‘Why have Kings and Princes, the Nobility, Judges and Statesmen, Soldiers and Sailors, Clergy and Doctors, and men in every walk of life sought to enter the Portals of Freemasonry?’

G. W. Daynes, The Birth and Growth of the Grand Lodge of England (London: Masonic Record, 1926), p. 185.

Introduction

Stephen Yeo’s 1976 book, Religions and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis, is a study of the social life of the English town of Reading between 1890 and 1914.[i] Yeo describes a town whose social fabric was bound together by many voluntary organisations and activities, ‘from Congregational chapels to the Social Democratic Federation, from Hospital Sunday Parades to Literary and Scientific Societies’.[ii] This social ecology was rooted in the churches and in a paternalistic culture encouraged by large employers such as Reading’s famous biscuit manufacturers, Huntley and Palmer. Yeo paints a vivid picture of a vibrant associational culture which has now largely disappeared. Yet, Yeo admits, there was one major omission in his study. He describes how ‘A congregationalist minister in the 1960s, showing me the photographs of deacons, etc., on the wall of the vestry of his chapel, told me that I could not really understand late 19th-century chapel life without knowing about the masons. The Vicars of St. Mary’s and of St. Giles at different dates before 1914 were both high in the local masonic hierarchy.’[iii] Yeo went to the local masonic hall, but was not allowed to examine the records held there. The freemasons, one of the largest and most prestigious of Reading’s voluntary organisations, with in 1895 three separate lodges[iv], were consequently left out of Yeo’s book.

Since Yeo wrote, there has been a silent revolution in English freemasonry. Partly in response to attacks on freemasonry by writers such as Stephen Knight, masonic libraries and museums have been opened to the public. The magnificent Library and Museum of Freemasonry at Freemasons’ Hall in London offers daily public tours, and in the 2002 ‘Open House’ event attracted over 2,000 visitors in one day. Its library is freely available to scholars and lists of its historical correspondence and early returns of membership are being mounted on the internet.[v] The Province of Berkshire, which contains Reading, has one of the largest provincial libraries, with over 13,000 books, and the library is now open daily to the general public. Berkshire was one of the first English provinces to establish a web site.[vi] I am myself an incarnation of this new policy. In 2000, the University of Sheffield established, with funding from United Grand Lodge, the Province of Yorkshire West Riding and Lord Northampton, the Pro Grand Master, the first centre in a British university devoted to the scholarly study of freemasonry.[vii] Although I am not a mason, I was appointed as the first Director of this Centre.

Of course, the cautiousness of the English Grand Lodge from which Yeo suffered was not shared by all the European Grand Lodges. The Grand East of the Netherlands has for many years welcomed scholars wishing to use its remarkable library.[viii] Shortly after Yeo’s book was published, Professor Margaret Jacob made use of the library of the Grand East and her resulting book, Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans,[ix] has profoundly altered our perception of the cultural history of 18th-century Europe.[x] The willingness of the Grand East of the Netherlands to make its collections available to scholars has played a significant part in the upsurge in scholarly interest in freemasonry over the last twenty years. Trevor Stewart has recently compiled a bibliography of articles on European freemasonry which have appeared in academic periodicals since 1980. This contains 269 entries, and even this gives only a partial view of the full extent of research into freemasonry, since it excludes articles on America, Africa and Asia, as well as periodicals published by masonic bodies, theses and monographs.[xi]

Despite all this work, our picture of freemasonry remains fragmented. In many countries, particularly England, freemasonry is still considered an exotic subject outside the scholarly mainstream.[xii] It is often forgotten by scholars even when it should loom large. For example, Noble Frankland’s 1993 biography of the Duke of Connaught, who as Grand Master from 1901 to 1939 was one of the dominant figures in modern English freemasonry, makes no mention of the Duke’s masonic career.[xiii] The picture is of course different in Europe and America where there is a long-standing scholarly interest in freemasonry, but even here there is no overall consensus on the importance and significance of freemasonry. Trevor Stewart’s bibliography illustrates how freemasonry is relevant to an enormous range of subjects from garden history to theatre studies, but broader connecting themes are not immediately evident. Scholars frequently use masonic evidence simply to confirm and further illustrate established themes and ideas. Pierre Chevallier’s history of French freemasonry is one of the great achievements of masonic scholarship, but ultimately it simply reinforces traditional French republican historiography.[xiv] The limitations of current scholarly research into freemasonry are epitomised by William Weisberger’s recent study of the role of Prague and Viennese freemasonry in Enlightenment.[xv] While the essay carefully documents the activities of the Czech and Austrian lodges, the value of the study is limited by its stereotyped and hackneyed view of the Enlightenment.[xvi] Work such as that of Margaret Jacob, which uses masonic evidence as a springboard for the development of new perspectives which alter our view of an entire period, is extremely rare.

As the exploration of masonic archives by scholars continues, what kind of broader themes will emerge? If research into freemasonry claims to be a new and emerging academic discipline, what will be its distinguishing features? I can only briefly sketch some of the possibilities here, and I hope you will forgive me if I confine my remarks to Britain, since this has been the focus of my own research.

Historical and Social Data in Masonic Archives

As we continue to explore the masonic archive, we will find a great deal of information bearing on old kinds of history, on royalty, politicians and governments, and this cannot be ignored. Many of the English Grand Masters since 1782 have been members of the royal family, but the significance of this for the British monarchy as an institution has never been fully investigated.[xvii] Freemasonry is one of the British institutions in which the aristocracy still holds sway, and the role of the aristocracy in British freemasonry provides a fruitful area of study for scholars interested in the decline and fall of the British aristocracy. Occasionally, freemasonry has been caught up in wider political events. For example, in 1929, shortly before the election of the second Labour government, a new masonic lodge, the New Welcome Lodge No. 5139, was formed at the behest of the then Prince of Wales.[xviii] This lodge was intended exclusively for Labour members of parliament and party officials, and reflected a concern that Labour Party activists had frequently been blackballed by masonic lodges. The New Welcome Lodge was intended to ensure that the new socialist government was not alienated from freemasonry. It was also hoped that the lodge would draw more working men into freemasonry, and that masonic values would reduce ‘unsettling influences’ on the shop floor.[xix] Although the New Welcome Lodge was initially very successful in recruiting Labour M.P.s (including Sir Robert Young, the Deputy Speaker, Arthur Greenwood, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, and Scott Lindsay, the Labour Party Secretary),[xx] the formation of the National Government changed the political situation, and from 1934 New Welcome Lodge was opened up to MPs of all parties and to staff working at the Palace of Westminster, becoming essentially a house facility of the Palace of Westminster.[xxi]

Undoubtedly the most fascinating information in the masonic archive are the details of well-known people who were freemasons. The legal and social reformer, Lord Brougham, was initiated as a freemason on an impulse while he was on holiday in the Hebrides.[xxii] Was this a passing episode in Brougham’s life, or did the values of freemasonry influence Brougham’s legal reforms? The same question can be asked of many other prominent figures in British history who were freemasons. In July 1885, the English masonic newspaper, The Freemason, listed members of the government and royal household who were freemasons.[xxiii] Among those named by The Freemason were Sir Charles Dilke, President of the Local Government Board from 1882 to 1885, who was the leader of the radical faction within the Liberal party and the most eminent advocate of republicanism. Despite his republican views, Dilke became a close friend of the Prince of Wales. How far was this friendship fostered by their common freemasonry? Likewise, Dilke was close to French republican leaders such as Gambetta, who were also masons. The list in The Freemason also included one of Dilke’s political opponents, Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Sir Winston Churchill. Lord Randolph was a populist Tory whose personality was one of the most puzzling in 19th-century politics. In the case of Lord Randolph, further investigation of his masonic career would be interesting for the extent to which it would assist in interpreting his difficult character.

Just as the masonic archive provides new information about people, so it also sheds new light on places. The masonic archive is particularly rich in information about local life and networks. The campaign for more democratic town government in the 1820s and 1830s has been overshadowed by the movement for parliamentary reform, but municipal reform was in some ways a more potent focus of local political activism. In the town of Monmouth on the Welsh borders a campaign against the control of the town by the Duke of Beaufort created fierce local controversy in the 1820s.[xxiv] The archives of the English Grand Lodge include correspondence which gives new information about this dispute.[xxv] The leader of the reform party, Trevor Philpotts, was the master of the local masonic lodge, the Royal Augustus Lodge. One of the members of the lodge was Joseph Price, a cantankerous member of the group opposed to reform. In 1821, Price was accused by Philpotts of abusing his position as a magistrate by granting a friend preferential treatment in prison. The masonic lodge passed a series of resolutions against Price, one of which referred to his alleged abuse of his judicial authority. Price protested to the Grand Master, the Duke of Sussex, that this procedure was unmasonic. The Duke suspended the lodge, much to the annoyance of Philpotts who was anxious that the lodge should participate in the forthcoming consecration of a lodge in nearby Newport. Following protests by Philpotts, the Duke lifted the suspension of the lodge. This news was greeted joyfully in the town and the church bells were rung in celebration. This prompted a further round of correspondence with the Grand Lodge, since Price complained that he only heard of the Grand Master’s decision in his case when the bells started ringing.

Public and Private Space

As this case illustrates, lodges were an important feature of local life. Parades and processions were until recently a major focus of public life in towns,[xxvi] and masonic parades were particularly significant, because they were associated with the ceremonies performed by freemasons for the dedication of public buildings and marked important stages in the development of the town.[xxvii] In Sheffield, for example, the opening of a canal providing the town’s first link to the sea in 1819 was celebrated by processions of lodges from Sheffield and the surrounding area, and extracts from masonic minute books describing these ceremonies were framed and proudly displayed in the offices of the canal company.[xxviii] Such processions provided both a public face for freemasonry and associated freemasonry with the town’s cultural identity. Moreover, they explicitly linked freemasons with the physical reshaping of urban public space. Such landmarks in the remodelling of Edinburgh between 1750 and 1820 as the completion of the new university buildings, the George IV Bridge and the docks at Leith were marked by huge masonic processions.[xxix] In London, the Prince Regent, who was Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge, was the driving force behind the redevelopment of large parts of the west end. When the Prince as Grand Master formally dedicated in enormous public ceremonies such major new buildings as the Covent Garden Theatre, on the site of the present Royal Opera House, this conjunction between freemasonry and public space achieved a very potent expression.[xxx]

While freemasonry had a close engagement with public space through its processional activity, lodge meetings by contrast took place in a private, closed space, guarded by the Tyler. In a recent article, Hugh Urban has used the insights of theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu to consider ways in which the closed space and secrecy of the lodge meeting facilitated the elaboration of concepts of social power and hierarchy in late 19th-century America.[xxxi] Changes in spatial relationships within the lodge meeting could reflect wider social changes. Mary Ann Clawson, for example, has shown how the use of stage settings with proscenium arches and elaborate drop curtains in Scottish Rite initiations from the late 19th century onwards can be related to the rise of leisure activities which stressed consumption by a passive audience.[xxxii] In England, the most concrete expression of this need for a closed space was the development of the masonic hall. Until the 1850s, most masonic meetings took place in rooms in taverns, a space which was on the borderland between private and public.[xxxiii] The campaign for purpose-built masonic halls was an expression of the fetish of respectability which was a characteristic of the Victorian middle classes. In towns such as Sheffield, the masonic halls formed part of the development of a new city centre with public squares and buildings.[xxxiv] The creation of such urban centres was a spatial expression of the power of the new middle-class urban élites, intended to provide, in the words of Simon Gunn, ‘a symbolic centre at the heart of an emptied public space as well as to affirm the collective power and presence of the provincial bourgeoisies’.[xxxv] The masonic halls in the midst of these civic centres, devoted to secret ceremonies performed by lodges whose membership was in principle open to all respectable men of the town but in practice carefully controlled, powerfully symbolised the nature of these new élites.

Gender Issues, Masculinity and Emancipation

Space as an expression of power and hierarchy is a prominent theme in modern scholarship to which the study of freemasonry has much to contribute. Masonic halls and civic centres were masculine spaces, distinguished from the other major development of the late Victorian city, the department store, seen as a largely female space.[xxxvi] The analysis of Catherine Hall and Leonore Davidoff tracing the emergence in the 18th and 19th centuries of separate spheres for different sexes has influenced much recent work on social history, and provides another powerful interpretative framework for masonic history.[xxxvii] This is shown by the works of Robert Beachy, who has recently discussed how masonic apologetic writings of the late 18th century helped popularise stereotypes of differences between men and women,[xxxviii] and Mark Carnes, who has analysed how the rituals of fraternal societies shaped middle-class views of masculinity in 19th-century America.[xxxix]

19th-century masonic writings are a rich source of information about the social and moral outlook of the middle-class male.[xl] For example, masonic sermons and speeches are a useful but neglected source for the study of the mentality of the new provincial élites of the Victorian and Edwardian periods. An oration given by M. C. Peck, Provincial Grand Secretary of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, at the dedication of a masonic hall in Hull in 1890 outlines the qualities expected of an upright male inhabitant of Hull at that time.[xli] He should believe in God, treat his neighbour fairly, and look after his own body and mind. He should avoid extravagance and intemperance, and bear misfortune with fortitude. ‘Masons should never be sharp men as the world calls them, ready to cheat and overreach their fellows. How commonly we hear those who should no better affect to praise a man for his acuteness and business abilities, but would they trust him with their own affairs? On the other hand the truly just and honest man is the noblest work of God, and none can merit higher praise than he!’ Despite their confident tone, there is not far beneath these words an anxiety which recalls Mark Carnes’s comment that late Victorian freemasonry provided respite from the growing economic and social pressures of the outside world: ‘even as the emerging middle classes were embracing capitalism and bourgeois sensibilities, they were simultaneously creating rituals whose message was largely antithetical to those relationships and values’.[xlii]

In England, the masculine solace provided by freemasonry was closely linked to memories of school and school life. Paul Rich has suggested that public schools and freemasonry were lynchpins of a ritualism which was a major cultural bond of the British Empire.[xliii] Freemasonry enabled the adult male to relive the bonding rituals of school or university. Lodges were founded specifically for members of particular schools or universities,[xliv] which sought, in the words of a circular proposing the formation of a lodge for old boys of a small London grammar school, to weld ‘in the closer ties of fraternal good will those friendships which so many of us formed during our School life’.[xlv] The symbiotic relationship between school life and modern freemasonry is encapsulated by an article on a school lodge in the Aldenham School Magazine cited by Paul Rich, which declares that ‘I wonder if you really knew what life at school was all about until you joined’.[xlvi] A recent history by Christopher Tyerman of Harrow School, where Sir Winston Churchill was educated, emphasises the central role of freemasonry in school life, noting that ‘Between 1885 and 1971 headmasters tended to be freemasons, as did many governors and often powerful groups of masters and housemasters’.[xlvii] The school chapel was festooned with masonic symbols; in 1937, the Headmaster gave the boys a half-day’s holiday at the request of the Grand Master.[xlviii] Tyerman also notes that freemasonry was important in affirming the group interest and professional solidarity of schoolmasters.[xlix] This was not only the case in public schools. Dina Copelman has studied the teachers of the elementary schools run by the London School Board, which was set up in 1870.[l] The majority of these teachers were women, many of them married.[li] Like their public school colleagues, the male school board teachers used freemasonry to affirm their professional and social status.[lii] In 1876, the Crichton Lodge was founded by a group of teachers and officials of the London School Board, including its President and Secretary, and established other lodges comprising chiefly teachers in South London.[liii] These means of displaying middle-class credentials were not available to women teachers, and their social and professional status was more tenuous.

Copelman’s study explores the borderland between the ‘two spheres’ and suggests that the process of social give and take between the sexes was complex. Perhaps the most interesting aspects of freemasonry and gender are those areas which confront the neat divisions of a ‘two spheres’ model. Late Victorian rhetoric of sexual difference portrayed women as shoppers and consumers, but the private spaces of the masonic lodge enabled men to indulge in conspicuous display. Freemasons purchased jewels of enormous value to wear in their lodges, and decorated their halls with furniture and fittings of great opulence.[liv] In masonic shops such as Kennings in London they had their own department stores.[lv] Similarly, philanthropy was an area in which different genders had distinct roles.[lvi] but masonic charitable activity could quietly cut across some of these distinctions. Above all, in the other direction, women’s freemasonry provided a significant social outlet for women. Janet Burke and Margaret Jacob have argued that the Adoption enabled women, through freemasonry, to engage with the emerging civil society in the 18th century.[lvii] James Smith Allen and Mark Carnes have recently documented extensive participation by women in fraternal organisations in the 19th century,[lviii] while Co-Masonry, through figures such Annie Besant and Charlotte Despard, played a significant role in the women’s suffrage movement,[lix] with women masons joining suffrage marches in their regalia.[lx]

Race, Empire and Nationality

In the past, there has been an overemphasis on the importance of economic activity as a component of social identity. The study of gender has been one way in which scholars have demonstrated the complexity of social identity; another has been race, a further area where research into freemasonry offers exciting possibilities. The best-known illustration of this is Prince Hall freemasonry, the form of freemasonry organised by blacks in America,[lxi] which has been seen by scholars such as William Muraskin and Loretta Williams as significant in defining and nurturing a black middle class in America,[lxii] although Williams in particular emphasises the contradiction between the universalist ideology of freemasonry and the separate segregated character of Prince Hall masonry.[lxiii] There are many other areas in which freemasonry offers insights into ethnicity which are less well explored. Freemasonry was a major cultural component of the British Empire. The English Pro Grand Master Lord Carnarvon declared in the 1880s that ‘Where the flag goes, there goes freemasonry to consolidate the Empire’.[lxiv] The mixed race lodge offered a social venue in which coloniser and colonised mixed in the British Empire. Rudyard Kipling declared of his lodge in Lahore that ‘there aint such things as infidels’ among the ‘Brethren black an’ brown’.[lxv] The importance of this area of research has been brilliantly demonstrated by a study by Augustus Casely-Hayford and Richard Rathbone of freemasonry in colonial Ghana.[lxvi] This shows how ‘freemasonry was amongst the bags and baggage of both formal and informal empire’.[lxvii] It facilitated trading contacts and provided a means of signalling ‘achievement, hard work, worthiness and in some cases high birth’.[lxviii] It provided an important thread in the racial and national politics of the colony, with many members of the National Congress of West Africa being freemasons. Closely related to race is the role of freemasonry in the formation of national identity. For example, in Britain freemasonry was a powerful expression of the Hanoverian settlement,[lxix] while by contrast in France it was in the 1870s one of the forces behind the development of modern French republicanism.[lxx]

The interaction between freemasonry, race, nationality and class is powerfully illustrated by a classic study by Abner Cohen of freemasonry in Sierra Leone, which is a model of how scholarly research into freemasonry should be performed.[lxxi] Cohen found that in 1971 there were seventeen masonic lodges in Freetown, with about two thousand members, the bulk of whom were African. Most of these black masons were Creoles, descendants of the slaves emancipated between the 1780s and 1850s, a literate, highly-educated and occupationally-differentiated group, who were at first befriended but then disparaged by the British administrators. Cohen found that one in three Creoles were masons. Cohen related the Creole involvement in freemasonry to attacks on Creole power during the period from 1947. He concluded that ‘Largely without any conscious policy or design, Freemasonic rituals and organisation helped articulate an informal organisation, which helped the Creoles to protect their position in the face of political threat’.[lxxii]

Social Networks

Cohen’s study raises one final important theme, that of social networks. As scholars have increasingly explored the pluralistic nature of social identity, the importance of the analysis of social networks has become evident. Factors such as the extent to which everybody knows everyone else (‘reachability’), the different ways in which people are linked (‘multiplexity’) and the obligations placed by networks on their members (‘intensity’) are essential in understanding local societies, and freemasonry and other fraternal groups have a major effect on these dynamics.[lxxiii] The masonic archive is rich in material for investigating social networks, not only in such obvious sources as membership lists but also in petitions and correspondence, where in discussing the need for a lodge its social connections may be described. For example, a letter from a lodge formed by working men in Stratford in East London, protesting against a decision of the English Grand Lodge that it was a spurious masonic body, contains the following unusually explicit statement of the advantages of freemasonry for the Victorian artisan: ‘Stratford and its neighbourhood contains a population of some thousands of skilled mechanics, artisans and engineers, many of whom from their superior attainment or from the exigencies of trade are called upon to pursue their avocation in the various states of continental Europe or in our own colonial possessions and to whom therefore the advantages arising from Masonic Fraternity are of great consequence.’[lxxiv]

The exciting potential of an approach which examines the interaction between freemasonry and other social networks, such as professional contacts and membership of other fraternal organisations, has been recently demonstrated by two outstanding articles concerned with two very different professions. Simon McVeigh’s study of freemasonry and musical life in 18th-century London has shown how freemasonry assisted in securing patronage and work for musicians and also supported professional alliances, sometimes in surprising ways.[lxxv] Roger Burt’s study of Cornish freemasonry in the 19th century reaches some intriguing conclusions about the social composition of masonic lodges in south-west England.[lxxvi] He found that ‘the lodges were dominated by the mostly young (most initiates were aged under 30) middle-class and “petit bourgeois” groups of mercantile and manufacturing interests, professionals and small business operatives.’[lxxvii] The Cornish membership records reflect the increasing mobility of this social group, and freemasonry may have helped build international contacts facilitating profitable employment abroad.

Conclusions

Research into freemasonry explores the interconnections between such major themes of modern scholarship as public space, gender, race and social networks. These themes essentially all revolve around one major issue, the construction of social identity, and the study of freemasonry, because it concerns an identity which is both public and concealed at the same time, provides a unique perspective on this issue. Methodologically, the study of freemasonry presents many challenges, but the point that should be noted here is its inherently interdisciplinary character. The nature of the masonic archive means that the researcher into freemasonry must use many different types of media: texts ranging from membership lists to rituals, jewels, banners, engravings, music and artefacts of many different kinds.[lxxviii] The interpretation of such materials requires a blend of scholarly skills. Mark Carnes noted how his researches required ‘excursions into the fields of religious history and theology, child rearing and developmental psychology, women’s history and gender studies, and structural and cultural anthropology’.[lxxix] While scholars frequently aspire towards interdisciplinarity, they rarely achieve it. The study of freemasonry may perhaps provide a model for interdisciplinary studies.

The themes I have discussed are at the forefront of research in the humanities and social sciences, but their roots lie in old thought, reflecting both the social changes of the 1960s, and particularly the response to the French événements of 1968,[lxxx] and the challenge posed to Marxist models by the collapse of the Soviet Union. While the study of freemasonry can contribute a great deal to these intellectual concerns, even more exciting is the question of how it helped fashion completely new intellectual agendas. Will the events of 11 September 2001 have as big an impact on the intellectual world order as those of May 1968? It is too early to say, but there are hints that, whatever the upshot, reactions to freemasonry will be of new significance. The way in which the destruction of the World Trade Centre gave rise paradoxically to a new form of anti-semitism has been well documented.[lxxxi] There has been little discussion of the new anti-masonry. Within days of the attacks in New York, website postings attributed the attacks to the illuminati, drew parallels between the Twin Towers and the masonic columns Jachin and Boaz, and used spurious numerology to suggest masonic involvement in the attacks.[lxxxii] This is deplorable, but perhaps not surprising. More significant for the long-term is the way in which attacks on masonry form part of the extreme Muslim denunciation of western values. There has been a long history of Arab groups circulating the discredited libels of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In recent years, however, some Muslims, drawing on western anti-masonic literature, have linked freemasonry with the figure of Dajjal, the anti-christ.[lxxxiii] These ideas were first developed in 1987 by the Egyptian writer, Sa’id Ayyub.[lxxxiv] In Britain, a key figure in elaborating and popularising these ideas has been David Musa Pidcock, a Sheffield machinery consultant who became a Muslim in 1975 and is the leader of the Islamic Party of Britain.[lxxxv] The idea that freemasons worship dajjal has become widespread in Muslim communities in England and elsewhere. In recent months, Islamic websites have carried enthusiastic reviews of an audio-tape called Shadows, produced by a London company, Hallaqah Media, which argues that freemasons created the new world order and are the servants of dajjal.[lxxxvi] If we are at the beginning of a struggle to protect and restate the secular values of the Enlightenment,[lxxxvii] it is inevitable that the study of freemasonry, so much bound up with the creation of those values, will become of new relevance.

Prof.dr. Andrew Prescott studied history at the University of London and was appointed as a curator in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Library in 1979. He is on a three year secondment from the British Library to the University of Sheffield, where he is Director of the new Centre for Research into Freemasonry, the first such centre to be established in a British university.

Appendix: Illustrative Documents

1. The Initiation of Lord Brougham

This description of the spur-of-the-moment decision of Lord Brougham, the English legal and social reformer, to be initiated in the Stornoway Lodge in the Western Isles of Scotland in 1799 encapsulates many of the issues of masonic biography. Was Brougham’s initiation a passing incident, a merry holiday event, or did he engage more fundamentally with the values of freemasonry? If the latter, in what way? This extract is taken from the English masonic journal, The Freemasons’ Quarterly Review, 2 (1835), p. 24:

‘It is not, perhaps, generally known that the late Lord Chancellor of England is a Brother of the Craft. He was originally initiated in the small town of Stornaway in Scotland, and afterwards became a member of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge, Edinburgh, of which many other men of celebrity were members. The circumstances of his initiation were these.

Being upon a pleasure-voyage along the north coast of Scotland in company with several other roving and congenial spirits, the party put in to the hypoborean port of Stornaway, where they landed, and, as was their wont, disembarked along with them their choice store of the jolly god. It happened one evening during their convivial enjoyments, that there was a meeting of a lodge at the place, and one of the party, who was a mason, being informed of the circumstance, immediately proposed that Henry Brougham and another of the party should go and get made without delay. No sooner said than done, and away they sallied to the lodge of Stornoway, where the future lord chancellor was duly entered, passed, and raised a Master Mason of the ancient fraternity of the Craft. As may be imagined on such an occasion -; “In such a place as that, at such an hour,” great, glorious and generous was “The feast of reason and the flow of soul;” and many a bona fide bumper of Glenlivet was quaffed to many a masonic and convivial toast.

Such were the circumstances of the initiation of the present Lord Brougham and Vaux, which are vouched for upon the authority of the respectable brother, now living, who was then secretary of the lodge.’

2. The New Welcome Lodge No. 5139

Petitions for the formation of new lodges and accompanying correspondence frequently shed light on the social motivation of freemasons. One such series of letters concerns the formation of the New Welcome Lodge No. 5139 in 1929. This lodge was formed at the suggestion of the then Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VIII, specifically for Labour Party MPs and officials. The following extract is from a memorandum by Sir Percy Rockliff, a trade union and friendly society official, who took a leading part in establishing the lodge. It expresses a secondary aim of the new lodge, namely to provide a ‘New Welcome’ to working class men who, it was felt, had not been able to afford to become freemasons. The initial intention that the lodge should be exclusively for Labour Party members and the involvement of the Prince of Wales in establishing the lodge are not explicitly mentioned in the correspondence, but were only recorded by Rockliff some years later. At this stage it was intended that the lodge should be called ‘the Lodge of Citizenship’. The name ‘New Welcome’ was adopted later at the suggestion of the Prince of Wales. The document is among the Petitions in the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, Freemasons’ Hall, London.

‘The idea underlying the formation of the proposed lodge is to bring home to the industrial section of the community the principles and tenets of the craft.

It is doubtless true that, in rural areas, social barriers are to some extent broken down in certain lodges which exist in those areas. But, as regards the great centres of population, the same position can hardly be said to obtain.

It is recognised that a lodge of the character proposed, if centred in London, would be to some extent localised as regards the area from which it could draw recruits without involving its members in substantial travelling expenses. It has, however, been shown by the Epworth Lodge, for example, that offshoots into the provinces of a successful lodge, having a definite purpose, are both possible and popular; and this is anticipated as regards the Lodge of Citizenship.

The type of recruits to masonry which it would be the aim of the new lodge to attract are persons who, by permeating the ranks of the industrial classes, would become missioners for and exemplars of the advantages which masonry confers, not only upon its members, but upon those with whom its members come into daily contact – “So that when a man is said to be a mason the world may know, etc.”

It is believed that such recruits will be obtainable without importunity, given the opportunity now sought to be presented to them.

Moreover, it is strongly felt by the promoters, that masonry would exercise a steadying influence (“as citizens of the world”) upon those who are brought within its fold, and help to render nugatory any unsettling influences which might be at work in factories and elsewhere.

The men who compose the main membership of the army and navy lodges belong to the industrial classes, and they have taken an oath of fealty.

It is hoped to imbue their civilian colleagues with the same spirit of fealty through the medium of the Lodge of Citizenship.’

3. A Masonic Dispute in a Small Town

In the 18th and 19th centuries, masonic lodges were an important part of life in small towns like Monmouth on the Welsh borders. During the 1820s, Monmouth was riven by ferocious factional disputes over reform of the town government. This controversy affected the local lodge, the Royal Augustus Lodge No. 656, and at one point the lodge was suspended by the Grand Master, the Duke of Sussex. When the suspension of the lodge was lifted, the news was greeted by the ringing of the church bells, as the following letter, dated 1 July 1821, by the Master of the lodge, Trevor Philpotts, to the Grand Secretaries White and Harper in London, describes. The letter is preserved among the returns for the lodge in the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, Freemasons’ Hall, London.

‘I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 29th ult. removing the suspension from the Royal Augustus Lodge, for which I, the officers and brethren return our best and grateful thanks. A circumstance occurred in the town yesterday in consequence of this event, which it may not be improper to mention, as it may possibly be represented by some to the prejudice of the lodge. On receiving your official letter I sent to inform the officers of the lodge of the circumstance, as they and many of the brethren were waiting in much suspense, to know whether they could attend as a Lodge the approaching ceremony of dedicating the Newport Lodge. The information spread over the town immediately, and in the course of the evening some persons wholly unconnected with the lodge and masonry, ordered the ringers to ring the church bells. Immediately on learning what was intended I sent the Tyler to forbid any ringing or any other demonstration of public feeling whatever, which it was in my power to prevent, and he accordingly did so, and stated it was the particular wish and request of the whole lodge that no ringing should take place on account of the lodge. The reply was that they had nothing to do with the lodge, but were ordered to ring by some of the principal inhabitants of the town, and would go on. I then went some of the principal inhabitants of the lodge and begged they would interfere to prevent it, and they did so by my particular request.

Independent of the admonition conveyed in your letter to avoid any proceeding which might not be in unison with the pledge given by the lodge I had a particular objection to any public expression of feeling on such a subject and occasion; which I several times distinctly mentioned at the time. I only mention this trivial matter to guard against any attempt which may hereafter be made to the disparagement of the lodge as necessary.’

4. A Masonic Parade in Sheffield

The following document is from the archives of the Sheffield Canal Company in the Public Record Office, London, RAIL 867/4. It comprises extracts from the minutes of the two oldest Sheffield masonic lodges, the Britannia Lodge No. 139 and the Royal Brunswick Lodge No. 296. They describe the ceremonies which accompanied the opening of the canal in 1819, which provided this inland industrial city’s first link to the sea. These extracts have been mounted and were apparently framed for display, presumably in the board room of the canal company.

‘Royal Brunswick Lodge No. 527

Lodge of Emergency February 22 1819 for the opening and going by procession from the canal, having obtained a dispensation.

The Lodge was opened in the first degree at 11 o’clock and proceeded to join the procession at the basin at 12 o’clock. The vessels having entered the basin, the procession then marched in good order round the town, and divided before the “Tontine” at 4 o’clock. The lodge then dined at Bro. Hardwickes at 2/6d for dinner and malt liquor etc., and closed in harmony.

J. Cawood Secretary

J. Smith Worshipful Master

Brothers present:

J. Smith, M.; G. Mosley S.W.; G. Holden, J.W. J. Fox, S.D.; T. Fox, J.D.; Cawood, Sec;. M. Hunter, T.; String, P.M.; Booth; Grundy; Hufton; Hinchcliffe; Jackson; Pickford; Wardley; Cooke; Ryals; Norman; Ashmere; Waring; Worstenholm; White; Best; Greenwood; Hawke; Jenkinson; Matthews; Rodgers; Whitley; J. Hall; Redfearn; Mather; Heald; White; Hardwicke.

Opened on the Third Degree and raised W. Heald and Greenwood.’

‘[Britannia Lodge]

Extra Lodge 22 February 1819

On this day the canal communicating from Tinsley to Sheffield was opened by a procession of masons of both lodges and the committee and subscribers to the canal and the other societies held in Sheffield.

The order of the Britannia Lodge procession was as follows:

Two Tylers with swords;

Junior Brethren two and two;

In the midst of them the flag of the Britannia Lodge carried by Bro. Stones;

Visiting brethren from the Friendly Lodge, Barnsley, two and two;

A pair of globes carried by Brother Stevenson and Brother Simpson;

Visiting Brethren from the Phoenix Lodge, Rotherham, two and two;

The Book of Constitutions carried by Brother Greenwood;

Two Stewards with wands;

The Senior Members of the Britannia Lodge;

Two Stewards with wands;

The Senior and Junior Wardens of the Britannia Lodge

With their Pillars and Jewels;

Two Stewards with Wands;

The Lodge carried by Brother Haywood;

The Master of the Lodge with his Jewels;

Two Stewards;

The Past Master of the Lodge;

Two Tylers closed the procession.

After the procession thirty seven of the brothers dined together at Brother Will. Willeys and spent the day together in harmony and brotherly love cultivating that friendship which ought at all times to characterise masons.

The procession moved from the canal basin about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and proceeded through Barn Street, Castle Street, Angel Street, High Street, Far Gate, Barker Pool, Division Street, Carver Street, Sheffield Moor, Pinstone Lane, Norfolk Street, Market Street, Bull Stake to opposite the Tontine Inn, where the masons opened and the Tylers brought through the whole of the clubs who took their respective roads to where they were held and the Brunswick Lodge to Brother Thomas Hardwickes where it is held, the Britannia Lodge accompanied by the band of the Sheffield Local Militia proceeded to Brother Willeys, where they closed the Lodge and deposited the jewels and treasures thereof in their proper situations. Previous to going to the basin the lodge was opened and arranged in the lodge room at Brother Willeys in the Wicker.

Thus ended the opening of the first line of canal ever brought to Sheffield; may it long continue to flourish and its promoters and subscribers long enjoy the fruits of their capital and industry.

The committee consisting of the following persons joined the procession namely, Hugh Parker Esq., Woodthorpe, their Chairman, Bery Taylor esq., Brightside, William Smith, Francis Smith, Edward Nanson, jnr., John Sorby, esq., and many others and on this memorable day ten vessels entered the basin among which was a steam packet.

Dinners were served for a large body of the subscribers and gentlemen around at the Tontine Inn, the Angel, the George, the King’s Head, and many other houses and it was a day of general rejoicing for seldom if ever were there such a large concourse of people assembled together.

William Rowley, Master of the Britannia Lodge No. 232

Sheffield 22 February 1819.’

5. Opening of the Covent Garden Theatre

In great cities such as London and Edinburgh, masonic ceremonies for the laying of foundation stones could be very imposing, as can be seen from the following description in William Preston’s Illustrations of Masonry (1812 ed.) pp. 392-8, of the Prince Regent laying the foundation stone of the Covent Garden Theatre, on the site of the present Royal Opera House.

‘On the 31st of December 1809, the foundation-stone of Covent Garden Theatre was laid by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, as Grand Master-mason of England and Scotland. The foundation-stone was situated at the north-east angle of the ground, in weight nearly three tons, and containing sixty cubic feet. Previous to the ceremony, it hung, suspended by cordage, over a basement-stone. Near to it was placed a marquee for the Prince. Two extensive covered galleries were erected, one to receive the body of freemasons who assisted at the ceremony; the other was appropriated to the spectators. Surrounding scaffolds were covered with many hundreds of workmen, who were engaged in the building. A detachment of the first regiment of guards was posted, as a guard of honour, at the Prince’s entrance, with a band of music, and four other military bands were stationed on elevated platforms, near the company, to enliven the scene.

At twelve o’clock the Grand Lodge was opened at Freemasons Hall, in Great Queen Street, Charles Marsh esq. in the chair, attended by the Masters and Wardens of the regular lodges; and at half-past twelve they walked in procession to Bow Street, the junior lodges first. The representative of the Grand Master walked last, being preceded by the Chevalier Ruspini, bearing the Grand Sword, and by the Master of the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 1. bearing the Book of Constitutions.

On their arrival at the theatre, they were welcomed to the places assigned them, by the band playing the old tune of “A Free and an Accepted Mason”. The Grand Officers proceeded to the marquee, and were arranged in order. The Master, Wardens, and nine members of the Steward’s Lodge, and nearly four hundred Masters and Wardens of lodges attended, habited in the insignia of the Order. The several bands played, alternately, airs till one o’clock, the hour fixed for the appearance of the Prince; when his Royal Highness in his coach, accompanied by the Duke of Sussex, attended by General Hulse and Colonels McMahon and Bloomfield, arrived under an escort of horse guards. His Royal Highness was received, on his entrance at the Bow Street door, by the Earl of Moira, Acting Grand Master, the detachments of guards saluting, with grounded colours, and beating the grenadiers march. Mr. Harris and Mr. Kemble, after paying their respects to his Royal Highness, ushered him to the marquee, where his arrival was announced by loud plaudits, the royal standard hoisted, and the discharge of a royal salute of artillery. His Royal Highness, who was dressed in blue, with a scarlet collar, wearing the insignia of his office as Grand Master, a pair of gold compasses set with brilliants and other jewellery, and a white apron bordered with purple, and fringed with gold, appeared in high health and spirits. Proceeding, uncovered, with his suit, through a railed platform spread with superfine broad green cloth bound with scarlet and yellow, forty dismounted life-guardsmen, who were masons, without arms, lining the sides of the railing, the company all rose as his Royal Highness passed the platform to the marquee, and gave him three cheers, when the united bands immediately struck up “God save the King.” His Royal Highness, as he passed, smilingly bowed to the ladies with the most fascinating affability.

The Grand Officers had previously placed the masonic instruments on a table in the marquee. A plan of the building, with its sections and elevations, was now presented to his Royal Highness, by Robert Smirke, sen. esq. the architect; and a gilt silver trowel by Mr. Copeland, the builder of the edifice. Having paused a short time in conversation with the proprietors, and with the Grand Masonic Officers in the marquee, his Royal Highness proceeded to the ceremonial. On a signal given, the corner-stone was raised about four feet; the hod-men, in white aprons, instantly conveyed the necessary quantity of fine cementing mortar, which was neatly spread on the base-stone by the workmen of the building, similarly dressed. His Royal Highness now advanced, uncovered, to the north-east corner of the stone; when John Bayford esq., as Grand Treasurer, deposited, in a space cut for it in the basement-stone, a brass box, containing the British gold, silver, and copper coins of the present reign. On a part of the stone was, “Long live George Prince of Wales,” and “To the King,” with a medallion of the Prince. There were also deposited two large medals, one of bronze, bearing a head of his Royal Highness on one side, and on the other, the following inscription:

GEORGIUS PRINCEPS WALLIARUM THEATRI REGIIS INSTAURANDI AUSPICIIS IN HORTIS BENEDICTINOS LONDINI. FUNDAMENTA SUA MANU LOCAVIT MDCCCVIII.

The other medal, engraven in copper, bore, on one side, this inscription:

Under the Auspices of His Most Sacred Majesty GEORGE III King of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, The Foundation Stone of the Theatre of Covent Garden, Was laid by his Royal Highness GEORGE PRINCE OF WALES. MDCCCVIII. On the reverse is engraven: ROBERT SMIRKE, Architect.

His Royal Highness now, as Grand Master, finished the adjustment of the mortar with his trowel; when the upper stone was lowered in the sling to its destined position; all the bands playing “Rule Britannia,” a discharge of artillery being fired, and the people with the most animating cheers applauding the spectacle. The junior and senior Grand Wardens, and the acting Grand Master, the Earl of Moira, now severally presented his royal highness with the Plumb, the Level, and the Square; and the Prince, having applied them to the stone, pronounced the work correct, and gave the stone three strokes with his mallet.

Three elegant silver clips were then presented, successively, to his Royal Highness, containing corn, wine, and oil, which he scattered and poured over the stone, all the bands playing “God save the King.” His Royal Highness then restored the plan of the building into the hands of the architect, approving that specimen of his genius, and desiring him to complete the structure conformably thereto. Then graciously turning to Mr. Harris and Mr. Kemble, he wished prosperity to the building and the objects connected with it, and success and happiness to its proprietors and managers.

The ceremony being finished, the band played “Rule Britannia;” and the Prince, the Duke of Sussex, and the Earl of Moira, were escorted back to the Prince’s carriage by the managers and the Grand Officers under a second royal salute of twenty-one guns.

Thus passed a ceremonial, which by the excellent pre-arrangement of its managers, and the gracious yet dignified manner in which the illustrious chief actor performed his part, exhibited an interesting spectacle, that excited general admiration and applause. All who had the honour to approach the Prince speak in raptures of his polite and captivating manners on the occasion. Although the neighbouring houses were covered to the roof-tops, and many thousands of people were assembled in the street, it is with great satisfaction we state that not a single accident happened to interrupt the splendid termination of the ceremony.

The Masters and Wardens of the masonic lodges then returned in procession to their hall in Great Queen Street; when the Grand Lodge was closed, after making a formal minute of the proceedings, and receiving, through the medium of the Grand Treasurer, the thanks of the Prince for the favour of their attendance.

The Brethren, after the lodge was closed, sat down to a splendid dinner at Freemasons’ Tavern; when mirth and conviviality closed the meeting.

The proprietors of Covent Garden Theatre soon afterwards received a letter from Colonel McMahon, dated from Carlton House, in which he stated, that he had it in command from his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, to express his high approbation of the very great order and regularity with which the whole arrangement of the ceremonial had been formed and conducted.’

6. Opening of the New Sheffield Masonic Hall, Surrey Street

The movement for provincial lodges to build their own halls and to cease meeting in taverns was one of the most important trends in English freemasonry in the second half of the 19th century. These halls often formed an integral part of the development of a civic centre in many provincial towns, particularly in the North and Midlands. When the Spanish emigré physician Mariano Martin de Bartolomé arrived in Sheffield in 1839, he was scandalised to find the local masonic lodges meeting in a public house. He only agreed to join a masonic lodge providing it met elsewhere. The lodges eventually moved to the Sheffield Music Hall in Surrey Street, then afterwards purchased the former Savings Bank nearby, which was converted for masonic use. In 1877, the old Savings Bank was replaced by purpose-built premises. While the exterior was austere, the interior was furnished in a very opulent style. Surrey Street was to form one of the axes of the new city centre of Sheffield, and is close to the city hall, the public library and other civic buildings. In 1967, the Sheffield masonic lodges moved to new premises in the suburbs of the city, which offered more convenient car parking - itself a significant statement about the changing social structures of the city. The following description of the opening of the new hall in Surrey Street is taken from The Freemason, 28 July 1877, p. 311:

‘The new hall fronts to Eyre-Street and Surrey-street (standing on the site of the Old Hall) it is built entirely of dressed stone, partly of that of the old building. It is in the classical style of architecture, of a neat and substantial character, the decorations being quiet, yet including the conventional square and compasses &c.; the tout ensemble, though suggestive of durability, is pleasing. The building contains a lodge room and a banqueting room, and there is a spacious cellar. The banqueting room, which is on the ground floor, is 51 feet long by 26 feet wide by 15 feet high, it is lighted by double windows of plate glass, the inner ones being ornamented with Masonic emblems embossed thereon. A serving window gives direct communication with the kitchens, which are extensive and fitted up with all modern requirements. The furniture of the banqueting room can be readily lowered into the cellar, which extends the full size of the building.

The lodge room, which is over the banqueting room, is 51 feet long by 26 feet wide by 24 feet high, having an arched room springing from a cornice running round the room, ornamented with moulded ribs and panels, and carved bosses. The walls are relieved with columns, which have foliated capitals springing from ornamented carbels, from which the ribs in the roof form one continuous line. The whole of the fittings are of polished pine, slightly stained and varnished, which produce a very pleasing effect. The east end is occupied by a dias of three steps, along the north and south sides runs a raised platform, so that a double row of chairs can be placed, enabling the brethren occupying the back seats to see and hear with comfort. At the west end is an organ, built expressly by the firm of Messrs Brindley and Foster, of Sheffield...

The appearance of the lodge room when illuminated is brilliant, and when the promised decorations have been completed there is little doubt about its being one of the most beautiful Masonic temples in the provinces. We are glad to hear that the main part of the work of an ornate nature has been reserved for the interior. Both rooms are lighted by very chaste gaseliers, and are warmed by hot water on the most improved principles; the ventilation is on Tobin’s system. In addition to these two large rooms there are, on the ground floor, a club room, commodious kitchens, lavatory &c.; on the first floor, one small lodge room and a convenient cloak room; a wide passage with a broad flight of stairs lead to the lodge room; on the second floor are several rooms, affording accommodation to a resident Tyler. The acoustic properties of all the rooms, we are happy to say, are perfect. The entrance to the hall is made through the adjoining premises, which we have already described; the arrangements are such that, at any future time, these can be pulled down and more spacious premises erected in the same style as the new hall; when this is done there will be not only spacious offices & c. necessary for the lodges, but plenty of accommodation for a club. The whole of the properties are freehold, and are owned by the Sheffield Masonic Hall Company, Limited, the shares of which are held solely by the lodges or brethren:- virtually, therefore, they are their own tenants- a move in the right direction (though it is only fair to say that it is many years since a Sheffield lodge met in a public-house), and we trust the day is not far distant when every brother will realise the fallacy of the poet’s limes, where he goes on to say that he

“May sigh to think he still has found

His warmest welcome at an inn”

Tempora mutantor; today every lodge may, or should, meet under its own roof, or, at least, in a room set apart for the purpose, yet in no way connected with a public house. Practice being ever preferred to precept we feel bound to point to Sheffield as an example we would urge upon others to follow. To the true Craftsman there is nothing, in our way of thinking, so undignified as the association of a lodge with a public house...’

7. The Masonic Gentleman

The following extract is from a sermon by the Rev. J. M. Hannah, Freemasonry: Its Purpose, Practice and Profit (Liverpool: W. J. Cochrane 1907), which was preached before the Royal Victoria Lodge No. 1013 at a special service in Holy Trinity church, Wavertree, on 6 June 1907, in aid of the chapter house of the new Liverpool Cathedral, the building of which was financed by the West Lancashire Province. It illustrates how masonic sermons and speeches are a rich source of information about the ideology of gender relations in provincial towns.

‘Freemasonry is concerned with building, not with banqueting as one so often hears. If any one of the gentler sex here present has received such an impression from a mason, be he husband or friend, be assured he is no ideal mason. It is true we have a feast, a love feast: it is one of the essential parts of our meetings. We unite around the supper-table in the bond of brotherly love, and I am betraying no secret when I tell you that at a fixed hour we stand and dispatch a telepathic communication throughout the world; we extend our girdle of friendship round the globe, and unite in a solemn cry to the “Eternal Father strong to save”. Our feast is a solemn symbol meant - like everything else in Freemasonry – “represent some great principle and to body it forth” May the blush of shame never cease to rise upon the face of those who give the wrong impression of our love-feast. I am glad to testify in public that I have received nothing but good from Freemasonry, and nothing but good from the men of my Lodge. The true Mason is always a gentleman, always dignified in his demeanour, always looking behind the visible symbol to the great principle involved.’

8. Petition for the Crichton Lodge No. 1641

This extract again illustrates the importance as historical sources of the correspondence and supporting documentation accompanying petitions for new lodges, preserved in the Library and Museum of Freemasonry at Freemasons’ Hall in London. This memorial concerns a petition for the establishment of Crichton Lodge No. 1641, dated 13 June 1876, which was associated with the new London School Board. Signatories to the petition included the Superintendent of the London School Board, who became the first Master of the lodge, the clerk to the School Board, and four schoolmasters. The Surrey Masonic Hall referred to in the petition was a recently opened hall intended to provide a focus for freemasonry in the newly developed suburbs of South London.

‘Petition for Proposed Crichton Lodge.

The brethren presenting this petition beg most respectfully to represent to the Most Worshipful Grand Master.

1. That they are associated either professionally or sympathetically with the work of Education, and that they have been led to meet at Camberwell for consultations and as members of committees and otherwise. Finding so many masons amongst themselves and worthy men desirous of becoming masons, united with them in common educational efforts, they have determined to ask for a warrant to meet at the Surrey Masonic Hall.

2. The Surrey Masonic Hall has recently been built and opened by brethren desirous of promoting freemasonry. The hall is conveniently situated near a railway station by means of which members can easily reach their homes after lodge to all parts of the metropolis and suburbs, and even to considerable distances on the Great Trunk line, with which the local station is connected by traffic arrangements.

3. The lodges already meeting at the Surrey Masonic Hall are not local to Camberwell, but contain members from all parts of London, and some of the lodges already number a sufficient proportion of brethren.

4. The petitioners do not propose to retire from their present lodges but they are very desirous of avoiding the necessity of meeting at a tavern, and they are therefore desirous of meeting at a masonic hall.

5. The petition has received the recommendation of the officers of the Surrey Masonic Hall lodge No. 1529, but from causes over which the petitioners have no control it has been found physically impossible to obtain the signature of one of the officers. The officers of the MacDonald Lodge No. 1216 (the lodge meeting nearest the hall) have assented to the favourable consideration of this petition.’

9. Co-Masonry

Co-Masonry is a form of freemasonry which admits both men and women. It was established by Maria Deraismes and George Martin in France at the end of the 19th century. The most energetic early promoter of Co-Masonry in England was the trade unionist, feminist and theosophist Annie Besant. The following article from The Co-Mason 3 (January 1911), p. 4, was written by Ursula Bright, a close associate of Besant and a campaigner for women’s rights.

‘Co-Masonry is the latest development of two great ideas - the religious and the political - I had almost said the feminist - for the emancipation of women includes all politics. Our S[upreme] C[ouncil] in Paris makes the complete equality of women and men, in every department of human life, its chief object.

In religion Co-Masonry realises that the Brotherhood is to be the distinguishing mark of the spiritual movement of the future.

It is true that male masonry proclaims the brotherhood of half the race, but even here we find that the maimed, the halt and the blind, as well as the whole sisterhood of humanity, is shut out.

Those amongst us most entitled to brotherly consideration and sympathy are deliberately excluded. Male masonry is the expression of power, wealth, social influence and exclusiveness. Co-Masonry is the expression of service, tolerance, freedom of speech on all subjects. Masons working under the Grand Lodges of England and Scotland may not discuss, in their temples, the two subjects of deepest interest to mankind, namely religion and politics. We expect the members of our organisation to be able to speak on any subject, fit for public discussion, even when holding the most antagonistic views, with courtesy, tolerance and good feeling and with an entire absence of hostility. Co-Masonry is spreading its branches everywhere, not only in Europe, but in India and America, and appeals are now made to us from our colonies - Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, for help to establish Co-Masonic lodges. They are beginning to realise the deep religious meaning of the ceremonial.

The motto of our S[upreme] C[ouncil] in Paris is “A La Gloire De l’Humanité”. What is the glory of humanity but the development of that perfection of the ideal of the unity of interest, which will make war, and all forms of cruelty, tyranny and injustice impossible in the future? The establishment of the true brotherhood and sisterhood in mankind.’

10. Prince Hall Freemasonry in North Carolina

In 1775, the Afro-American leader Prince Hall and fourteen other blacks were initiated into freemasonry by a regimental lodge under the Irish constitution. In 1784, the English Grand Lodge gave a warrant to African Lodge No. 459 to meet in Boston. From 1797, the African Lodge started to act autonomously, eventually declaring itself independent of any Grand Lodge and, and this providing the basis for the emergence of Prince Hall masonry as an Afro-American branch of freemasonry. In 1955, Prince Hall masonry had over 300,000 members, and was a major institution of the black middle class in America. The following extract is from William Henry Grimshaw, The Official History of Freemasonry Among the Colored People in North America (New York: Broadway Publishing, 1908), pp. 258-260. It describes the reaction of the White Grand Lodge of North Carolina to the establishment of a lodge in the state by the Grand Master of Prince Hall freemasonry. Incapable of conceiving of a black grand lodge, the white masons of North Carolina assumed the new lodge had been formed by the white Grand Lodge of New York.

‘In 1865, Paul Drayton, National Grand Master [of Prince Hall freemasonry], assisted in establishing in the city of Newberne, King Solomon Lodge, No. 1, F. A. A. M. The white Grand Lodge of North Carolina proceeded to arraign the white Grand Lodge of New York for violating its masonic jurisdiction, in the following manner:

“If the facts be true, the Grand Lodge of New York has sent an agent into the Southern States with full power to organize lodges throughout the southern portion of the country, that said Grand Lodge has no such right.

We fear that our northern brethren are in gross error as to their masonic mission to the south. Why should the mission be to the south? Why not to the negroes of the north? We fear that they are unconsciously imbued with the spirit of fanaticism; that they have unwholesome dreams that they are better than we. And we do allow ourselves to resist the conviction that we are not more devoted to the best interests of the negroes of the south than they can possibly be. They were born in our families; we have nursed them in sickness, laboured with them in the field and in the shop.

We have rejoiced with them when we had much, and suffered with them when we had little; we have protected them because they were weak, and advised them because they were ignorant.

We have made them better than Africans and nearly equal to our northern people, themselves being the judges. And, but for fanaticism, doubtless many of them would have been worthy of masonic privileges. Our earnest desire now is still further to improve their condition. We would educate them, improve their habits and manners, and make them industrious and prudent.”

Our white brethren of North Carolina really thought that Paul Drayton was a white mason, for he certainly looked like one, and hailing from New York, and the authority of a Grand Master of Masons, to do work among the negroes of the south. They had never heard of a negro Grand Lodge of masons in the world, hence the above arraignment.

The above paragraphs are remarkable as coming from a Southern source. They do not, in the abstract, question the propriety of making masons of negroes. Our ancient landmarks are, that he that be made a mason must be able in all degrees; that is, freeborn, worthy and well qualified. It is not necessary that the candidate should be a white man. We teach that in every clime and among every people where masonry has existed, and to every human being our benevolence extends. But propriety, conformity to government, and reasonable to religion and to manners and customs, have distinguished our order. Our communications are often breast to breast, mouth to ear. Fellowship in the sense of the most perfect equality, intimate relationship, and close communion, is the chief characteristic of our intercourse.           

We are not disposed to criticise the above paragraph, written by my white brethren with much nicety, but that they do not question the propriety of making masons of negroes, comes with singular significance from a section of the country that, for more than half a century, has been consistent in its denunciations of the recognitions by northern Grand Lodges of colored men who had been made masons even in foreign countries and by lawful authority. Tempora mutantur, et nos mutantur in illis.

The Almighty never made a slave. Slavery is a condition into which the child enters after birth - the strong taking advantage of the weak. It follows then that his restoration to freedom restores him to all his natural rights.’

11. Masonic Tales of the Raj

With organised sports and gothic architecture, freemasonry was one of the cultural forces which held together the British Empire. Masonic lodges provided an important meeting place for the expatriate British, and mixed race lodges were one of the main venues in which the colonisers mixed with the colonised. The atmosphere of British imperial freemasonry is vividly captured by a small collection of adventure stories published by H. W. B. Moreno in 1907, Freemasonry Revealed! Being a Series of Short Stories of Anglo-Indian Life Concerning Masons and Masonry. The stories are in a popular Boy’s Own Paper ripping yarn style, but all centre around masonic life in India. Moreno is described on the title page as Past Master, Lodge Thomas Jones No. 2441 (EC), Past Principal Z, Royal Arch Chapter Progress No. 3054 (EC), Past District Grand Sword Bearer, District Grand Lodge of Bengal, Past District Grand Organist, District Grand Chapter of Bengal. Moreno was himself Indian. The following is the opening of his story Masonry Defiled. A Tragic Story About Two Masons, A Maiden and A Serpent (pp. 53-56):

‘The Planter community at Darjeeling had organised an informal soirée at the Club, to commemorate, in some special manner, the installation of one of the popular Planters of the neighbouring, tea-growing district, as Worshipful Master of Lodge “Mount Everest”. The usual installation banquet had taken place; but as a token of appreciation, a social gathering was inaugurated, at which, the Planters, always genial hosts, were at home to their numerous friends that evening.

Several small tables lay scattered about the spacious club hall, at which sat groups of well-dressed gentlemen, some lolling back in their chairs; whilst the hum of conversation and the occasional bursts of laughter that arose, amidst the clinking of glasses and the clattering of crockery together with the wafting clouds of tobacco smoke, betokened that a merry evening was being spent. Presently, Tom Grumley - Captain Grumley as he was better known - an old Planter of the district, stepped in.

“Hello, Cap’n! Here we are again”, shouted some of the younger members as a welcome.

“Come along, Cap’n, right this way, easy, right down by this chair”, cried one of them, “now what’s your poison”.

“Brandy and Soda”, soberly replied the Captain, “and, if you don’t mind, a good, strong ‘Moulmein’?”

“Right you are”, replied another, handing the captain his cigar-case, “here are some ‘Moulmeins’, have your pick”.

The Captain selected his cigar, lit it up, poured out his peg, drank half of it down in one gulp and ejaculated: “What’s up? You fellows seem a bit quiet this evening”.

“What’s up!” cried one, “why, waiting for you to give us one of your old yarns”.

“Right oh!” shouted another, “let it go now; something nice and crisp”.

“Well”, started the Captain, dashing lightly the ash of his cigar on to the little tray which lay beside him, “I cannot forget the ti