Sir William Gull - Freemason?

[DirectorDave]

I think we have a genuine find here, well done SZ.

[DJA]

Certainly looks like Gull's signature,however he had been living at 8 Finsbury Square for 13 years prior.

[DirectorDave]

Certainly looks like Gull's signature,however he had been living at 8 Finsbury Square for 13 years prior.

The names all look to be in the same handwriting, I don't think they are signatures.

[DJA]

Did notice that.
Nonetheless,apart from the "l"s, it is close to Gull's signature.

[David Orsam]

Might that particular William Gull be Mr William Gull, the owner of a bricklaying company who, in 1861, aged 45, was living at 60 High Street, Brightlingsea, Essex?

[DJA]

Well,he is a mason

[Sam Flynn]

The names all look to be in the same handwriting, I don't think they are signatures.

Quite so. This looks to me to have been a set of entries in a register completed by a registrar.

[DJA]

Reckon the dual "William"s are a bit of a giveaway.

[Geddy2112]

Reckon the dual "William"s are a bit of a giveaway.

I was looking for a William Sparrow.... mmmmm

[Mayerling]

Even though he had been a non-paying member of the lodge in earlier years, Gull was initiated into the Masons in 1861.

Rather interesting coincidence here but the other "William" on the list for 1861 has the name of "William Dove". The coincidence is that five years earlier (1856) a man named William Dove had been so fascinated by the crimes then just attributed to Dr. William Palmer he decided to copy them and poisoned his wife. There was some insurance involved, but when one reads that case Dove seems to have been somewhat cracked (he wrote a letter that was found to the Devil, selling his soul if he could succeed in killing his spouse, and then getting away with it. He was executed after being found guilty of the murder of his wife. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, in his History of English Criminal Law, wrote a small separate account of Dove's case.

Jeff