18. It has been my happy lot to be the President of the Sons of England during the record year of Her Majesty’s reign, an epoch year in the history of our British Empire, and it has given me the intensest pleasure to devote whatever power lay within me toward sustaining the loyal sentiments which have been evoked in so remarkable a degree.
The Foreign nations were amazed at the wondrous attachment with which the subjects of Queen Victoria, at home and all over the world, joined in rejoicing over her welfare, and in attesting their loyalty to her person and her Crown, but the Jubilee home-coming was a revelation also to the people of the Home Land, who found thus vividly brought before their eyes the marvellous area over which our fathers and we who had emigrated from her shores, have spread her power, and at last have seemed to “understand” how real is the blood union existing between the Sons who have gone out into the world, and the Brothers who have remained at home.
Summoned by the magic call of the Empress Queen, “Greater Britain” has suddenly stepped forward on the field as an actual and integral part of her Realm and Empire.
In accordance with the instructions of the Supreme Grand Lodge at Brantford, an address, most beautifully and appropriately illuminated, was forwarded to Her Majesty conveying our devotion, and stating the belief “that the personality of the Crown is the strongest and most stable bond of union between the millions of people who spread in a world-embracing circle around the old Home-Kingdom, delight in proving faithful allegiance, and doing loyal service.”
Our Society also joined heartily with all other societies in testifying together with them our united affection and loyalty upon the 22nd of June, the officially appointed Jubilee day.
It seemed to me, however, that the Sons of England owed it to their Queen, and earnestly desired to do something more, and I therefore organized the “Jubilee Service of a continuous anthem around the world,” to take place on Sunday, the 20th of June, the actual anniversary day of Her Majesty’s accession.
The idea when first mooted met with immediate acceptance as a happy conception, but many doubts were expressed as to the possibility of its being actually accomplished, for it seemed to the faint-hearted almost an impossibility to arrange for a connecting line of services, which should take place in succession around the whole circle of the earth for the space of twenty-four hours. Yet I have much pleasure in informing Supreme Grand Lodge that the “continuous Anthem and Prayer offered,” as stated in the Official Circular issued by me on the 8th April, “as the loyal and affectionate tribute of the Sons of England to their Gracious Queen upon the Diamond Jubilee of her accession to the Throne,” has been carried out in actual fact, and in completest detail.
It is not possible within the limits of this report to give more than a sketch, but some record is due of a “service” which was so universally and ardently adopted, which is absolutely unique in history, and which, moreover, is one capable of being carried out only by our nation, upon whose Sovereign’s dominions the sun never sets.
The intention was that commencing from the hour of 4.05 in the morning at Windsor Castle on the 20th of June, the Sons in the Colonies should join in a world-wide carol, and encircle their Queen with the continuous singing of the National Anthem all through the hours of that great day of her life, and on through the night until daylight the next morning.
On the opposite side of the world from the Heart of the Empire at Windsor Castle are the Fiji Islands, the colony situate nearest to longitude 180, where it is 4 o’clock in the afternoon at the same moment at which it is 4 o’clock in the morning of the same day in England at Greenwich.