FAMOUS LONDONERS:


arena COMMANDER BOND W. Bro Ernest R Bond OBE, QPM, PSGD, PPrSGW (West Kent) LGCR


We take a look at famous Masonic Londoners in this series and it is easy, says W. Bro Gordon Davie, PSGD, with the whole of history at our disposal, to look at the distant past. On this occasion, the past is not so distant, but the man involved is no less remarkable. W. Bro Ernest ("Ernie") Bond was a quiet, modest and unassuming man with undoubted leadership abilities and was a model for Masons both young and old who met him...


twelve Commissioner's Commendations and seven Commander's Commendations for courage, diligence and determination in the course of investigations. In January 1971, he set up the Bomb


a regular in 1935 and at the outbreak of the Second World War was serving with the 1st Battalion Scots Guards. In 1940 he was involved in the disastrous Norwegian campaign. On his return to England, he volunteered to join No 8 (Guards) Commando. This unit formed part of the Layforce brigade of special service units sent to Palestine under the command of Colonel (later Major-General Sir) Robert Laycock in 1941. When this unit was disbanded, Sergeant Ernie Bond transferred to the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards, with the Eighth Army which was involved in a bitter struggle with the Afrika Korps in the Western Desert. Whilst he was serving with the Scots Guards he volunteered for transfer to a new unit called "L" Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade which was a commando force operating behind enemy lines. After parachute training he was involved in a mission against enemy airfields and was captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW. After the war, Bro. Ernie joined the


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Metropolitan Police, serving in the Fraud squad, Flying Squad and finally the Murder Squad, where he enjoyed a fearsome reputation for getting results. Indeed during his career, Ernie received no fewer than


SPRING 2013


orn in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria on 1st March 1919, he joined the Army as


Squad to deal with the threat posed by the "Angry Brigade", a small British militant group responsible for a series of bomb attacks in Britain at the beginning of the early 1970's. At this time he was known as Commander X to hide his real identity from the anarchists he was dealing with: a real Commander Bond and not a fictional one. In 1972 he was appointed Deputy Assistant Commissioner, becoming head of CID operations for the whole of the Metropolitan Police. His exchanges with the Angry Brigade members and their lawyers at their subsequent trial later became a classic television programme. By 1975 the threat had changed and the


IRA was involved in a bombing campaign and terrorising London. In December, a group of Provisional IRA members, who had sprayed the front of Scott's restaurant in Mayfair with bullets, were caught up in an anti terror operation and trapped in Balcombe Street, Marylebone, where they took two hostages John and Sheila Matthews. Ernie Bond was in charge of the siege and after six days negotiation, secured the Matthews' release and the men's surrender. The following year he retired after thirty years in the Metropolitan Police and received a final accolade when he was invested with the OBE. His three passions in life outside his family were decorating, Freemasonry and gardening. Ernie had been initiated in the Britannic


Lodge of Madeira No.3683, on 10 September 1962. The Lodge had been founded to meet in Funchal, Madeira, under the Grand Orient Lodge Portugal in 1908, as the Britannic Lodge No. 282. In 1913 it petitioned to join the UGLE and was


consecrated under the English Constitution in 1913 as the Britannic Lodge, receiving the number, 3863. It relocated to London in 1935 and was renamed the Britannic Lodge of Madeira. (It was erased on 13th December 2006). He also joined the Woolwich Polytechnic Lodge No. 3573 and became its Worshipful Master in 1986. In those days Lodge visiting was much more widespread than it is today and the Woolwich Polytechnic Lodge was one of a group of ten Lodges all of which invited each other’s Worshipful Master to their meetings. Such was Ernie Bond’s enthusiasm and leadership qualities that within a short space of time the Worshipful Masters became firm friends and visited each other's Lodges. "Ernie Bond’s gang", as it became known, seemed to occupy a sprig at the Festive Board at Lodge meetings in the South East London area over a period of fifteen years. After leaving the Metropolitan Police,


Ernie Bond spent most of his time pursuing his interests of Freemasonry, gardening and decorating. He was a happily married man with four children, two boys and two girls. Sadly his wife died in1992, and following her death, he devoted himself to enjoying his Freemasonry. His passion was the ritual which he enjoyed and performed well, indeed in the Mark degree he was the Deputy Preceptor of the Mark Grand Lodge demonstration team and was also the Chairman of the Mark Provincial Demonstration team. So why should this 'Londoner' be


remembered? Partly because of his daring, bravery and doggedness, but also because of his leadership qualities of which we can all take note. It is not enough to provide mentors and encouragement; we also need leaders and exemplars that provide a model for the newer members of the Craft. That is just what Ernie Bond was and that is why he should be remembered, as an example to future generations of Masons.


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