A recent visit to view the Oddfellows stained glass window in St. Martin and St. Meriadoc’s Parish Church in Camborne, gave local members of today’s Oddfellows Friendly Society the opportunity to present a unique historical object to the church.   It was back in 1863 that the beautiful Oddfellows stained glass window at the west end of the north aisle of the church was funded and commissioned by the Loyal Basset Lodge of the Oddfellows.

It was installed to commemorate not only the assistance rendered to its members by the friendly society, many of them tin and copper miners who had been injured or fallen ill as a result of their work, but also most especially to mark the marriage of the then Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, later King Edward VII, to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, later Queen Alexandra, which occurred on March 10, 1863.   Hugely expensive at the time, the large four-light window was paid for by the Basset Lodge at the then substantial cost of nine shillings and sixpence (47.5 decimal pence) per foot of glass, around £50 per foot in today’s prices. Rather remarkably, amongst the collection of artefacts held at Oddfellows Hall in Green Lane, Redruth was a Basset Lodge Oddfellows ‘Honour Board’ dating from the period detailing names of members of the Branch at the time and the decision was made to approach the Camborne Parochial Church Council to inquire if the historic item could be placed in the church with the stained glass window. This was agreed and a presentation has been made with the Honour Board being passed over by representatives of the Oddfellows to representatives of the church together with an abstract from the Oddfellows minute book of the 1860s recording the decision to commission the window.

Amazingly, amongst many other things which directly relate to the stained glass window, the minute book also records the fact that during 1860, national railway time was to be adopted in Camborne in place of local Cornish time which was in a different time zone!   Handing over the item, local Oddfellows Secretary, Peter English said, “Many members of today’s Oddfellows Friendly Society very much enjoy visiting the church in Camborne to view the magnificent window commissioned and paid for by their predecessors and indeed, members travel from across the country to view it.

“Placing the Honour Board in the church to be seen in conjunction with the window is in effect returning it to its spiritual home and this has given us huge satisfaction. We are extremely grateful to the Parochial Church Council and in particular, to David Thomas and David Fieldsend for enabling this.”   Receiving the Honour Board in to the church, Church Warden, historian and author, David Thomas said, ”We discussed this at the Parochial Church Council Meeting and it was agreed that this was a wonderful proposition. From my research, I know a considerable amount about many of those whose names appear on the board, local people from our town in times gone by.”   David went on to outline the family histories of many of those local people from Camborne’s past and accompanied by fellow Church Warden and Lay Minister David Fielding and Mrs. Fielding, guided the visiting Oddfellows members around the many fascinating and historical items in and about the church which remains a place of active Christian worship and fellowship in the heart of the local community.