SIR JAMES STUBBS

Influential figure in the administration of Freemasonry

JAMES STUBBS was for 22 years the Grand Secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England. By the time he left office in 1980, having been responsible for the administra - tion of lodges throughout Eng - land and Wales and the Commonwealth, he was held in considerable awe by many, including Provincial Grand Masters and others nominal - ly , at least, his considerable seniors in Masonic rank. James Wilfrid Stubbs was born in 1910 into a distin - guished ecclesiastical family: his father was the Vicar of Barkway in Hertfordshire, his grandfather a notable Bishop of Chester and then of Oxford. From Summer Fields, Stubbs

went on with scholarships to Charterhouse and then Brase - nose College, Oxford, to read Classics. In the summer of 1931, while up at Oxford, he took what was later to prove a momentous step when he became a Freemason in the Apollo University Lodge. Then, as now, only those resident within the bounds of the university were eligible to progress to the chair of the lodge and so after coming down he had to pursue his Masonic career elsewhere . Freemasonry was, however , for the time being to be no more than a recreation and Stubbs was appointed to the staff at St Paul's School, teaching Classics and history.

In 1938 he married Richenda Streatfeild (the sister of the children's author, Noel). He served during the war with the Royal Signals, with which he was already involved in the Territorial Army, eventu -...