Alan Woodrow was a distinguished architect who designed, among other buildings, Holy Trinity Church. He was an enthusiastic member of the knights of St. Columba, into which Order he had been initiated towards the end of 1927, during his years in London. He had been so impressed by all he had seen and learnt of that Order that he was determined to bring something similar back to South Africa with him. He duly arrived back in Durban in 1928, armed with copies of the Knights of St. Columba information pamphlets and a letter of introduction from his Grand Knight. These he presented to Bishop Henri Delalle OMI, Impressed, rather against his will, for he did not consider that the South African church at the time was numerically strong  enough to support a lay Order. And after consulting with Dr Sormany OMI, Bishop Delalle nevertheless brought together 15 prominent Catholic professional men in the hope that a nucleus might be formed from which the Order might develop in due course. This group meet regularly but to no avail. It lacked a programme, had no real common purpose, achieved nothing for the community at large and soon became disintegrated and stopped functioning in 1929.

War broke out and during this time a young (26 year old) priest arrived to serve in Bishop Delalle’s diocese, Fr. Emmet Neville, from Seattle in the United States. He was assigned to the Natal Vicariate, where he soon showed himself to be a man of imposing personality, full of drive, tenacity and determination. Whilst working in the Durban area in 1943, he met another American priest who had travelled with a large convoy of merchant ships which had called in at the port. This priest was a member of the Knights of Columbus. In the course of conversation with his clerical colleague and compatriot, the American Order was mentioned. Fr Neville became interested, intrigued and finally fascinated by the concept. Before long, he too was at Bishop Delalle’s door with his request, strangely reminiscent of the same proposition n the Bishop recalled from years before. He arranged a meeting between Fr Neville and Alan Woodrow in June 1943. The two-man “Inceptive Committee” was born. Only six months later it in turn gave birth to the Catholic Order of the Knights of da Gama.

After five months of regular meetings between the two, always at Alan Woodrow's home, all was ready by November. the essential features of the Order had been finalised and, most important of all, 14 men deemed by the two pioneers to embody the qualities of knighthood they sought, had been approached and expressed their willingness to join the proposed organisation. They were a mixed bunch, including an architect, a school inspector, two commercial representatives, a director of an engineering firm, a sales manager, a diary and sugar farmer, a shipping clerk, an accountant, a bank clerk, a shoe retailer, a chief clerk from a building society, a telephone mechanic and two grocery clerks. They had not even met each other before this and introductions had to be made.

In the afternoon of Saturday 20 November 1943, the feast day of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, who is the patron saint of the Order, the 14 were brought one by one from the anteroom in which they were waiting, into the semi-darkened room, where the candle-light  glinted attractively off the panelling. On this panelling, behind the chair of the Grand Knight at the Bar of Authority hung the dr\awing of the original emblem on linen-backed paper some 75cm square. After the initiation ceremony which lasted three hours, it was signed by all sixteen men present and hung up at all subsequent meetings of the Original council. This drawing was subsequently lost by Alan Woodrow later

Present at the meeting were James Devlin, Denis O'Flaherty, Pieter Vos, Henry Mazery, Gerald Dooley, Wilfred Shelton, Edward Paull, Herbert O'Connor, John Clark, Justin Kelly, Neville Creaney, John Mulheron, William Mulheron,and Joh Behr. These, plus the two foundation members, Alan Woodrow, the first Supreme Knight and Fr. Emmet Neville, the first Supreme Chaplain (who acted as Grand Knight for the occasion), formed the original Supreme Council of the Order.

The Council was established on 11 October 1944 at St Andrew's Street Convent High School Hall when the Officers were installed. They were J. H. Gillham as Grand Knight, L. Hodson as Deputy Grand Knight, H. Price as Secretary, F. E. Ayling as Treasurer and A. E. G. Pate as Master-at-Arms. Presiding was SK Alan Woodrow, assisted by his Deputy, Wilfred Shelton, Supreme Secretary Henry Mazery, Supreme Master-at-Arms, Pieter Vos and Supreme Chaplain, Fr. Emmet Neville. Only Brother Knights attended this first meeting.

The first full General Assembly, and, therefore, the first formal G.A. in the Order, took place on 8 November 1944, when Council No. 1 was inaugurated. There were already over 50 members in the Durban area. Many of these had been invited to become founder members but had then declined, preferring to adopt a “wait and see” attitude.