At the Derbyshire Provincial Meeting to invest Brethren with promotions in Provincial Grand Rank held on 30 April 2019, VWBro John M Beard made a presentation of Masonic Snuff Box to the Province.
The box, which is of tortoise-shell and silver, had been in his possession for nearly 30 years and, rather than it languishing in his wardrobe, he felt that it was most appropriate to donate it to the Provincial Library & Museum, where it could be kept safely for posterity.
On the tortoise shell lid were many masonic emblems including a cross with a rose, a pelican feeding its young, a radiating sun, triangle and various other craft symbols. Round the silver rim of the lid are the following engravings:
“SGT MAJOR MICHAEL CRAWLEY, EAST INDIA COMPANY’S SERVICE, ROYAL ARCH. PILGRIM, KNIGHT TEMPLAR, KNIGHT OF MALTA. MEDITERRANEAN PASS, PAST MASTER OF LODGE NO 67 CORK”
Through the good offices of Bro John Hamill, the Grand Librarian in 1993, the following information had been received from the Grand Lodge of Ireland:
Bro Michael Crawley had been initiated in Irish Lodge No 239, in the 2nd Battalion 59th Regiment on 17 April 1811 and joined Lodge No 67 at Cork in December 1834. This dates the snuff-box to some time after 1834. The East India Company was nationalized after the Indian Mutiny in 1857, so presumably the box must be dated between 1834 and 1857. The records of the East India Company are now held in the British Library and these may provide further information about Brother Michael Crawley.
