Mariners and the Masonic Empire - Congress of Maritime History, Greenwich UK
30.05.2008
5th International Congress of Maritime History
23 June 2008 - 27 June 2008
The University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, UK
Mariners and the Masonic Empire
| Date: |
25 June 2008 |
| Time: |
09:00 - 11:00 |
| Location: |
|
Papers
2F-01 Maritime Masons in Cornwall in the Nineteenth Century
This paper is based on analysis of the maritime members of Masonic lodges in the
ports of Hayle, Penzance, Falmouth, Penryn and Fowey during the period. It will
take account of not just of sea-going groups ? such as mariners, master
mariners and pilots ? but also of land based businesses and ancillary trades,
such as shipbuilders, shipwrights and rope makers. Consideration will be given
to the numbers involved: their origins (local, domestic and foreign): how
common, or unusual, membership was within the various occupational groups: their
motivations for joining and the possible benefits derived. The differing
patterns of membership between ports will be explored. We shall also look at the
structure of the trades undertaken by Masonic mariners operating to and from the
south western ports and the degree to which they reflected patterns observed by
studies of other districts.
| Speaker: |
Dr Helen Doe |
| Organization: |
University Of Exeter |
| Biography: |
Helen gained her Masters Degree with distinction in Maritime History from
the University of Exeter. She has recently completed her PhD, also at
Exeter. Her research interests include shipbuilding, port communities,
maritime businesswomen and investors in nineteenth century shipping. Her
research has been published in the Mariner?s Mirror, Cornish Studies,
Family and Community History and the Journal of South West Maritime History
Society. She is a Council member of the Society for Nautical Research, a
member of the British Commission for Maritime History and a Trustee of the
National Museum Cornwall. |
| |
| Speaker: |
Professor Roger Burt |
| Organization: |
University Of Exeter |
| Biography: |
Professor Roger Burt is Emeritus Professor of Mining at the University of
Exeter and has published on the links between masons and mining. |
| |
2F-02 Masonic Networks in a Nineteenth Century Port
Situated on the mouth of a navigable river shipping was of considerable
importance to Victorian Lynn. In order to facilitate decisions about insurance,
cargoes, labour and security those involved in shipping benefited from
networking and it is apparent that after 1729, when the first Masonic lodge
opened in the town, Masons involved in shipping could use the lodge to build
commercial and social connections and to reduce moral hazard, transaction costs
and freeriding.
Six Masonic lodges were founded in Lynn before the Philanthropic Lodge was
opened in 1810. Three had closed by 1786 and the other three by 1838. The two
lodges which were formed after the Philanthropic was opened had closed by 1851.
When the Philanthropic became the sole lodge in town a social change occurred
within its membership. The captain, master mariners and naval officers (who had
themselves replaced the boatbuilders and the mariners from Yorkshire, Sunderland
and Lynn) left the lodge. Meanwhile, ship owners, ship brokers and shipping and
dock managers joined. These men made connections with other new members,
landowners and clerics who had links to local friendly societies. Drawing on the
network categorisations of Putnam and also of Woolcock local economic and social
stability will be conceptualised in terms of the role of Freemasonry within the
shifting balance between bonding social capital (the norms and networks of
trusting horizontal, relationships formed between people with a similar social
identity), bridging social capital, which refers to the horizontal networks
between participants who acknowledge their differences and linking social
capital (vertical relationships which connected those with unequal resources and
power).
| Speaker: |
Dr Dan Weinbren |
| Organization: |
The Open University |
| Biography: |
Dan Weinbren is a historian of fraternity and chair of the Friendly
Societies Research Group. His publications include work on the history of
the armaments industries, the Labour Party, friendly societies, The
Humanitarian League, family local and oral history and virtual heritage. |
| |
2F-03 Membership of Masonic Lodges in Some Northern Port Towns, 1780-1830
Freemasonry has hitherto generally been studied within national boundaries and
treated as a relatively static phenomenon. However, the analysis of the
membership records of Masonic lodges in such ports as Liverpool and Hull
suggests that membership was more dynamic than Masonic historians have
previously assumed. Liverpool lodges for example included mariners from such
countries as America, Russia, Sweden and Germany. Likewise, those engaged in the
domestic coastal trade frequently joined lodges in ports away from their home
base. It appears that freemasonry was a major means of contact between the home
port and the transient mariner population. This paper will illustrate this
phenomenon and will consider how far it affects our understanding of the social
and cultural impact of Freemasonry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries.
| Speaker: |
Professor Andrew Prescott |
| Organization: |
University Of Wales Lampeter |
| Biography: |
Professor Andrew Prescott was founding Director of the Centre for
Research into Freemasonry, University of Sheffield. He is currently
Librarian and Director of the Roderic Bowen Research Centre, University of
Wales Lampeter. |
| |
2F-04 Swedish Freemasonry in the Caribbean: a Multinational Lodge in the
Port Town of Gustavia on St. Barth鬥my around 1800
In 1784, the Kingdom of Sweden received a peculiar gift from the French king:
the volcanic island of St. Barth鬥my in the Caribbean Sea. This little strip
of land squeezed in between other and far more prosperous Caribbean islands, was
the scene for one of the few colonial endeavours of the Swedish crown and lasted
only about one hundred years. The history of freemasonry on St. Barth鬥my is
an important piece of a puzzle of freemasonry in the Caribbean in
general. It is a micro-history of cultural encounters and marine mobility, of
ritual development and sociability. This paper deals with the establishment of
freemasonry on St. Barth鬥my, its connections to the Swedish Grand Lodge, its
membership structure and activities mainly between 1797-1807 where we have
plenty of documents that tell us about its ritual work, organisation and
ideology. These connections have hitherto never been analysed and the paper
will for the first time present source material from the Archive of the Swedish
Order of Freemasons on the lodge la Sudermanie in the capital of the island,
the port town of Gustavia.
| Speaker: |
Dr Andreas Ö®nerfors |
| Organization: |
University Of Sheffield |
| Biography: |
Dr. Andreas Ö®nerfors is Director of the Centre for Research into
Freemasonry, established in the year of 2001 at the University of Sheffield.
Andreas obtained his PhD at the university of Lund, Sweden in 2003. In his
dissertation he analysed Sweden's relationship to its ultramarine German
possession of Swedish-Pomerania at the Baltic shore. He has worked on press
history and the history of associational life, mainly freemasonry. During a
post-doctoral project he also worked on seaborne post and passenger traffic
between the ports of Stralsund in Pomerania and Ystad in Sweden as a means
of
cultural encounters. |
Queries/Questions/Advice
Please direct all queries and requests for letters of invitation directly to
Suzanne Bowles using the Congress email address imeha2008@greenwich.ac.uk
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