Heb deitl

The seventeen lodges which constituted the Gwalia District were established between 1837 and 1892. Throughout the twentieth century however, membership of lodges within the Gwalia District declined steadily. In 1912 there were 2,412 members but by 1930 membership was down to 1,602, and by 1958 - the year when the first lodge was dissolved - there were only 581 members. In that year, out of the sixteen remaining lodges, only three could boast of a membership in excess of fifty; four, in fact, had less than twenty members. This decline was not confined to the Gwalia District. Total membership in the U.K. had fallen from 726,570 in 1928 to 285,956 in 1968. Within twenty five years, 1958 to 1973, the number of lodges within the Gwalia District fell from seventeen to one. Declining membership meant that annual expenditure of lodges exceeded total annual income as members claimed contributions without assets being replenished by the contributions of new members. Eventually this led to the continued withdrawal of liquid assets, finally culminating in the realisation of investments and loss of capital. Declining membership also meant a tapering off of attendances at lodge meetings which eventually resulted in lodges being unable to conduct their buisness due to a lack of a quorum. Individual lodges had little autonomy from the District or the Unity. Rates of contributions to, and payments from, the various Funds were laid down by the Unity. A similar control was excerised by the Unity over lodges' investments. Lodges' records were examined annually by the District and in order to achieve a uniform, standard practice of book-keeping throughout all the lodges within the Unity; pro-forma forms and volumes were issued to lodges from the 1920s onwards. With a uniform system of book-keeping in place, together with detailed rules governing the conduct and practice of lodges, it appears that lodges could only excercise discretion in a very limited number of ways. These included the right to enroll new members, to appoint officers and delegates, (though even here the Unity had the power to veto the appointment of the Provincial Corresponding Secretary), and to certify through their Sick Officer whether claims for sickness benefits were justified or not. When lodges were dissolved it appears that their records were transferred by the Lodge Secretary to the District Secretary.