May is the month the Provincial Grand Chapter of Essex was Constituted in 1883
News stories bringing the history of Essex Freemasons alive to a modern audience
Imagine being in the Ball Room of the Shire Hall at Chelmsford on 16th May 1883. A great man rises. He is a member of the Privy Council who was well known as Lord Skelmersdale until 1880, when he was created the Earl of Lathom. Initiated into Apollo University Lodge No. 357 as a student at Oxford, he was now the Second Grand Principal in the Supreme Grand Chapter.
Lord Lathom, who became the Pro Grand Master from 1891 to 1898, congratulated all the Companions in the Shire Hall for meeting for the first time as a
Provincial Grand Chapter. In a most impressive manner, he then proceeded to install the first Grand Superintendent of the Provincial Grand Chapter of Essex, Frederick Philbrick.
His Honour Judge Frederick Adolphus Philbrick QC was born in Colchester in June 1835. Educated at the University of London he was called to the bar in 1860. He became recorder for Colchester in 1870 and a Queen’s Counsel in 1874. Also known as a legendary stamp collector and one of the Fathers of Philately, he was a founder of the Royal Philatelic Society in 1869 and its President from 1872 to 1892.
When the Earl of Warwick was installed as Provincial Grand Master in February 1883 at Colchester, he re-appointed the 47-year-old Frederick Philbrick as 
his Deputy Provincial Grand Master (PGM) and supported him in forming a Provincial Grand Chapter, even though the Province only had four Chapters (the same number as lodges which formed the first Grand Lodge in 1717).
When Philbrick was appointed a County Court Judge in Dorset and Somersetshire in 1898, he resigned as Deputy PGM and moved to the West Country but continued as the Grand Superintendent of Essex until he died in 1910, a total of 27 years.
Photos
Left: Lord Lathom, the future Pro Grand Master who was Second Grand Principal at the first Provincial Grand Chapter of Essex Convocation, by Jean Marius Rogier
Right: His Honour Judge Frederick Philbrick QC, the first Grand Superintendent of the Provincial Grand Chapter of Essex 1883 to 1910
Bottom: Shire Hall, Chelmsford, where the first Convocation of the Provincial Grand Chapter of Essex was held in May 1883
