Freemasons are ordinary Australians who care for their community and believe that shared moral and ethical values contributes to the establishment of a society that can live in peace and harmony. Indeed, this is probably why our grandfathers, our fathers or our uncles may have been Free Masons and why there are tens of thousands of Free Masons in Australia today. Freemasonry holds many rich traditions dating back centuries together with embracing a moral code it still as is relevant today as it was when it was first established. 

Having been established over 300 years ago, Freemasons have widely contributed to many spheres of society and more so in Australia. 

Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) – of which this Lodge proudly bears his name (albeit spelt with one-‘t’ through a typographical error in registration) – was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of the then New Holland and put forward his rationale for naming this new continent ‘Australia’, as an umbrella term for the territories of New Holland and New South Wales to describe the entirety of that continent – including Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) – a title he regarded as being “more agreeable to the ear” than previous names such as Terra Australis. 

Freemasonry in Australia is particularly well represented in business and trade union communities, as well as emergency services, defence forces, and the legal profession. 

There are plenty of prominent Australians who were Freemasons, including: 

• Sir Weary Dunlop, war hero  
• James Boag, brewer  
• Charles Kingsford Smith, aviator 
• Frank Clune, author
• Harry Melbourne, the inventor of the Freddo Frog.
• Fred Walker, the inventor of Vegemite
• Thomas Mayne, the inventor of Milo
• Graham Kennedy, TV entertainer
• Sir James Hardy (from Hardys Wines), Olympian and businessman
• Donald Bradman, Wally Grout, Bill Ponsford, Bobby Simpson and Bill Lawry, Australian cricketers
• Sir Edmund Barton, Robert Menzies, and John Gorton, Australian prime ministers
• And many, many others