Background To The Name
It was the wife of the first Secretary, C. G. Lowinger, who coined the name. Soon after the genesis of the idea of its formation, four men sat in the twilight near the Royal Observatory in Cape Town discussing what it should be called. W. E. Ranby, the first chronicler of the Club, takes up the tale: “Into the gathered darkness came Mrs Lowinger with the natural inquiry, ‘Why are you all sitting here in the dark like a lot of owls?’ ‘The very name for our Club!’ they cried, and the Owl Club it was called and remains” (Ranby 1952: 7). Members are designated as “Brother Owl” or Owl so-and-so. The first formal meeting of the Owl Club took place on 1 October 1894.
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“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
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