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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley [probably] to William Henry Quilliam
27 June [1913]
Very Illustrious and very Brother,
[Richard] Higham purported to convoke a Sov[ereign] San[ctuary] of the A[ncient] and P[rimitive] R[ite] at Manchester at 4 o'clock on Saturday June 28. Messrs. Higham, Gasking [Reverend Samuel Gasking], Crowley and Wedgwood [James Ingall Wedgwood] were present. The various documents connected with the Convention were taken as read. It should however be mentioned that they included 2 strongly worded protests from Very Illustrious Brother Reuss [Theodor Reuss] and Quilliam against the illegality of the said Convention.
Very Illustrious Brother Crowley raised his voice in protest against any business being done at the meeting. He further challenged the Brothers present to prove that they were Masons, and Mr. Wedgwood in doing this claimed authority from a Co-Masonic body so-called with which he is associated. It was, of course impossible for the others to recognise this claim, as whatever regularity there may have been in Mr. Wedgwood's initiation, it was clear that he had plenty of claim to be considered a mason, and a fortiori a member of the A and P Rite by his connection with the so-called Co-masonic Body. Very Illustrious Brother Crowley thereupon further supported his first protest by leaving the Lodge counting [?] on a general agreement of the Brothers present to disband the meeting. In other words Brother [Crowley's] protest was sustained unanimously and Mr. Wedgwood's name must consequently be effaced from the muster roll of the S[overeign] S[anctuary] of the A and P R[ite] and all its subordinate bodies.
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