Robert (better known as Bob) Cordery was born just opposite County Hall in London, but spent the early years of his life in Middlesex. His family moved to Corbets Tey in Essex in the late 1950s, and at the age of eleven he went to Palmer’s Endowed School for Boys, Grays. He left in 1968 after passing his A levels, and joined Coutts & Co in the City, where he became a Bank Clerk. After nearly three years he decided to have change of career and went to Hockerill Teacher Training College, Bishops Stortford. He qualified in 1973, and after teaching for two years in Harlow, Essex, he moved to South East London, where he worked until he retired in 2014. His career in teaching included time as a deputy headteacher in a boy’s comprehensive school, a post-16 education coordinator, an adviser on careers and vocational education, and ended as a consultant and part time lecturer.
He was initiated in to the Grove Park Lodge No. 2732 in 1998, and has since been its Worshipful Master on two occasions. Thanks to his interest in the history and meaning of Freemasonry, he wrote a paper that he presented to the Veritatem Sequere Lodge No. 9615, with the result that he joined, has been a member of the Lodge’s team of orators and lecturers, and will become the Lodge’s Worshipful Master for 2017-2018. He is also a member of Herts Masters Lodge No. 4090 (whose centenary history he is currently researching and writing) as well as a London Lodge and a London Chapter. He has also served as Provincial Grand Standard Bearer, a role that he thoroughly enjoyed as it gave him the opportunity to visit other many Lodges and to meet a large number of Hertfordshire Freemasons.
Outside Freemasonry he spends his time pursuing his hobby of wargaming and running a UK-based international wargames group for professional and semi-professional wargame designers. He has contributed to, edited, and written over five hundred articles and several books about wargaming. He also acts as a mentor and adviser to post-graduate students on the King’s College, London, wargame design course run by the War Studies Department. When not involved in the above, Bob spends as much time as he can going on cruises with his wife and tending to the needs of their temperamental cat.
