Our Lodge History 

The first Lodge meetings were held at the Thomas Arms Hotel in Llanelli and then moved to the Athenaeum Street School (now the Llanelli Registrar's Office in Coleshill Terrace) due to a fire at the hotel for short time, before returning to the refurbished Thomas Arms until the present Masonic Hall in Harries Avenue was opened in September 1936, The last Lodge meeting in the Thomas Arms was on 13th of July 1936 with the first meeting in the new Masonic Hall being on 12th of October 1936.

 

The first Master of the Lodge was W. Brother Frederick Bolingbroke Ribbans, and the first initiate of the Lodge was William McKeirnon, who became Worshipful Master three years later. There have now been 150 masters of the Prince of Wales lodge, with 12 having been installed as master twice, and 3 having been installed on 3 occasions (up to 2024).

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During the early years, the number of meetings varied greatly from year to year, with between ten to eighteen per year. It was not unusual to have two or three meetings in some months or, on a number of occasions, two meetings per week, sometimes on consecutive nights. On at least two occasions there were three meetings in one week, sometimes with two ceremonies in one night. There was a dramatic increase in the number of members in the first year. 

By the end of the second year there were a total of thirty-five members, one of whom was Brother David Morris the MP for Carmarthen Boroughs who was a joining member from St. Peters Lodge; By 1895 the membership had increased to one hundred and twenty-two and it remained well over one hundred for some time.

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The strangest period with regard to meetings and initiates seems to be during the First World War, when in the four-year period 1915-1918, the lodge met on no fewer than fifty-eight occasions initiating fifty-four candidates. This figure of about fourteen candidates per year is almost twice the number of candidates per year over the previous twenty years. This pattern was not repeated for the Second World War where the opposite is true. One wonders if there was some advantage to be gained, at that time in either civilian life or in HM Forces by being a Freemason. Over the years, some of the figures for meetings and candidates seem high, but it must be remembered that at that time there was only one Lodge in Llanelli.

After the First World War there appears to have been a considerable increase in the number of Lodges and members generally in Masonry and this may well have been the case in Llanelli, for in 1919 St Elli Lodge was consecrated, founded by members of the Prince of Wales Lodge, Six years later St Teilo Lodge was consecrated also by members of the Prince of Wales Lodge.

On the 100th Anniversary, in 1956, a special meeting was held on 30th April, when the Lodge was honoured with the presence of the Provincial Grand Master, Right Worshipful Brother Colonel GT Kelway, who declared that on this 'important and historic meeting' it would be deemed an official visit of Provincial Grand Lodge. During the meeting, the Provincial Grand Master had, 'much pleasure' in presenting the Lodge with its Centenary Warrant.

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