conservative Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Banbury from 1983 to 2015. Early life Born in 1950, Baldry was educated at Leighton Park School, a Quaker school ...

and Sir Gerard Vaughan.

Alleged influence on 1935 Labour Party leadership elections

Herbert Morrison Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, (3 January 1888 – 6 March 1965) was a British politician who held a variety of senior positions in the UK Cabinet as member of the Labour Party. During the inter-war period, he was Minis ...

claimed that he was denied the leadership of the Labour Party in the 1935 election by the votes of Labour MPs who were members of New Welcome Lodge. Morrison's backer Hugh Dalton made similar claims, and went further than Morrison by claiming to have been shown the summons for the meeting at which the voting was decided. Dalton believed that the members of New Welcome Lodge backed Arthur Greenwood, who was a member of the lodge, and then backed Clement Attlee in order to block Morrison.Hamill and Prescott, pp. 9-41(33), citing ''H. Dalton, The Fateful Years'', (London: Frederick Muller Ltd., 1957), p. 82

References

{{reflist United Grand Lodge of England Organisations associated with the Labour Party (UK) Masonic Lodges