MASONIC BIOGRAPHIES FAMOUS FREEMASONS

P. G. Wodehouse October 15, 1881 - February 14, 1975 Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in Guildford in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After working for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank for two years, he left to earn his living as a journalist and storywriter, writing almost 100 books of light fiction. He was created a Knight of the British Empire in the New Years Honours List in 1975. Acclaimed as the greatest comic writer of the twentieth century for, among other things, his creation of Bertie Wooster and his manservant, Jeeves, Wodehouse makes several references to Freemasonry in his writings. His radio broadcasts of five talks describing his experiences as British Civilian Prisoner No. 796 during World War II were mistaken as pro-German and led to unfounded—and later discredited—accusations that he had collaborated with the Nazis Phelps tells us that Wodehouse’s "embarrassment at inadvertantly slandering [Roland] Pertwee triggered his resignation from their mutual Masonic Lodge and from the Masons." Initiated : March 22, 1929 Passed : April 26, 1929 Raised : November 22, 1929 Demitted : November 10, 1934 Jerusalem Lodge No. 197, London Source: United Grand Lodge of England records, cited by Barry Phelps, P.G. Wodehouse, man and myth. London : Constable, 1992. pp. 153, 171.

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