ABSTRACT
When omas Dunckerley died in 1795, several brief obituary notices read, ‘Died: On ursday, at Portsmouth, in the 71st year of his age, omas Dunckerley, Esq., Provincial Grand Master of England’.1 In the decades since Dunckerley returned from sea, he had indeed become ubiquitous. It undoubtedly seemed that he actually was the Provincial Grand Master of all of England. He would have liked that little bit of exaggeration. But in truth, between his 1767 appointment as Provincial Grand Master (PGM) of Hampshire, until he nally relinquished o ce just prior to his death in 1795, Dunckerley at one time or another, presided over Hampshire, Essex, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Hereford, Southampton, the City and County of Bristol, and the Isle of Wight.2 At Dunckerley’s instigation, the Isle of Wight became independent from Hampshire. In 1786 he successfully petitioned for Bristol to become a Masonic province independent of Gloucestershire. Sadler observes that the point of this division was to enable Dunckerley to appoint most of the members of the Royal Gloucester Lodge No. 462 as Provincial Grand O cers. ere was no other lodge in the province of Gloucester at that time. In addition, he wrestled with Freemasons in Wiltshire over whether they would accept him as Provincial Grand Master – he thought so, they thought not – with the result that he was designated rst as Acting Provincial Grand Master, and then in one of his rare defeats, apparently ful lled the duties of o ce without any title at all. Of the thirty-four Masonic provinces recognized by the Modern Grand Lodge in 1795, Dunckerley was PGM of eight, and had a considerable share in creating and presiding over another two.3
