Rob Hammond is North Wales Mason, initiated into Royal Denbigh Lodge No.1143 in 2012. Born and bred in neighbouring Cheshire, after studying PPE at Oxford, with nothing better to do he joined the Army in 1991. Initially an infantry officer, he served in Norway, Kenya and Bosnia with the UN in 1994, before transferring to become a military educator. In that capacity between 1996 and 2001 he served in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and Sierra Leone, the latter becoming a lifetime academic interest. He completed his MA at Lancaster University in 2004 and left the army in 2007 after his final operational tour in Iraq. He then became an Associate Lecturer with the Open University, for whom he still works, and completed his PhD, titled Freemasonry and the Political History of Sierra Leone: 1890 – 1992, the subject of an article in AQC Vol.135 and published as a book in 2025. His research interests include Freemasonry in West Africa and North Wales, with further articles published in AQC on both subjects. He is a full member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge. No. 2706, and editor of its transactions since 2025. Living on his wife’s family sheep farm, when he’s not working indoors with humans he’s working outdoors with animals, which is far preferable.
