Acacia Lodge

In the latter part of the year 1920, six members in the London District met for the purpose of discussing the formation of a new lodge. It had been some forty years since such an occurrence in London and these brethren enthusiastically brought about the fulfillment of all the necessary requirements to apply to Grand Lodge for a dispensation. While the Lodge was not originally formed as a “railway lodge”, it is noted that a high percentage of the initiates came from the railway men and continued to do so up to the time that the C.N.R. car shops in London were closed. Many of these men could not attend a week night lodge as they were out of town and at home only on weekends, the brethren of Acacia Lodge therefore chose the second Saturday in the month as their regular meeting night. The first Worshipful Master was Wor. Bro. Whitfield Lancaster, a past master of Kilwinning Lodge No. 64 G.R.C. For this reason and as a number of the charter members and officers were likewise from this lodge, Acacia 580 has always considered Kilwinning 64 as its mother lodge. On Saturday, April 23, 1921 at 7:30pm., the inaugural meeting was held under dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Canada in the province of Ontario. Rt. Wor. Bro. L.A. Boss D.D.G.M. of the London District presided as the instituting officer, assisted by the Worshipful Master of the district. At this meeting under dispensation the by-law’s of Kilwinning Lodge 64 were adopted, and fifty copies of their by-laws were sold to Acacia to be used until such time as they could have their own printed. Twelve applications for affiliation and twenty five for initiation were read out. It was obvious that the new lodge was not going to suffer for lack of work. At the regular meeting June 9th 1951, it was brought up that the meeting be changed from a Saturday night to week night this had been brought up in the past and was defeated in motions, however at this meeting a committee was formed, who returned a report at the Oct. Meeting that change was indicated. Consequently, on Nov. 10th 1951 it was moved that the meeting night be change to the first Wednesday of the month. The motion was carried. Acacia Lodge has been a thriving lodge ever since however as with all lodges in the recent past few years membership has slowly dwindled for one reason or another, to the point were the discussion of amalgamation or possible closing has been discussed at the board of general purpose meetings and in open lodge. Several suggestions have been made to no avail, and so at this writing we are now still in discussion as to the final future of Acacia Lodge No. 580.

October 11th 2006 Acacia Lodge No. 580 was amalgamated with St. Paul’s No. 107.