Introduction 

Brethren, your Worshipful Master has been a frequent visitor to the South Australian Lodge of Research, and learned that I am writing a book about Freemasonry in Tasmania. When he asked me to speak to you tonight and tell you something of the Craft in that beautiful island, I wondered which of the many stories would interest you most. Then I thought of your own origins, as the East Torrens Lodge of Faith, 408 IC, and the answer was clear. I shall talk about Irish Freemasonry in Tasmania.

Ireland is often forgotten or underrated as a source of Freemasonry throughout the world, but it was an Irish invention which was largely responsible for the spread of Masonry outside of Europe. In 1730 the Grand Lodge of Ireland invented the document called a Warrant or Charter, and two years later had the brilliant idea of issuing a movable warrant—that is to say, a warrant for the lodge to meet wherever the members happened to be. They issued these warrants to brethren who wished to form lodges in the British army units stationed in Ireland. When the units moved, they took the warrant and the lodge paraphernalia with them. Thus, the soldier Masons took their Freemasonry to North America, the West Indies, Africa, India, China and Australasia. Irish regulations prohibited the initiation of military candidates in ‘town’ lodges if there was a military lodge in the vicinity, or the initiation of civilians in a military lodge if a town lodge met nearby. These regulations, of course, only applied to Irish lodges. The regulations also required the lodges with movable warrants to place themselves under the local jurisdiction of any existing Grand Lodge wherever they might go.

The other Grand Lodges of the British Isles—first Scotland, then the Antients, and finally the Moderns, copied the idea of the warrant and the movable warrant, but the majority of military warrants were Irish.

 

Tasmania 

Exactly when Freemasonry came to Van Diemen’s Land is open to conjecture. Newspapers and other sources indicate the presence of Masons and Masonic activity in 1804, 1814, 1819 and 1824.[1] Two regiments of the British army, with units garrisoned in Hobart during this period, contained lodges with Irish warrants. They were the 46th of Foot (Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry), from 1814 to 1818, and the 48th of Foot (Northamptonshire Regiment) from 1817 to 1824.[2]

However, the first authenticated meeting of a regular lodge in Hobart was in 1825. Thornton’s Lodge, number 284 on the register of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, was attached to the 40th of Foot (South Lancashire Regiment), with members stationed in Hobart from 1825 to 1830. This lodge met in a private room of an hotel (quite a usual practice in the 18th and early 19th centuries), and initiated local settlers into Freemasonry.[3] This was quite lawful, because there was no town lodge.

The first civilian lodge, Tasmanian Lodge, was formed in 1828 and worked under a dispensation from Thornton’s Lodge until the arrival of its own warrant in 1831. In turn, Tasmanian Lodge sponsored a second civilian lodge, Brotherly Union, in 1832, and in 1834 a third ‘Irish’ lodge was formed, Tasmanian Operative Lodge. The driving force behind the establishment of these civilian lodges and a permanent home for Freemasonry in Van Diemen’s Land was Robert Lathrop Murray, who became known as ‘the father of Tasmanian Freemasonry’.[4]

 

The Father of Tasmanian Freemasonry 

Soldier, bigamist, policeman, businessman, journalist, convicted forger and country gentleman—the ‘father of Tasmanian Freemasonry’ was all of these. He was born in England in 1777 and christened Robert William Lathropp. He was educated at Westminster School and Cambridge University. When he came of age he assumed the surname Murray, claiming descent from Sir William Murray, a Scottish baronet. He later changed his name to Robert Lathrop Murray, and this is the name under which he was always known in Australia.[5]

Murray joined the army at 18 and, as a junior officer serving in Ireland, he was made a Mason in a lodge with an Irish military warrant. He became Master of his lodge at the age of 24, and obtained what are often called ‘higher degrees’ in Orders closely related to Freemasonry. Brother Murray served in the Peninsula War as equerry to the Duke of Kent, in the army commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley (the Duke of Wellington).

It was during his earlier service in Ireland that Murray married Alicia Marshall, by whom he had a daughter. Then in England in 1801, he married Catherine Clarke, by whom he also had a daughter. Later he had a son, Edward Kent Strathearn Murray, whose godfather was the Duke of Kent. Murray is said to have married his son’s mother, Lydia Marriott, in 1806. The point of all this genealogy is that in 1815 Captain Murray was charged with bigamy, by going through a form of marriage with Catherine Clarke while still married to Alicia. Murray’s defence was that he did not consider the Irish marriage legal. Catherine and several highly placed friends supported him, but he was convicted and sentenced to transportation to New South Wales for seven years. No charge was laid in relation to Lydia.

Murray was granted a pardon in New South Wales in 1816, and was employed as a clerk and constable of the Sydney bench. He was promoted to principal clerk in the police office, and to assistant superintendent in 1820.

He came to Hobart the following year on a business venture, accompanied by a married woman. He angered Governor Arthur by flaunting this relationship and by his subsequent association with the Attorney-General.[6] It was not long before letters began to be published in the local press, signed ‘a Colonist’, which were critical of Arthur and his administration. Murray acknowledged authorship of these letters at a public function, when he rose to respond to a toast to ‘a Colonist’!

In 1825 he was appointed editor of the Colonial Times, whose publisher shared Murray’s views. The government responded to continuing attacks in this paper by jailing not Murray but the publisher, Andrew Bent, for libel. It then imposed a tax on newspapers and required publishers to be licensed. The Colonial Times was unable to secure a licence, and ceased publication. However, when news of this attempt to control the press reached England, the Colonial Secretary ordered the tax and the licensing system to be withdrawn.

Murray continued his business ventures and suffered a liquidity problem, which brought him before the Supreme Court on two charges of forgery. In October 1826 he was found not guilty of one charge, but guilty of the other.[7] This would have been the end of a lesser man, for forgery was a capital offence in those days, but Murray survived and prospered. Precisely what happened is not clear, but the court records show that sentence was postponed several times and, eight months after conviction, Murray was pardoned by Governor Arthur.[8] Five months after his reprieve, Murray married a local girl, Eleanor Dixon, who subsequently bore him three sons and four daughters. When Murray returned to journalism a few weeks after his marriage, his new publications, the Austral–Asiatic Review and the Tasmanian, were more moderate in tone, and tended to favour Governor Arthur.

It was in this trying period that Brother Murray renewed his Masonic activities. As a former army officer, himself initiated in a military lodge with an Irish warrant, he was a welcome visitor to Thornton’s Lodge, attached to the South Lancashire Regiment. He introduced other colonists to the lodge and appendant Royal Arch chapter, and in 1827 he obtained from Thornton’s Lodge a dispensation to form Tasmanian Lodge, which began to meet in the following year. It was he who sought dispensations to form the other civilian lodges, Brotherly Union and Tasmanian Operative, and installed their first Masters.

The South Lancashire Regiment was transferred to India in 1830, and Thornton’s Lodge departed with it. The 63rd of Foot (Manchester Regiment), stationed in Van Diemen’s Land from 1830 to 1834, also had an Irish warrant, and the regimental surgeon, William Bohan, held the rank of Past Provincial Grand Master. In 1832, the two civilian lodges, Tasmanian Lodge and the Lodge of Brotherly Union, wrote to the Grand Lodge of Ireland, recommending the appointment of Brother Bohan as Provincial Grand Master for Tasmania.[9] While awaiting the reply, which never arrived, Bohan proceeded to establish a Provincial Grand Lodge, with the Masters and Wardens of the two lodges as his grand officers.

Although this unofficial Provincial Grand Lodge ceased to exist when Brother Bohan departed for India with his regiment in 1834, the grand idea remained. After the formation of Tasmanian Operative Lodge, the three civilian lodges again petitioned the Grand Lodge of Ireland for a Provincial Grand Lodge, recommending Robert Lathrop Murray as their Provincial Grand Master. The Duke of Leinster, Grand Master of Ireland, was opposed to the establishment of Provincial Grand Lodges outside the mother country. He refused the Bohan petition, which the Grand Lodge of Ireland had recommended, and he refused the Murray petition. A more modest form of local self-regulation was subsequently adopted, a Standing Committee.

The 21st of Foot, known at the time as the Royal North British Fuzileers, and later as the Royal Scots Fusiliers, arrived in the colony in December 1833. It brought with it a lodge that had been at work for a century, off and on, with Irish warrant number 33. Robert Murray and several other civilians joined this lodge to strengthen its numbers.

In turn, the 21st of Foot was scheduled to move to India in 1838. Some members of the lodge, having completed their military service, elected to stay as settlers. Those going with the regiment were too few to keep the lodge active, and it was decided to leave the warrant with the brethren in Hobart. Eventually, permission was granted by the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and Robert Lathrop Murray became the first civilian Master of the lodge, in 1842.

By virtue of the age of its warrant, this lodge was clearly the most senior of the four Irish lodges meeting in Hobart, so the lodges formed a Standing Committee with the Master of number 33, Brother Murray, as chairman. The committee performed most of the administrative functions of a Provincial Grand Lodge, and continued until 1875, outliving its first chairman and three of the four founding lodges.

Members of the Lodge of Brotherly Union, exasperated by the time taken in communication with the Grand Lodge of Ireland, obtained a warrant to form a lodge under the United Grand Lodge of England, to be known as Tasmanian Union Lodge. It is ironic that, although the lodge began work under dispensation in 1844, it was not until 1848 that the warrant was received from England. The first Master, Charles Toby, had the strange ambition of working the lodge under two constitutions, English and Irish, but Robert Murray put a stop to that and the Irish warrant was revoked in 1845.

Meanwhile, in 1842, the English parliament had passed legislation about Irish marriages which gave Murray hope that his conviction for bigamy could be overturned, and in 1847 he returned to England to claim his inheritance. He died at his English country seat in 1850.

 

St John’s Lodge and the Synagogue 

The first lodge in the north of the island was St John’s Lodge, erected at Launceston in January 1843 under a dispensation granted by Tasmanian Operative Lodge in Hobart. In the same month, the Jewish community in Launceston decided that the time was right to build a synagogue, and they addressed a petition to the Governor for a grant of land for this purpose. Subsequent events led to an unusual demonstration of brotherhood.[10]

One of the first Masons to join the new lodge was Samuel Fox, Quartermaster of the 96th Regiment of Foot (2nd Manchester), whose headquarters was at Launceston. A few months later he was elected Master of the lodge.[11] The commandant, Lt Col Cumberland, may also have been a Mason, but he did not join the lodge.

The Jewish petition for a land grant was refused by Governor Sir John Franklin, and this was interpreted by the local newspapers and the general populace as religious bigotry. The Jews launched an appeal for funds to buy land for the synagogue, and received generous and widespread support.[12]

It was decided to make the laying of the foundation stone a gala occasion. On Tuesday, 1 October 1844 (the 18th day of Tishri, 5605, by the Jewish calendar), a crowd assembled in pouring rain for the event. A procession was formed outside the meeting place of St John’s Lodge, led by the band of the 96th of Foot, followed by the brethren of the lodge in full regalia, with the members of the Jewish building committee in their midst and the remainder of the Jewish congregation at the rear. The band played Masonic airs, Burns’ Farewell and The Entered Apprentice, and led the way along St John Street to the chosen land. The lodge minutes record:

On arriving at the ground, suitable prayers were offered up to the Great Architect of the Universe, and a Masonic Anthem, expressly compiled for the occasion, was sung by the brethren, accompanied by the Military Band.

After the laying of the foundation stone and dedication by the President of the congregation, Benjamin Francis, assisted by the Master of the lodge, Samuel Fox, they all reassembled and marched back behind the band.

As Regimental Quartermaster and Worshipful Master, Samuel Fox provides an obvious link between the regiment and the lodge, but personal links between the lodge and the congregation are more difficult to establish. It is possible, of course, that Samuel Fox was a Jew. There are no contemporary Jewish records of the period, and Masonic records do not indicate religious affiliation. Benjamin Francis may have been a Mason. There are three subsequent references in the lodge minutes, in the period 1845–48, to a Mason with the surname of Francis[13], and some of the phrases used by Benjamin Francis in his address at the laying of the foundation stone had a decidedly Masonic flavour.[14] Judge for yourselves from this report of his address:

“My Hebrew Brethren and Christian Friends—The unspeakable and deeply felt pleasure this occasion affords me, can only be known by the great being for whose worship and adoration we are met to found this temple. In the outpouring of my heart at this time, I thank God we are assembled even in the earth’s furthest limits, I may almost say in the wilderness, to cement by brotherly love the bonds which have before-time bound the Hebrew community alike, amidst the fiercest political tyranny and the bitterest religious persecution. The bright sun of modern intelligence, however, is fast dissipating the noisome vapours of intolerance and bigotry, and mankind now learn, that their social, moral and religious happiness depend, not in religious dominancy, but rather in the exercise of love, benevolence and good will from one to the other. The example my christian friends have given this day of the absence of religious bigotry will be known in all lands, and shall be remembered when the pulsation of these generous hearts shall repose in their cold grave. May this day then join us in brotherly love and good feeling, and may the Almighty bless us with a contrite heart, health, happiness and prosperity.

The only other apparent link between the lodge and the congregation is Charles Alexander William Rocher. He arrived in Tasmania in 1829 at the age of 16, was married in Hobart in 1839, became a barrister in 1841 and then practised at Launceston.[15] He was among the signatories of the petition rejected by Governor Franklin[16], but it does not follow that he was a Jew. He may have become involved simply in a professional capacity, in drafting the petition. Nor does the fact that he was buried in a Christian graveyard in 1877[17] prove that he was not a Jew. Rocher was not a member of the lodge in 1844, but he was almost certainly a Mason at that time. He was elected a joining member of the lodge in 1850.[18] To become a joining member, he must have already been a Mason, and there was no other lodge in the north. The strong inference is that he was initiated in one of the Hobart lodges between about 1830 and 1841.

 

Conclusion 

Tasmanian Operative Lodge, in Hobart, and St John’s Lodge, in Launceston, had their problems, but they survived. The other Irish Lodges, all in the south, ceased work before your mother lodge was consecrated. An Irish lodge was formed in the middle of the island, but it only lasted a few years. In the 1880s several other Irish lodges were formed in the north of Tasmania and some of these survived.

Another time, perhaps, I shall be able to tell you of the Tasmanian Masons, including many from the Irish lodges, who formed a Masonic Rifle Company, and officered several other military units formed to defend the colony when the British troops were withdrawn, and also the story of Harry Conway, who became the Provincial Grand Master, Irish Constitution.

Of course, there were English and Scottish lodges in Tasmania, and eventually they all combined into the Grand Lodge of Tasmania—but for those stories (some of which would curl your hair) you will have to wait until the book is published.

 

 

NOTES

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