Harpenden Lodge No 4314 is to hold the official Prestonian Lecture on the 16th December 2021 at Ashwell House, St Albans which is to be given by W Bro Prof G R Boys-Stones PAGDC.
The Prestonian Lecture is the only official lecture sponsored by Grand Lodge. The lecturer is appointed for a calendar year and usually gives three or four official deliveries in his year. The Lectureship is a memorial to William Preston (1742-1818), the foremost Masonic educator of his age, who left a legacy to Grand Lodge to perpetuate his system of ritual lectures practised in the Lodge of Antiquity No 2 (then No 1).
W Bro Prof George Boys-Stones is Professor of Classics and Philosophy at the University of Toronto and previously Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Durham University. He is a leading scholar of Ancient Philosophy and has a special interest in the philosophical movements of the post-Hellenistic period (after 31BC).He studied at Cambridge University (MA) and Oxford University (DPhil) where he was initiated into the Apollo University Lodge No 357.
He was appointed the Prestonian Lecturer for 2020 and subsequently appointed the Lecturer for 2021. The 2020 Lecture was “A System of Morality: Aristotle and the Making of the Ritual” and the 2021 Lecture is “A System of Morality Part II: ‘Veiled in Allegory’”. The first lecture addressed the Aristolian basis of the Masonic ritual while the second explores the allegory of the building through which it is expressed.
Brethren may apply for a place at the lecture by email to provgsec@pglherts.org , should the event be oversubscribed allocation will be by ballot.
The expected cost of dining is £40 and details of how to book will be forwarded to those attending the lecture during November.
