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| Richard Gan |
Binckes played a pivotal role in the development of the Mark Degree, the Mark Benevolent Fund and the establishment of Mark Masons’ Hall. His wider contribution to Freemasonry and its charitable institutions was equally significant.
We look forward to welcoming Richard and to another engaging and enlightening occasion of Masonic history and fellowship.
Synopsis of the 2026 Canon Portal Memorial Lecture—“Frederick Binckes: A Remarkable Freemason”—Frederick Binckes was an outstanding Victorian Freemason who had a profound and lasting effect on many different aspects of Freemasonry, and was instrumental in putting Mark Masonry on the map. He was appointed Grand Secretary of Mark Grand Lodge in 1861, and served concurrently as Secretary of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys for more than twenty-eight years. Binckes had a considerable influence on the expansion of the Mark Degree and its acceptance into mainstream Masonry, both at home and overseas, the creation of the Mark Benevolent Fund and the establishment of Mark Masons’ Hall in Great Queen Street.
He also played a key role in the Royal Ark Mariner being brought under the protection of Mark Grand Lodge, as well as the formation and early development of the Royal and Select Masters, and the Allied Masonic Degrees.
To arrange a delivery of the Fourth Portal Lecture in your Province or District, please contact R.W. Bro. Gan here.
We also extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to W. Bro. Dr. John Walter Hawkins for his dedication, service, and scholarly contribution in delivering the previous lecture.
Perhaps you know Bro. Gan from Masonic Week. If not, here is a little biograpy from Lewis Masonic:
Richard Gan is a senior Freemason and a Grand Officer in all the major Orders of Freemasonry. He retired in June 2010 as Deputy Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons. Born in 1950, he was educated at the Becket School, Nottingham, and is a graduate of London University where he took an Honours Degree in Geology and subsequently studied part-time for a Masters Degree in Education. He is also a graduate of the Open University, where he took a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Management Studies. Whilst at the Institute of Education he combined winning a double distinction in the Post Graduate Certificate of Education whilst also serving as President of the Students’ Union. He has enjoyed a number of successful careers in education and Masonic administration before finally becoming Editor of The Square, an independent magazine for Freemasons, retiring in 2014. He is a full member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, the premier lodge of Masonic research.
The Canon Portal Memorial Lecture is a fairly recent tradition, established 2018, in English Mark Masonry. Gan is the fourth to be so honored and set to labor. The lecture was created by the Mark Benevolent Fund at its sesquicentennial anniversary to honor the history and legacy of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of England and Wales.
It is named for Canon George Raymond Portal (1827-89), a founder of both the MBF and the Mark Grand Lodge, serving as its Grand Master, 1869-73. A giant in various Masonic orders in England (Grand Master of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters, England and Wales in 1871 and Grand Master of AMD at the time of his death), Portal was not unknown in the United States. During his Mark grand mastership, he served as representative to the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Iowa.
His too brief obituary in Vol. II (1889) of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum simply reads:
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The April 13, 1889 edition of The Freemason: The Organ of the Craft, a Weekly Record of Progress in Freemasonry Literature, Science and Art, reports:
Yet once again, within the brief period of a few weeks, the melancholy duty devolves on us of recording the death of one of the ablest and most experienced members of our Craft... We are sorrowing over the loss of a reverend brother who had secured both Grand and Provincial Grand Lodge honors; and had not only presided as Grand Master over the Mark and other degrees or systems of Masonry, but had likewise been their guide, philosopher, and friend during so long a term of years that his loss, if not irreparable, will be most difficult to repair.
Bro. the Rev. Canon Portal, almost from the time of his initiation until his death, was a busy as well as an able member of the Craft. Two years after he had been made a Mason, we find him presiding as Master over one of our most important Provincial Lodges, and assisting in the resuscitation of another, which, but for his fortunate intervention would, in all probability, have then and there disappeared from the roll of Grand Lodge. Five years later, in conjunction with other Oxford brethren, he took a leading part in the revival of one of our oldest and now one of our most distinguished Metropolitan lodges, while, about the same time, his voice was frequently heard in Grand Lodge on the stirring question of the Canadian lodges and their alleged neglect by the home authorities.
In 1856 he turned his attention to the Mark Degree, and on the establishment of the Mark G. Lodge was appointed one of its Grand Chaplains. Thenceforward he appears to have devoted almost the whole of his attention to this particular branch of Masonry, and there can be no question that the Mark is chiefly indebted for its success to the efficient services rendered by our late Bro. Portal in one or other of the numerous offices he filled almost from the date of his advancement, but more particularly as Deputy Grand and Grand Master and President of its General Board. In him, too, the Mark Benevolent Fund has lost one of its founders and early patrons, while the Allied Degrees and Royal and Select Masters will hardly know themselves now that he who had presided over their respective councils from their organization as Grand Bodies is no longer here to watch over and protect their interests.
In short, Freemasonry has lost in Bro. Canon Portal one of its most cultured and most capable members, who had been the friend and associate in Masonic labor of many of the chief dignitaries of our Order, and who leaves behind him not only many sterling memorials of his wisdom and strength as a ruler, but likewise a reputation for kindliness as well as ability which few will rival, and none surpass.
Congratulations, Bro. Gan! I hope your lecture will be published for those of us who cannot attend your stops in England.
