Famous Freemason - Edward Jenner

I shall endeavour still further to prosecute this inquiry, an inquiry I trust not merely speculative, but of sufficient moment to inspire the pleasing hope of its becoming essentially beneficial to mankind.

Edward Jenner, FRS FRCPE was a British physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines including creating the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae ('smallpox of the cow'), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the long title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.

In the West, Jenner is often called "the father of immunology", and his work is said to have "saved more lives than the work of any other human".

In Jenner's time, smallpox killed around 10% of the population, with the number as high as 20% in towns and cities where infection spread more easily. In 1821, he was appointed physician to King George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and justice of the peace. A member of the Royal Society, in the field of zoology he was among the first modern scholars to describe the brood parasitism of the cuckoo In 2002, Jenner was named in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Bro. Jenner was made a Master Mason on December 30, 1802 at Lodge of Faith and Friendship No. 449, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire.

10 years later, Bro. Jenner would serve his lodge as Worshipful Master.