Duke of Connaught Lodge
(From an Excerpt created for our Centenary Banquet Program 5th May, 2012)
North Vancouver Background
In 1910, Luther Watts Doney arrived in the new City of North Vancouver, with a population in excess of 7,000 Western Europeans. Three years prior to the arrival of Watts Doney, North Vancouver had just been incorporated and six years prior to that, North Vancouver became a municipality, stretching from Deep Cove to Horseshoe Bay ( apart from Moodyville ) with a Western population of around 360 men when there likely more bears than people.
Our founder would have found North Vancouver to be growing at an alarming, head spinning rate and was the first community north of San Francisco to have the benefit of electric light.
Our Lodge
The Duke of Connaught Lodge was formed in 1911, on the 28th Day of November, under Dispensation and Constituted 2nd July 1912.
The original ideal of the Duke of Connaught Lodge was conceptualized by Right Worshipful Brother Luther Watts Doney, who became the first Worshipful Master of this lodge.
Our Brother Watts Doney was born in Altarnum, Cornwall, England in 1865, son of Peter Doney, 25 and a widower. By the age of 6, Master Luther Watts Doney was a “ Scholar” at Boscastle, Cornwall.
In his masonic career, he was initiated into Union Lodge #1951, English Constitution, Tianjin China, and was also a founding member of Anglo-Colonial Lodge 3175. He was translated to the Grand Lodge above in 1926.
Early in his life, while he travelled to China where “his labors for the order were rewarded with Grand Lodge Honors”. He attained Senior Grand Warden of the Provincial Grand Lodge of North China, English Constitution. Also accredited to his achievements is the founding of Coronation Lodge # 2931 in Tianjin.
What Right Worshipful Brother Watts Doney would have witnessed upon his arrival, would have been a thriving city with all the amenities of any metropolis, including street cars.
A far cry from the beginning days of that decade.
This is where our story begins ….
For more on Luther-Watts Doney, please peruse the following document. (Luther_Watts-Doney_Paper)
W.Bro. Paul Puleston–Clarke
Lodge Historian
Duke of Connaught Lodge #64