The History of Freemasonry
by Albert Gallatin Mackey
Chapter 39 - The Grand Lodge of All England, or the Grand Lodge of York
THE pretension, so stoutly maintained by many Freemasons who have not thoroughly investigated the subject, that there was a General Assembly of Masons held, and a Grand Lodge established, at the city of York in the year 926, by Prince Edwin, the brother of King Athelstan, is a tradition derived from the old Legend of the Craft. As such it has already been freely discussed in the preceding division of this work, and will not be further considered at this time.
The object of the present chapter will be to inquire into the time when, and the circumstances under which, the modern Theoretic Freemasons of York separated from the Operative association and, following the example of their antecessors in London, established a purely Speculative society to which they, too, gave the name of a Grand Lodge.
To distinguish it from the Grand Lodge which had been established eight years before in London, they applied to that body the title of the "Grand Lodge of England," while in a somewhat arrogant spirit they assumed for themselves the more imposing title of the "Grand Lodge of all England," epithets which were first employed by Drake in his speech at York in 1726. (1)
(1) There is not the slightest evidence that the Grand Lodge in London ever accepted this distinction of titles, involving, as it did, an acknowledgment of the supremacy of its rival. Neither Anderson, Entick, nor Northouck have used in their successive editions of the "Book of Constitutions" these epithets. In these editions the body in London is always called simply “the Grand Lodge." It is not until 1775 that we meet with a more distinctive name. In the Latin inscription on the corner-stone of the Freemasons' Hall, which was laid in that year, Lord Petre is designated as "Summus Latomorum Angliae Magister," or chief Master of Masons of England, while the Grand Lodge is called “Summus Angliae Conventus," or Chief Assembly of England.
This distinction was suggested by the ecclesiastical usage of the kingdom, which, dividing the government of the church between two Archbishops, calls the Archbishop of York the “Primate of England," while his brother, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of somewhat more elevated rank and more extensive jurisdiction, is dignified as the “Primate of All England."
Angliae and totius Angliae are the distinctions between the two Archbishops, and so, also, they became the distinctions between the two Grand Lodges.
Operative Freemasonry was established with great vigor and maintained with strict discipline at York during the building of the Cathedral in the 14th century. Of this fact we have the most undoubted evidence in the Fabric Rolls of York Minster, which were published several years ago by the “Surtees Society." (1)
These “Rolls," extending from 1350 to 1639, were made up during the progress of the work. They consist of accounts of contracts at different periods and regulations adopted from time to time for the government of the workmen. A fragment remaining of one of the Rolls, with the date of 1350, records that the Masons and the Carpenters who at that time were employed on the building were respectively under the control of William de Hoton, as the Master Mason, and Philip de Lincoln as the Master Carpenter. As Bro. Hughan very correctly remarks, “Without doubt the Master Mason thus referred to was simply the chief among the Masons, the others being Apprentices and Craftsmen."
One of the Rolls contains a code of rules which had been agreed upon in 1370. It is entitled Oridinacio Cementariorum. This is interesting, as it shows what was the internal government of the Craft at that period.
These regulations were made by the Chapter of the Church of St. Peter's at York, under whose direction the Minster was being built. They did not emanate from any General Assembly or Grand Lodge, nor even from a private lodge, but were derived from the ecclesiastical authority with which in that age Freemasonry was
(1) The existence of these Rolls was discovered by Mr. John Browne, who based upon them his "History of the Metropolitan Church of St. Peter, York." They were printed at Durham in 1859 by the Surtees Society, and edited by Mr. James Raine, Jr., the Secretary of the Society, who has enriched the work with valuable notes, an Appendix, and a Glossary.
closely connected. Whether these Masons were acquainted with the old manuscripts which Anderson called the Gothic Constitutions it is impossible to say. We have no copies of any which date before the end of the 15th century, except the Halliwell MS., and the date of that is supposed to be 1390, which is twenty years after the adoption of the regulations by the Chapter of the Cathedral for the government of the Freemasons of York.
It is, however, almost, if not absolutely, demonstrable that the Halliwell MS. is a copy and a combination of two distinct poems, and it is, therefore, not unlikely that the York Masons, as a guild, were familiar with and even governed by its " points and articles."
The rules preserved in the Fabric Rolls were only intended for the direction of the Masons in their hours of labor and of refreshment, and contain no Legend of the Craft. A faithful copy of the Ordinacio Cementariorum, or Constitution of the Masons, translated into modern and more intelligible English, (1) will be interesting and useful as showing the guild organization of the Craft at York in the 14th century. This Ordinacio runs as follows: “It is ordained by the Chapter of the Church of Saint Peter of York that all the masons that shall work in the works of the same Church of Saint Peter shall, from Michaelmas day to the first Sunday of Lent, be each day in the morning at their work in the lodge, which is provided for the masons at work within the enclosure at the side of the aforesaid church, (2) at as early an hour as they can clearly see by daylight to work; and they shall stand there faithfully working at their work all day after, as long as they can clearly see to work, if it be an all work day; otherwise until high noon is struck by the clock, when a holiday falls at noon, except within the aforesaid time between Michaelmas and Lent; and at all other times of the year they may dine before noon if they will, and also eat at noon where they like, so that they shall not remain from their work in the aforesaid lodge, at no time of the year, at dinner time more than so short a
(1) The earlier Rolls are written in the Low Latin of the Middle Ages. The later ones from 1544 are in the vernacular tongue of the times. The one about to be quoted is in a northern dialect, and is, as Mr. Raine observes, remarkable on account of its language as well as its contents. (2) This confirms the statement made in the "Parentalia" that the Traveling Freemasons, when about to commence the erection of a religious edifice, built huts, or, as they were called, “lodges," in the vicinity in which they resided for the sake of economy as well as convenience.
time that no reasonable man shall find fault with their remaining away; and in time of eating at noon they shall, at no time of the year, be absent from the lodges nor from their work aforesaid over the space of an hour; and after noon they may drink in the lodge, and for their drinking time, between Michaelmas and Lent, they shall not cease nor leave their work beyond the space of time that one can walk half a mile; and from the first Sunday of Lent until Michaelmas they shall be in the aforesaid lodge at their work at sunrise and remain there truly and carefully working upon the aforesaid work of the church, all day, until there shall be no more space than the time that one can walk a mile, (1) before sunset, if it be a work day, otherwise until the time of noon, as was said before; except that they shall, between the first Sunday of Lent and Michaelmas, dine and eat as beforesaid, after noon in the aforesaid lodge; nor shall they cease nor leave their work in sleeping time exceeding the time in which one can walk a mile, nor in drinking time after noon beyond the same time. And they shall not sleep after noon at any time except between Saint Elemnes and Lammas; and if any man remain away from the lodge and from the work aforesaid, or commit offense at any time of the year against this aforesaid ordinance, he shall be punished by an abatement of his wages, upon the inspection and judgment of the master mason; and all their times and hours shall be governed by a bell established therefor. It is also ordained that no mason shall be received at work on the work of the aforesaid church unless he be first tried for a week or more as to his good work; and if after this he is found competent for the work, he may be received by the common assent of the master and keepers of the work and of the master mason, and he must swear upon the book that he will truly and carefully, according to his power, without any kind of guile, treachery, or deceit, maintain and keep holy all the points of this aforesaid ordinance in all things that affect or may affect him, from the time that he is received in the aforesaid work, as long as he shall remain a hired mason at the work on the aforesaid work of the church of Saint Peter, and that he will not go away from that aforesaid work unless the masters give him permission
(1) Time of a mileway. A common method at that period of computing time. "Way. The time in which a certain space can be passed over. Two mileway, the time in which two miles could be passed over, etc." - Halliwell, "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words." We had “half a mileway" above.
to depart from the aforesaid work; and let him whosoever goes against this ordinance and breaks it against the will of the aforesaid chapter have God's malison and Saint Peter's."
We learn from this ordinance, and others of the same import contained in these Fabric Rolls, that the Masons who wrought at the building of the York Cathedral in the 14th century were an entirely Operative guild, like their brethren who, at about the same time, were engaged in the construction of the Cathedrals of Cologne and Strasburg.
They confirm the statement made in Wren's Parentalia that the lodge was a building contiguous to the edifice they were constructing, and that in it they not only worked, cutting and otherwise preparing the stones, but also ate and slept there. Over them there was a superintendent of their work who was called the Master Mason.
What were the duties of the Magister Cementarius or Master Mason may be learned from an indenture between the Chapter and William de Hoton in the year 1351, a copy of which will be found at page 166 of the Fabric Rolls.
While overlooking other works, which shows that he might have different contracts at the same time, he was not to neglect the work of the Minster. If he became affected with blindness or other incurable disease so that he should be unable to work, he was to employ and pay an assistant- subcementarius - who was to be the Second or Deputy Master of the Masons - Magister Secundarius Cementariorum.
He was to oversee the building and to receive a salary of ten pounds of silver annually, and to be furnished with a dwelling-house within the inclosure of the Cathedral. (1)
But while the Master Mason had the direct supervision of the workmen, there was an officer above him who was called the Magister
(1) From the "Fabric Rolls" the following list of Master Masons, who superintended the work from its beginning to its close, has been obtained by Mr. Raine:
1351, William de Hoton and William de Hoton, junior, probably the son of the first; 1368, Robert de Patrington; 1399-1401, Hugh de Hedon; 1415, William Colchester; 1421, John Long; 1433, Thomas Pak; 1442-43, John Bowde; 1445-47, John Barton; 1456, John Porter; 1466, Robert Spyllesby; 1472, William Hyndeley; 1505, Christian Horner; 1526, John Forman. In the lists of workmen many names foreign to Yorkshire will be found, and the names of foreigners also occur, such as Begon Baious and James Dum. - Preface to "Fabric Rolls,” xx.
Operis, or Master of the Work. This is shown by another agreement with Robert de Patrington in 1368, wherein it is said that his salary is to be paid to him "by the hands of the Master of the work of our said church" - per manus Magistri operis dicta ecclesiae rostra.
Now, this Magistri Operis, or Master of the Work, sometimes called the Operarius, was not a member of the body of Masons, but, according to Ducange, an officer in Monasteries and Chapters of Canons, whose duty it was to have charge over the public works.
When the Cathedral was finished, the occupation of these Operative Masons ceased. But there were other religious edifices in the province on which they were subsequently employed, so that there was a continuous existence of Operative lodges during the succeeding centuries.
While the Freemasons were working on the York Minster, other guilds of Freemasons, or, rather, branches of the same guild, were employed in the construction of other cathedrals in different parts of England.
Thus the Cathedral of Canterbury was repaired and greatly enlarged about theyear 1174; that of Salisbury was begun in 1220 and finished in 1260; that of Ely was begun in 1235 and finished in 1252, and Westminster Abbey was begun in 1245 and finished in 1285.
If the Fabric Rolls of these edifices should hereafter be discovered, ample evidence will doubtless be furnished of the existence of a common guild of Freemasons everywhere in England, similar to that which we now know existed at York during the same period of time, namely from the middle of the 14th to the middle of the 16th century, which was precisely the age of our oldest manuscript Constitutions.
The history of Operative Freemasonry at York and in the north of England was about the same as it was in London and in the south of the kingdom. There were times when it flourished, and times when it began to decay.
In another respect there was a similarity in the character of the guilds of both localities.
The York Lodge, like the lodges of London, and indeed of every other country, at first consisting only of practical workmen, began in time to admit into its association men who were not craftsmen - men of rank or wealth or influence, who became honorary members, and in the course of time gradually infused a Speculative element into the lodges.
There is really no historical evidence whatever that during the period in which the Freemasons were occupied in the construction of the Minster there was any other lodge than that which was connected with the works, and under the control of the Cathedral Chapter. It is, however, very presumable that from long continuance it had abandoned the nomadic character so common with the Traveling Freemasons of the Middle Ages, and had assumed a permanent form, and thus become the parent of that Lodge which we find existing in 1705 in the city of York.
Anderson asserts that the tradition was "firmly believed by the old English Masons," that on December 27, 1561, (1) Queen Elizabeth sent an armed force to break up the annual Grand Lodge that was then meeting at York.
"But Sir Thomas Sackville, Grand Master," says Anderson, "took care to make some of the chief Men sent Freemasons, who then joining to that communication made a very honorable report to the Queen, and she never more attempted to dislodge or disturb them."
This story has been repeated by Preston and by others after him; but as all of them give it on the mere authority of Anderson, and as no other evidence has ever been adduced of its truth, we shall be compelled to reject it as historical, and receive it only as Anderson has called it a "tradition." Were it true, it would settle the question that there was a Grand Lodge at York in active existence in the 16th century.
In the "Manifesto" of the Lodge of Antiquity in 1778, it is asserted that "in the year 1567 the increase of lodges in the south of England being so great . . . it was resolved that a person under the title of Grand Master for the south, should be appointed with the approbation of the Grand Lodge at York, to whom the whole Fraternity at large were bound to pay tribute and acknowledge subjection."
(1) Bro. Woodford, in his very able article on "The Connection of York with the History of Freemasonry in England," appended to Bro. Hughan's "Unpublished Records of the Craft" (p. 170), seems to attribute the particularizing of this date to the unknown author of "Multa Paucis." But the fact is that this date is first mentioned by Dr. Anderson, in the 2d edition of the "Book of Constitutions," p. 81.
If this statement were authentic it would not only confirm the fact that there was a Grand Lodge of York in the 16th century, but also that it exercised a supremacy over all the lodges of the kingdom.
Unfortunately for the interests of history the “Manifesto" of the Lodge of Antiquity was written for a particular object, which renders it partisan in character and suspicious in authority. And since there is no other evidence that in 1567 there was a Grand Lodge at York, or that it then appointed a Grand Master for the south of England, we are forced to dismiss this narrative of the Lodge of Antiquity with the Sackville story to the realm of fable, or at least of unsupported tradition.
The theory of the existence of a lodge at the city of York at the beginning of the 17th century is founded on the fact that in the year 1777 there was in the possession of the Lodge of York a manuscript Constitution of the date 1630, which is presumed to have been written at the time for the lodge in that city.
Such is the implied reasoning of Bro. Woodford, and although not absolutely conclusive, it may be accepted as probable, especially as Bro. Hughan tells us that there is evidence that a lodge existed there in 1643. (1)
But the authentic history of that Society of Freemasons which met in the city of York, really begins with the year 1706. (2)
In the Inventory of Regalia and Documents which were in the possession of the Grand Lodge of all England taken by a committee in 1779, and which inventory is still in possession of the Lodge at York, one of the articles is recorded as being “A narrow folio Manuscript Book, beginning 7th March 1705-6, containing sundry Accounts and Minutes relative to the Grand Lodge."
This manuscript is now unfortunately mislaid or lost, but the report of the committee is satisfactory evidence that it once existed, and hence we have a sufficient proof that there was a lodge in the year 1706 and very probably long before in the city of York.
(1) "London Masonic Magazine," vol. iii., p. 259. (2) It has been usual to quote the date of the commencement of the Minute Book of old York Lodge as 1705. But in the original the date is "7th March 1705-6." But March 7, 1705, of the old style is, according to the new style, March 18, 1706. So also, some writers speak of the first meeting of the four lodges in London as occurring in 1716, because Anderson's date is February, 1716-17. They should remember that February, 1716-17, means always 1717.
In a work entitled the Stream of English Freemasonry, by Dr. J.P. Bell, a list is inserted of Grand Masters, as the author calls them, from the year 1705. But as Bro. Hughan observes, the presiding officers were always styled Presidents or Masters until 1725, when the Grand Lodge was organized and the office of Grand Master adopted.
Now, between 1705 or 1706, when we get the first authentic records of the existence of a lodge of Freemasons in the city of York, until the year 1725, when it assumed the rank and title of a Grand Lodge, the condition of guild Masonry or Freemasonry appears, so far as we can judge from existing records, to have been in about the same condition as it was in London just before the establishment of a Grand Lodge in that city at nearly the same period, with this difference, that in London there were four lodges and in York only one.
We have seen that from a very early period the guild of 0perative Freemasons had existed in independent lodges established near the cathedrals or other public buildings in the construction of which they were engaged. We have seen this system pursued at the building of the Cathedral of York, and the written Constitutions which governed them then and there are extant in the Fabric Rolls of the Minster which have been published by the Surtees Society.
At that time the lodges were purely operative in their character. Subsequently, as in Scotland and in the south of England, persons of distinction, who were not working Masons, were admitted among the Craft, and thus the system of Theoretic or Honorary Members of the lodge was established.
The result was the same here as it had been elsewhere. The Operative element gradually yielded to the Speculative, which at the beginning of the 18th century had become in York more completely dominant than it was in London at the same period.
The manuscript book of Minutes beginning in March, 1706, has been lost, but there is extant a Roll which begins March 19, 1712, or rather 1713, for it appears that there is the same confusion of styles. The next minutes according to Bro. Hughan are of June, August, and December, 1713, which clearly shows that the minutes for March are of the same year, unless we suppose that there was a lapse of more than a year in the meetings - a thing not at all supnosable.
At the lodge in March several members were sworn and admitted by Geo. Bowes, Esq., Deputy President. The Master was at that time a Speculative Freemason. In December, 1713, a “Private Lodge" was held, at which, says Hughan, "gentlemen were again admitted members, and at which Sir Walter Hawksworth, Knight and Baronet, was the President."
A “General Lodge of the Honorable Society and Company of Freemasons," so ran the Minutes, was held on Christmas, 1716, by St. John's Lodge, when John Turner, Esq., was admitted to the Society. These Minutes are signed, "Charles Fairfax, Esq. Dep. Prest. "
All of which prove that at that time the Freemasons of York knew nothing of a Grand Lodge or a Grand Master, and that there was, even then, much more of the Speculative than of the Operative element in the Society.
From 1713 to 1725 there appears to have been but one lodge in the city of York, which did not, however, assume the title of a Grand Lodge, but in its minutes is called a "Private Lodge," and on a few occasions a "General Lodge." The presiding officer was called the President, who was assisted by a Deputy President.
There were at that time in the north of England many purely Operative lodges, and these as well as the York Lodge, which was more Speculative than Operative in its character, paid little or no attention to the proceedings of the Speculative Masons in London.
They gave no adherence to the Grand Lodge established in 1717, and were for a long time averse to the newly invented system by which Operative Freemasonry was displaced by a purely Speculative organization.
Still there were no signs of dissension while they all, in their implicit belief in the Legend of the Craft, assigned to the city of York the honor of being the birthplace of English Freemasonry. The Mother Lodge, as it was supposed to be, beheld without opposition the organization of the Grand Lodge at London, nor did it resist the Constitution in 1724 by that body of a lodge at Stockton-upon-Tees, in the adjoining county of Durham, nor of another in 1729 at Scarborough, in the countv of York.
The fact is, that from 1713 to 1725 the 'Old Lodge at York,as Anderson calls it, appears to have exercised but little energy. From 1713 to 1716 it held, says Findel, but one or two yearly meetings, and none at all from 1717 to 1721, and only three meetings in the following two years. (1)
But the publication in 1723 of its Book of Constitutions by the Grand Lodge at London, appears to have awakened the Lodge of York into a new life.
For unless we suppose an improbable coincidence, it is very evident that some stimulus must have been applied to its energies, since in 1725 it met eleven and in 1726 thirteen times. (2)
The year 1725 was to the Lodge at York what the year 1717 had been to the four lodges of London. The same result was achieved, though the course adopted for attaining it was different.
The Grand Lodge at London had been formed by the union of four lodges, a method that has ever since been followed, except as to the precise number, in the organization of all modern Grand Lodges.
The Grand Lodge of York was established, if we can depend on the very meager details of history that have been preserved, by the simple change of title from that of a Private Lodge to that of a Grand Lodge. This change took place on December 27,1725, when the Grand Lodge was formed by the election of Charles Bathurst as Grand Master with a Bro. Johnson as his Deputy, and Bros. Pawson and Francis Drake as Wardens. Brothers Scourfield and Inigo Russel were respectively the Treasurer and Clerk. (3)
The Grand Lodge now openly denied the superior authority of the body which had been established in London eight years before, and while it was content that that organization should be known as the "Grand Lodge of England," it assumed for itself the more pretentious title of the "Grand Lodge of all England."
In thus constituting itself a Grand Lodge by a mere change of title, and the assumption of more extensive prerogatives, the “Old Lodge at York" had asserted its belief in its own interpretation of the Legend of the Craft.
"You know," says Bro. Drake, its first Junior Grand Warden, “we can boast that the first Grand Lodge ever held in England was held in this city; where Edwin, the first Christian king of the Northumbers, about the sixth hundredth year after Christ, and who
(1) Findel, "History of Freemasonry," Lyon's Translation, p. 160 (2) Findel, ibid. (3) Hughan, "History of Freemasonry in York," p. 57, and Findel, p. 61.
laid the foundation of our cathedral, sat as Grand Master. This is sufficient to make us dispute the superiority with the lodges at London. But as nought of that kind ought to be among so amicable a fraternity, we are content they enjoy the title of Grand Master of England; but the Totgus Angliae we claim as our undoubted right."
Francis Drake, the author of this passage, which is taken from a speech delivered by him before the Grand Lodge at its session of December 27, 1726, was an antiquary who is well known by a work in folio published by him in 1735 on the History and Antiquities of the City of York. He was in respect to Freemasonry the Desaguliers of the Northern Grand Lodge. To him it was indebted for its first establishment and for the defense of its right to the position it had assumed.
Though he had been initiated only a year before his advancement to the position of Grand Warden, he seems to have taken at once a great interest in the institution and to have cultivated its history.
He was the first to advance the theory that the Edwin who is said in the Legend of the Craft to have convoked the General Assembly at York, was not the brother of Athelstan, but the converted King of Northumbria, and that the date of the Convocation was not in the 10th, but in the 7th, century.
This theory is now accepted by a great number of Masonic historians as the most plausible interpretation of the Legend.
Drake also exhibited in his speech a very sensible idea of what was the true origin of Freernasonry. He traces it to a purely Operative source, an opinion which is the favorite one of the historians of the present day.
The Grand Lodge at York, thus constructed by a mere change of title, had, in reality, by that act acquired a more plausible claim to be called a “Revival" than the Grand Lodge at London. It assumed to be a resumption of its functions by a Grand Lodge which had always been in existence since the days of Edwin of Northumbria, and which had been dormant for only a few years.
If this theory were sound, most undoubtedly the establishment of the Grand Lodge in 1725 would have been a real revival. Unfortunately, the facts are wanting which could support such a theory. There is not the slightest evidence, except that which is legendary, that there ever was a Grand Lodge or a Grand Master in the city of York until the year 1725.
The fact is that, according to the modern principles of Masonic jurisprudence, the Grand Lodge of all England, as it styled itself, was not legally constituted, unless it be admitted that it was a mere continuation or revival of a former Grand Lodge at the same place. But this fact has not been established by any historical proof. The Grand Lodge was, therefore, really only a "Mother Lodge."
This system, where a private lodge assumes the functions and exercises the prerogatives of a Grand Lodge, under the title of a “Mother Lodge," was first invented by the French innovators at a later period, and never has been acknowledged as a legal method of constitution in any English- speaking country. (1)
Laurence Dermott (2) has asserted that to form a Grand Lodge it was necessary that the representatives of five lodges should be present. He had selected this number designedly to invalidate the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England, which had been formed by four lodges. His authority on Masonic law is not considered as good, and now the principle appears to be settled by the constant usage of America, and by its recognition in Great Britain and Ireland, that the requisite number of constituent lodges shall be limited to not less than three.
Some idea of the kind seems to have prevailed at an early period among the Masons of the south of England, although it had not been formulated into a statute, for Anderson, in 1738, spoke of the body which had been established, not as the "Grand Lodge," but as “the old Lodge of York City." (3)
So much I have deemed it necessary to say as a curious point of history, but the question of the legal constitution of the Grand Lodge of York is no longer of any judicial importance, as it has long since ceased to exist, and the lodges which were constituted
(1) This is the very epithet applied by Drake to the Grand Lodge in his celebrated speech. He calls it "the Mother Lodge of them all." See the extract from the speech farther on in this chapter.
Except in Scotland, where the Lodge of Kilwinning assumed the title of "Mother Lodge," and issued warrants for Daughter Lodges. But the act was never recognized as legal by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. (2) “Ahiman Rezon," p. xiii. (3) “Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 196.
by it were, on its dissolution, legitimately enrolled on the register of the Grand Lodge of England.
Besides the change from a Private Lodge to a Grand Lodge, which was made in 1725, others were adopted at the same time, which are worthy of notice. (1)
In 1725 and afterward the meetings of the Grand Lodge, which heretofore had been held in private houses, were transferred to taverns, in which they followed the example of their southern brethren. The “Star Inn" and the “White Swan" are recorded in the minutes of the first places of meeting.
In the earlier minutes we find the Craft styling themselves “the Honourable Society and Company of Freemasons." In 1725 they adopted the designation of the “Worshipful and Ancient Society of Free and Accepted Masons." The adoption of the word "Accepted" assimilated the Freemasons of York to those of London, from whose Book of Constitutions the former evidently borrowed it.
The minutes after 1725 record the initiation of "gentlemen,” and the speech of Junior Warden Drake at the celebration in 1726 refers to three classes, the "working Masons," those who "are of other trades and occupations," and "gentlemen."
But there are many proofs in the records of the lodge that the second and third classes predominated, and that the Grand Lodge of York was earnestly striving, by the admission of non-Masons as members, to eliminate the Operative element, and, like its predecessor at London, to assume an entirely Speculative character.
It does not appear that at York there was that opposition to the change which had existed at London, where the Speculative element did not gain the control of the Society until six years after the organization in 1717. The Lodge at York had begun to prepare for the change twelve years before it assumed the rank of a Grand Lodge, for, in 1713, at a meeting held at Bradford, eighteen “gentlemen” were admitted into the Society.
(1) Findel and Hughan both visited the city of York at different periods and made a personal inspection of the lodge records. It is to the "History of Freemasonry," by the former, and to the "History of Freemasonry in York," by the latter, that I am indebted for many of my facts. Preston, though furnishing abundant details, is neither accurate nor impartial, and Anderson and his successors, Entick and Northouck, supply scarcely any information. Some intimation of the character of the Grand Lodge at the time of its establishment may be derived from the speech by Bro. Drake in 1726.
From the records we learn also that the "Regulations" adopted by the Grand Lodge at London were adopted for the government of the body at York. Indeed, it is very probable that the publication of these “Regulations" in 1723 had precipitated the design of the York Freemasons to organize their Grand Lodge.
There is no doubt that in the general details of their new system they followed the “Regulations" of 1723. The titles of the presiding officers were changed in accordance with the London system from President and Deputy President to Grand Master and Deputy Grand Master, and it is supposable that other changes were made to conform to the new “Regulations."
Indeed, Anderson expressly states that the lodge at York had "the same Constitutions, Charges, Regulations, etc., for substance as their Brethren of England," that is, of London.
But, in addition to the London “Regulations," the lodge at York had another set of rules for its government, which are still extant in the archives of the present York Lodge. They are contained on a sheet of parchment which is indorsed, "Old Rules of the Grand Lodge at York, 1725, No. 8."
These rules are said by both Findel and Hughan to have been adopted in 1725 by the new Grand Lodge. This is probable, because they are signed by “Ed. Bell, Master," who is recorded as having been the Grand Master in 1725; and they are subsequently referred to in the minutes of July 6, 1726, with the title of the "Constitutions."
But I think it equally probable that they were originally the rules which were made for the regulation of the lodge long before it assumed the rank and title of a Grand Lodge.
As the Constitution of a Grand Lodge, these rules are in remarkable contrast with the “Regulations" which were compiled by Payne for the use of the Grand Lodge at London and were published in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions.
They are nineteen in number, and with the exception of a single article - the eighth - they have the form of a set of rules for the regulation of a social and drinking club rather than that of a code of laws carefully prepared for the inauguration of a great moral and philosophical institution such as Speculative Freemasonry soon became, and such as it was evidently the design of Desaguliers, Payne, and Anderson to make it.
But even as the rules of a mere club they are interesting, inasmuch as they make us acquainted, by an official authority, with the condition of Speculative Freemasonry at York, and with the social usages of the Craft there, in the second and third decades of the 18th century.
As they have been published in full only by Bro. Hughan in his History of Freemasonry in York, a most valuable work but of which both the English and American editions were unfortunately too limited in the number of copies to make it generally accessible, I have, therefore, thought that it would not be unacceptable to the reader to find them reprinted here. A few marginal annotations have been added which are partly intended to prove the truth of the opinion that the rules were not framed in 1725 after the Grand Lodge had been established, but had been previously used for the government of the private lodge, and were only continued in force by the Grand Lodge.
Rules Agreed to be Kept and Observed by the Ancient Society of Freemasons in the City of York, and to be Subscribed by Every Member Thereof at Their Admittance Into the Said Society. (1)
Imprimis. 1. That every first Wednesday in the month a lodge shall be held, at the house of a Brother according as their turn shall fall out. (2)
2. All subscribers to these articles, not appearing at the Monthly lodge, shall forfeit sixpence each time.
3. If any Brother appear at a lodge that is not a subscriber to these articles, he shall pay over and above his club the sum of one shilling. (3)
(1) It will be remarked that the title "Ancient Society of Free and Accepted Masons" which was adopted by the Grand Lodge is not here used, but the "Ancient Society of Freemasons," which was the form employed by the "Private Lodge" in all the minutes prior to 1725. This is a very strong proof that the Rules were not framed after the Grand Lodge had been organized. (2) Monthly meetings at the houses of different members in turn though appropriate enough for a private lodge, would scarcely have been adopted as a regulation by a Grand Lodge. In this article we clearly see what was the usage of the old lodge before it promoted itself to a higher rank. (3) This article was evidently designed not for a Grand Lodge, but for the private lodge pursuing the social usages of a club. Freemasons who were not members of it might appear as visitors, but every visitor in addition to his "club," or share of the expenses of the evening which were equally distributed among all, was required to pay an additional shilling for the privilege of the visit.
4. The Bowl shall be filled at the monthly lodges with Punch once, Ale, Bread, Cheese and Tobacco in common, but if anything more shall be called for by any brother, either for eating or drinking, that Brother so calling shall pay for it, himself, besides his club. (1)
5. The Master or Deputy shall be obliged to call for a Bill exactly at ten o'clock, if they meet in the evening and discharge it. (2)
6. None to be admitted to the Making of a Brother but such as have subscribed to these articles. (3)
7. Timely notice shall be given to all the Subscribers when a Brother or Brothers are to be made.
8. Any Brother or Brothers presuming to call a lodge with a design to make a Mason or Masons, without the Master or Deputy, or one of them deputed, for every such offense shall forfeit Five Pounds. (4)
9. Any Brother that shall interrupt the Examination of a Brother shall forfeit one shilling.
(1) This article must satisfy us that the "Old Lodge at York" had adopted the usages of the age, and while it cultivated Masonry from its ancient associations, it, like other societies of that period in England, indulged its members with the rational enjoyment of moderate refreshment, but strictly provided, by regulation, against all excess. The bowl was to be filled with punch only once. Other lodges elsewhere had similar regulations; they firmed a part of the lodge organization in the beginning of the last century, when almost all associations assumed the form of clubs. But this very fact warrants us in believing that the rule was made for the government of the lodge, before it declared itself to be a Grand Lodge. (2) The calling for the bill and the settlement of the expenses of the night's meeting is a rule that was universally adopted by all clubs. But mark the use of the word "Master" instead of "Grand Master." If these rules had been framed by the Grand Lodge in 1725, we may suppose that the latter title would have been employed. (3) The “making" of Masons is no part of the business of a Grand Lodge. The London "Regulations," it is true, for a short time prescribed that Fellow-Crafts and Master Masons should be made in the Grand Lodge, but the "making of Masons," that is, the initiation of candidates into the Society, was always done in a particular or subordinate lodge. The Grand Lodge of York having, when it was established, no constituents, since it was formed by a self-transmutation from a lodge to a Grand Lodge, must, of course, have continued to initiate or make brothers. But the rule most probably was made when the lodge was in its primary condition. (4) We must not suppose that "to call a lodge" denoted to hold a new lodge without warrant. If that were the meaning, the rule must have been enacted by a Grand Lodge. But the true meaning was that no brothers should call a meeting of the lodge without the consent of the Master. This is strictly a lodge rule. And here again we mark that the authority for calling was to come, not from the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge, but from the Master of the lodge.
10. Clerk's Salary for keeping the Books and Accounts shall be one shilling, to be paid him by each Brother at his admittance, and at each of the two Grand days he shall receive such gratuity as the Company shall think proper.
11. A Steward to be chose for keeping the Stock at the Grand Lodge, at Christmas and the Accounts to be passed three days after each lodge. (1)
12. If any dispute shall arise, the Master shall silence them by a knock of the Mallet; any Brother that shall presume to disobey, shall immediately be obliged to leave the Company or forfeit five shillings. (2)
13. A Hour shall be set apart to talk Masonry. (3)
14. No person shall be admitted into the lodge but after having been strictly examined. (4)
15. No more persons shall be admitted as Brothers of this Society that shall keep a Public House. (5)
16. That these articles shall at lodges be laid upon the Table, to be perused by the Members, and also when any new Brothers are made, the clerk shall publickly read them.
17. Every new Brother, at his admittance, shall pay to the Waits, (6) as their Salary, the sum of two Shillings, the money to be
(1) In the whole of the nineteen rules this is the only one in which we find the title "Grand Lodge." The epithet "Grand," or perhaps the entire article was inserted, it is to be supposed, when the rules of the Old Lodge were adopted, confirmed or continued by it, when it became a self-constituted Grand Lodge. It was necessary to appoint a Treasurer, here called a Steward, to take charge of the stock or fund of the Grand Lodge and to account for all expenditures. I am inclined to believe that the rule, like the other eighteen, was originally framed by the lodge, but on account of the financial importance of the subject made more specific when it was adopted by the Grand Lodge, so as to define precisely what fund it was, that had been entrusted to the Steward. (2) Note again the use of "Master" and not "Grand Master." (3) “But one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!" An hour "to talk Masonry," once a month! Still, thankful for small favors, we recognize in this Article the connection of the club with the ancient Craft. (4) That visitors were required to submit to an examination proves that the ritual practiced by the lodge at York was the same as that in common use by the Craft elsewhere. Otherwise there could be no satisfactory examination of visiting strangers. (5) This was a very general and necessary rule with the clubs of the 18th century. As they were almost always held at taverns, it was deemed expedient to avoid any more friendly relation with the landlord than that of hired host and guests who paid their scot as they went. (6) Waits, says Mr. Raine, in his "Glossary of the Fabric Rolls," are "musicians who still (1859) parade the towns in the north of England at Christmas-time. At Durhan they had a regular livery and wore a silver badge. Their musical abilities at the present time are not of the most striking character, but formerly they were deemed worthy enough to assist the choristers of the Minster." In the "Fabric Rolls" under the date of 1602 there is a charge "to the Waites for their musicke to the same do. Imbassiador, 13s. 4d." It was the Spanish Ambassador who was thus complimented at the expense of the Chapter during his visit to York. It is possible that as an extraordinary occasion a supper may have followed the initiation of a new brother, when the musical service of the Waites would be required to give zest to the entertainment.
lodged in the Steward's hands and paid to them at each of the Grand days. (1)
18. The Bidder of the Society shall receive of each new Brother, at his admittance, the sum of one shilling as his Salary. (2)
19. No money shall be expended out of the Stock after the hour of ten, as in the fifth article.
These rules appear to me to throw very considerable light upon the rather uncertain subject of the condition of Freemasonry in the city of York before and at the time of the establishment of what is known as the "Grand Lodge of all England."
Whether the usual theory that York was the birthplace of English Freemasonry, and that it was founded there in the Ioth century by Prince Edwin, the brother of King Athelstan, as the old manuscripts say, or in the 7th century by Edwin, King of Northumbria, as was, for the first time, advanced by Drake in his speech made in 1726 - whether this theory is to be considered as an historical statement, or merely an unsupported tradition, is a question that need not now be discussed.
The architectural history of the church, cathedral, or, as it is now commonly called, the Minster of York, may be comprised in a few lines.
In 627 a wooden church was built by Edwin, King of Northumbria, at the suggestion of Bishop Paulinus, who had converted him to Christianity. (3)
(1) Grand Days, says Brady (Clavis, Calendaria I., 164), were Candlemas Day, Ascension Day, Midsummer Day, and All Saints' Day. They were so called in the Inns of Court. The lodge might, however, have had, as its Grand Days, the festivals of St. John the Baptist and of St. John the Evangelist. This is merely problematical. (2) The members were to receive "timely notice" when a Brother was to be made (Rule 7). He who served the notices and summoned the members was called the " Bidder." (3) Bede says that the wooden church was temporarily erected for the public baptism of the king, but that immediately afterward he began a large stone edifice which included the wooden one, which was finished by his successor, Oswald. "Hist. Eccles.," ii., 14
In 669 Bishop Wilfrid, the successor of Paulinus, made many important repairs and furnished the interior anew.
In 741, according to Roger Hovedon, the Minster was destroyed by fire.
In 767, according to Alcuin, who assisted in the work, Archbishop Albert erected a most magnificent basilica. This church, Raine thinks, was in existence at the time of the Norman Conquest, but in 1069 it was destroyed by fire.
In 1070 Bishop Thomas, the Norman, rebuilt the church from its foundations.
This church remained without alteration until 1171, when Archbishop Roger began to build a new choir. Raine doubts the story that the church of Archbishop Thomas was, in 1137, destroyed by fire.
In 1240 Archbishop Roger built the south transept, and immediately after commenced the building of the north transept.
In 1291 Archbishop John Romain laid the first stone of a new nave, which was completed in 1340 by Archbishop Melton. (1)
It is at about this period that we become, through the Fabric Rolls, familiarly acquainted with the usages of the Freemasons who were employed from that time to its completion in the construction of the Minster under the direction of the Chapter of the church.
In 1361 the Presbytery was begun and completed in 1373 by Archbishop Thoresby.
In 1380 the choir was commenced, and the works being carried on without interruption, it was completed in 1400.
In 1405 the work of the central tower was begun and finished at an uncertain period.
In 1432 the southwestern tower was begun, and at a later date the northwestern tower was erected, both being completed about 1470, when the painted vault of the central tower was set up and finished.
In 1472, the work having been completed, the Cathedral was reconsecrated.
It is thus seen that for the long period of eight hundred and forty-five years, with intervals of cessation, the great work of building
(1) So far I have been indebted for dates to the authority of Raine. Preface to "Fabric Rolls," pp. vii. et seq. What follows has been derived from R. Willis, "Architectural History of York Cathedral," p. 47.
a cathedral in the city of York was pursued by Masons, most of whom were brought from the continent.
Roger, the Prior of Hexham, who lived in the 12th century, tells us that Bishop Wilfrid, while building the first stone church at York, brought into England Masons and other skillful artisans from Rome, Italy, France, and other countries wherever he could find them. (1)
Of the usages and regulations of these Masons, or of their organization as a guild or fraternity, we have no knowledge except that which is derived from conjecture or analogy.
But it is historically certain from the authority of the Fabric Rolls, to which such frequent reference has been made, that from the beginning of the 14th century Freemasons were employed in the construction of the cathedral which was then in course of erection, and that these Freemasons were organized into a body similar in its organization to that of the workmen who were engaged in the building of the cathedrals of Cologne and of Strasburg.
It is a singular coincidence, if it be nothing more, and it is certainly of great historical importance, that no manuscript Constitution yet discovered is claimed to have an older date than that of the 14th century, and about the time when the Freemasons of York were occupied in the construction of the cathedral of that city.
Hence it would not be an unreasonable hypothesis to suppose that the Freemasons who built the Cathedral of York in the 14th century were the original composers of the first of the "Old Constitutions," and of the Legend of the Craft which they all contain.
This would rationally account for the fact that in this Legend the origin of Freemasonry in England, as a guild, is attributed to Masons who congregated in the city of York, and there held a General Assembly.
If the Freemasons of the southern part of England had been the fabricators of the first copy of these Constitutions, they would have been more likely in framing the Legend to have selected London or some southern city as the birthplace of their guild, than to have chosen for that honor a city situated in the remotest limits of the
(1) De Roma, quoque, et Italia, et Francia, et de aliis terris ubicumque invenire poterat, cementarios, et quoslibet alios industries artifices secum retinuerat, et ad opera sua facienda secum in Angliam adduxerat. Roger, Prior, Hagulst. Iiber i., cap. 5.
kingdom, and of which, from the difficulties of intercommunication, they would have no familiar knowledge.
But, on the other hand, nothing could be more natural than that the Freemasons who were living and working at York in the 14th century should have had a tradition among themselves that at some time in the remote past their predecessors had held a great convocation in their own city, and there and then framed that body of laws which were to become the Constitution of the Craft.
It is a self-evident proposition that there must have been a time when, and a place where, the first manuscript Constitution was written, and the Legend of the Craft was first committed to writing.
As to the time, we know of no manuscript that is older than the 14th century. The earliest is the Halliwell poem, and it has been assigned by competent authority to the year 1390. But there are good reasons for believing that the work published by Mr. Halliwell is really a compilation made up of two preceding poems, which might have been composed a few years before, and which would thus be brought to the very period when the Freemasons were at work on the York Cathedral.
As to the place where, we have only the internal evidence of the Legend of the Craft which, as I have before said, would indicate from the story of the Assembly at York that the Legend was fabricated by the Freemasons of that city out of a tradition that was extant among them.
That the Halliwell poem does not particularize the city of York by name as the place where the General Assembly was held, is no proof that it was not so stated in the unwritten tradition out of which the poem was constructed. The tradition was probably so well known, so familiar to the Masons at York, that the writer of the poem did not deem it necessary to define the Assembly further than by the name of him who called it. But two centuries after, when the Freemasons of the south of England began to make copies of the Legend, they found it necessary to follow the tradition more closely and to define York as the place where the Assembly was held.
And then, too, these southern English Freemasons sought to impair the claim of their northern Brethren, and thus in the Cooke MS., written more than a century after the Halliwell poem, the " Legend of St. Alban" is introduced, and the Masons of Verulam are said, instead of those of York, to have had "charges and maners" that is, Masonic laws and usages, "first in England.” (1) But the later manuscripts admit the decay of Masonry after the death of St. Alban, and its subsequent revival at York.
Now, as the Halliwell poem speaks of the Assembly as having been held at "that syte," and as the subsequent manuscripts name that city as York, and retain the same tradition as the poem, we may, as Bro. Woodford justly says, fairly conclude that the "syte" or city in the Halliwell poem refers to York.
We need not absolutely determine, even if we could, whether Freemasonry was first established in England as a guild, at the city of York, as the earliest manuscript and the prototype of all the others says; or whether after its decadence subsequent to the rule of St. Alban, it was only revived in that city. Nor need we seek to settle the question whether the General Assembly was held and the Charges instituted by Edwin, the brother of Athelstan, in the Ioth century, as all the old manuscripts say, or by Edwin, King of Northumbria, in the 7th, as was first advanced by Mr. Drake in 1726 (a theory which has since been adopted by several scholars), or finally by the Freemasons who built the York Cathedral in the 14th century, which appears to me to be the most plausible of all the hypotheses.
This need not, however, affect the probability of the fact that similar organizations existed among the Freemasons who at the same time were employed in the constructions of cathedrals in other parts of England and Scotland, of whose existence we have historical certainty, but of whose customs and regulations we have no knowledge because their Fabric Rolls have been either irrecoverably lost or have not yet been discovered.
Accepting, then, any of the three theories which have just been alluded to, we will arrive at the conclusion that Freemasonry assumed at the city of York that form which was represented at first by the building corporations or Craft guilds, known as Operative lodges in the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, and which in the 18th underwent a transmutation into that system of Speculative Freemasonry of which the Masonic lodges of the present day are the lineal offspring.
(1) Cooke MS., line 608.
It is true that such an hypothesis is based on tradition only and on a recorded legend. But this tradition is so universal and is sustained by so much of logical inference and by so many collateral authentic circumstances, which can only be explained by a reference to that tradition, that the tradition itself becomes invested with an almost historical character.
Resuming, then, the history of the rise and progress of the Grand Lodge of all England, we find its germ in the guild of those Operative Freemasons who, certainly in the 14th and 15th centuries, were employed in the construction of the Cathedral of York, even if we do not choose to trace them to a remoter period.
There is no reason to suppose that there was a cessation of the labors of the York Lodge when the Cathedral was completed in 1472. (1) We infer not only that it continued to exist, but that it extended its influence, for there is abundance of proof that there were many lodges in other parts of England, and the old manuscript charges show that these lodges were all regulated by one common law and by similar usages.
But of the especial history of the lodge at York during the 16th century we have no authentic information. We infer, however, that it was in existence early in the 17th, because a manuscript copy of the "Old Constitutions" and the "Legend" was prepared for it in 1630. This manuscript was in the archives of the lodge in 1777, but was afterward lost.
There is also in the archives of the York Lodge another and a later manuscript Constitution which is still extant, and which bears the date of 1693. The lodge was, we may presume, at that time in active operation.
We have next an authentic record that the minutes of the lodge as early as 1704 were at one time in existence. These minutes have been unfortunately mislaid or lost, and the earliest records of the lodge which have been preserved, commence with the year 1712.
I will not cite the unreliable statements of Preston and some other writers, that there was a Grand Lodge and a Grand Master at York in the 16th century, because they are entirely without proof. We are studying history, not amusing ourselves with fiction.
(1) As the church had been in fact rebuilt, it was reconsecrated on July 3, 1472, and that day was deemed to be the feast of the dedication of the church of York in future. Willis, "Architectural History of York Cathedral," p. 47.
But we do know that there was an Operative lodge at York about the close of the 14th century and for many years previous, and we also know that there was an Operative lodge in the same city about the beginning of the 17th century which was continued until the beginning of the 18th, and with no evidence to the contrary, we rightly infer that the one was the descendant or successor of the other.
Dr. J. P. Bell, in a work entitled the Stream of English History, gives a list of the presiding officers of the lodge from 1705 to 1781. I have not been able to get access to a copy of this work, and I am indebted for what I know of it to Bro. Hughan, who refers to it in his History of Freemasonry in York.
Hughan says that the List may be relied on. The author is, however, in error in assigning the title of Grand Master to the officers who presided from 1705 to 1724. They were, until the latter date, called “Presidents" or "Masters," and it was not until the lodge assumed the rank of a Grand Lodge in 1725 that the title of “Grand Master" was adopted.
Up to the year 1725 the lodge at York was strictlywhat it called itself, a "Private Lodge," and in its minutes it bears the name of St. John's Lodge. Preston says that in 1705 there were several lodges in York and its neighborhood. But I fail to find any other proof of this fact than his own assertion. Unfortunately, the disputes between the Lodge of Antiquity, of which Preston was a member, and the Grand Lodge of England, in which the Grand Lodge of York took a part, had created such a partisan feeling in Preston and his friends against the former and for the latter body, that his authority on any subject connected with York Masonry is of doubtful value. His natural desire was to magnify the Grand Lodge which had taken his own lodge under its protection, and to depreciate the one against which it had rebelled.
Until the contrary is shown by competent authority we must believe that in 1705 there was but one lodge at York, the same which twenty years afterward assumed the title and functions of a Grand Lodge.
From its earliest records we find that, though this was an Operative lodge in name, because at that time all Masonic lodges were of that character, yet the Theoretic members greatly predominated in numbers over the practical or working Masons. It was thus gradually preparing the way for that change into a purely Speculative institution which about the same time was taking place in London.
It appears from the speech of the Junior Grand Warden, Drake, delivered before the Grand Lodge in 1726, that there were at that time three classes of members in the York Lodge, namely, "working Masons, persons of other trades and occupations, and Gentlemen." To the first of these classes he recommended a careful perusal of the Constitution, to the second class he counselled obedience to the moral precepts of the Society, and attention to their own business, without any expectation of becoming proficients in Operative Masonry. "You cannot," he says, "be so absurd as to think that a tailor, when admitted a Freemason, is able to build a church; and for that reason, your own vocation ought to be your most important study." On the “gentlemen" only, did he impress the necessity of a knowledge of the arts and sciences, and he especially recommended to them the study of geometry and architecture.
Francis Drake, (1) the author of this Speech, was a scholar of much learning and an antiquary. Like his contemporary, George Payne, of the London Grand Lodge, whom he resembled in the nature of his literary pursuits, his ambition seems to have been to establish a system of pure Speculative Freemasonry, to be created by its total severance from the Operative element.
Something of this kind he distinctly expresses in the close of his Speech before the Grand Lodge.
"It is true," he says, addressing the Gentlemen or Theoretic members, "by Signs, Words, and Tokens, you are put upon a level with the meanest brother; but then you are at liberty to exceed them as far as a superior genius and education will conduct you.
(1) He was born in 1695, and in early life established himself at York as a surgeon and practiced, Britton says, with considerable reputation, but the investigation of antiquarian researches was his favorite pursuit. He published a "Parliamentary History of England to the Restoration" and many essays in the "Archaeologia" and in the "Philosophical Transactions." His principal work, however, and the one by which he is best remembered, was published at London in 1736 under the title of "Eboracum," or the "History and Antiquities of the City of York from its Original to the Present Time." From its title we learn that Drake was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London. The work is in two folio volumes and illustrated by many engravings, which, considering the most of them were donations to himself and his work, made by his wealthy patrons, might have been executed in a better style of art.
I am creditably informed that in most lodges in London, and several other parts of this kingdom, a lecture on some point of geometry or architecture is given at every meeting. And why the Mother Lodge of them all should so far forget her own ins stitutions can not be accounted for, but from her extreme old age. However, being now sufficiently awakened and revived by the comfortable appearance of so many worthy sons, I must tell you that she expects that every Gentleman who is called a Freemason should not be startled at a problem in geometry, a proposition in Euclid, or, at least, be wanting on the history and just distinctions of the five orders of architecture."
On December 27, 1725, the lodge resolved itself into a Grand Lodge (I know not how to use a better term), and Charles Bathurst, Esq., was elected Grand Master, with Mr. Johnson for his Deputy, and Messrs. Pawson and Drake, both of whom had been initiated in the previous September, as Grand Wardens. (1)
On the festival of St. John the Evangelist, in the following year, (2) Bathurst was again elected Grand Master, and the Society marched in procession to Merchants' Hall, where a Speech was delivered by Bro. Francis Drake, the Junior Grand Warden.
Like its sister of London, the Grand Lodge at York was troubled with schism at a very early period of its existence. (3) William Sourfield had convened a lodge and made Masons without the consent of the Grand Master or his Deputy. For this offense he was expelled, or as the Minutes say, "banished from the Society for ever."
It was agreed that John Carpenter, W. Musgrave, Th. Alleson, and Th. Preston, who had assisted Sourfield in his illegal proceedings, should, on their acknowledging their error and making due submission, be restored to favor.
Findel gives the following account of the subsequent proceedings which was taken by him from the Minutes of the Grand Lodge
“After the Minutes of December 22, 1726, a considerable space
(1) Bro. Findel, who had inspected the Minutes while on a visit to York, says these officers are there called Wardens, and not Grand Wardens. "History of Freemasonry," p. 161. (2) Findel gives this date as 1725, but he is clearly in error, as the printed title of the Speech states that it was delivered "on St. John's Day, December 27, 1726.” (3) The reader is reminded of the schismatic proceedings at the London Grand Lodge in 1722 in reference to the election of the Duke of Wharton as Grand Master.
is left in the page, (1) and then follow the Minutes of June 21, 1729, wherein it is said that two Gentlemen were received into the St. John's Lodge and their election confirmed by vote: Edw. Thompson, Esq., Grand Master; John Willmers, Deputy Grand Master; G. Rhodes, and Reynoldson, Grand Wardens. The Grand Master on his part appointed a Committee of seven brothers, amongst whom was Drake, to assist him in the management of the lodge, and every now and then support his authority in removing any abuses which might have crept in.
"The lodge was, however, at its last gasp, and therefore the Committee seem to have effected but little; for on May 4, 1730, it was found necessary to exact the payment of a shilling from all officers of the lodge who did not make their appearance and with this announcement the Minutes close." (2)
At this time, according to Findel, there were no lodges subordinate to the Grand Lodge. His statement, however, that after the meeting in May, 1730, it was inactive until 1760, is shown by the records to be not precisely accurate.
The fact is that the lodge, or the Grand Lodge, after 1729, must for some years have dragged out a life of inactivity. Bell's list shows that there were no Grand Masters (probably because there were no meetings) in 1730, 1731, and 1732. John Johnson, M.D., is recorded as Grand Master in, 1733, and John Marsden, Esq., in 1734.
There are no records of Grand Masters or of Proceedings from 1734 until 1761. During that period of twenty years, while the Grand Lodge of England was diffusing the light of Speculative Freemasonry throughout the world, the Grand Lodge of all England was asleep, if not actually defunct.
From this long slumber it awoke in the year 1761, and the method of its awaking is made known to us in the Minutes of the meeting which have been preserved.
As this event is one of much importance in the history of Freemasonry at York, I do not hesitate to copy the Minute in full.
The Ancient and Independent Constitution of Free and Accepted Masons, belonging to the City of York, was, this Seventeenth
(1) In Dr. Bell's List, heretofore cited, there are no names of Grand Masters in 1722 and 1728. (2) “History of Freemasonry,” p. 164
day of March, in the year of our Lord 1761, Revived by Six of the Surviving Members of the Fraternity by the Grand Lodge being opened, and held at the House of Mr. Henry Howard, in Lendall, in the said City, by them and others hereinafter named.
When and where it was farther agreed on that it should be continued and held there only the Second and Last Monday in every Month.
PRESENT: Grand Master, Brother Francis Drake, Esq., F.R.S. Deputy G. M. " George Reynoldson. Grand Wardens " George Coates and Thomas Mason.
VISITING BRETHREN:
Tasker, Leng, Swetnam, Malby, Beckwith, Frodsham, Fitzmaurice, Granger, Crisp, Oram, Burton, and Howard.
Minutes of the Transactions at the Revival and Opening of the said Grand Lodge:
Brother John Tasker was, by the Grand Master and the rest of the Brethren, unanimously appointed Grand Secretary and Treasurer, he having just petitioned to become a Member and being approved and accepted nem. con.
Brother Henry Howard also petitioned to be admitted a Member, who was accordingly ballotted for and approved nem. con.
Mr. Charles Chaloner, Mr. Seth Agar, George Palmes, Esq., Mr. Ambrose Beckwith, and Mr. William Siddall petitioned to be made Brethren the first opportunity who, being severally ballotted for, were all approved of nem. con.
This Lodge was closed till Monday, the 23d day of this instant Month, unless in case of Emergency.
The Grand Lodge, thus revived, had at first and for some years but one constituent lodge under its obedience, or, to speak more correctly, the Grand Lodge of all England and the Lodge at York were really one and the same body. While it claimed the title and the prerogatives of a Grand Lodge, it also performed the functions of a private lodge in making Masons. But it afterward increased its constituency, and in the year 1769 granted Warrants for opening lodges at Ripon, at Knaresborough, and at Iniskilling.
In 1767 the Grand Lodge of England, at London, had addressed a report of the business done at its quarterly communication to a lodge held at the Punch Bowl, in the city of York, and to which lodge it had granted a Warrant, as No. 259, on the 12th of January, 1761.
But this lodge having ceased to exist, the document appears to have fallen into the hands of the Grand Master of the York Grand Lodge. It was laid before the Grand Lodge at a meeting held on the 14th December, 1767, when it was resolved that a letter should be sent by the Grand Secretary to the Grand Lodge at London.
In this letter the pretensions of the York Grand Lodge are set forth in very emphatic terms. It is stated that "the Most Ancient Grand Lodge of all England, held from time immemorial in this city (York), is the only Lodge held therein."
It is also stated that "this Lodge acknowledges no Superior, that it exists in its own Right, that it grants Constitutions and Certificates in the same manner as is done by the Grand Lodge in London, and as it has from Time immemorial had a Right and used to do, and that it distributes its own Charity according to the true principles of Masons."
Hence it does not doubt that the Grand Lodge at London will pay due respect to it and to the Brethren made by it, professing that it had ever had a very great esteem for that body and the brethren claiming privileges under its authority.
Findel says that "a correspondence with the Grand Lodge of England in London, in the year 1767, proves that the York Lodge was then on the best of terms with the former." (1)
I confess that I fail to find the proof of this feeling simply because there is no proof of the correspondence of which Findel speaks. A correspondence is the mutual interchange of letters. The Grand Lodge in London had sent an official communication to a lodge in the city of York, ignoring, in so doing, the Grand Lodge of York. This was itself an act of discourtesy. The lodge having been discontinued, this communication comes into the possession of the Grand Lodge at York, for which it had not been originally intended. It sends to the Grand Lodge at London a letter in which it asserts its equality with that Grand Lodge and the
(1) "History of Freemasonry," p. 166.
immemorial right that it had to grant Warrants, which right it trusts that the Grand Lodge in London will respect.
It appears to me that this language, if it means anything, is a mild protest against the further interference of the London Grand Lodge, with the territorial jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge in York.
It is true that in the close of the letter the York Grand Lodge expresses its esteem for the Body at London and its willingness to concur with it in anything that will affect the general good of Masonry.
The letter was dignified and courteous. It asserted rights and prerogatives, which it need not have done if they had not been invaded, and it made the offer of a compact of friendship.
To this letter there is no evidence that the Grand Lodge of England deigned to make a reply. It was treated with frigid silence, and hence there was no correspondence between the two bodies.
Bro. Hughan, however, concurs with Bro. Findel, so far as to say that this letter is of much consequence in proving that the two Grand Lodges were on excellent terms. (1)
I am very reluctant to differ with two such authorities on Masonic history, but I can not consider that the conclusion to which Bro. Hughan has arrived is a legitimate one. The letter certainly shows a desire on the part of the Grand Lodge of York to cultivate friendly relations with that in London. But there is no evidence that the amicable feeling was reciprocated.
On the contrary, all the records go to show that the Grand Lodge at London was aggressive in repeated acts which demonstrated that it did not think it necessary to respect the territorial rights of the Masonic authority at York.
In 1738 Dr. Anderson speaks of it not as a Grand Lodge, but as "the Old Lodge at York" which he says "affected independence." It was evidently, in his opinion, merely a lodge that was unwilling to place itself under obedience to his own Grand Lodge.
That the Grand Lodge of England refused to recognize the authority of the lodge at York in its sovereign capacity as a Grand
(1) "History of Freemasonry in York." p. 70.
Lodge having territorial jurisdiction over the north of England or even over the two Ridings of Yorkshire is shown by the records. In 1729, four years only after the lodge at York had assumed the title of a Grand Lodge, the Grand Lodge of England constituted a lodge at Scarborough; in 1738 another at Halifax; in 1761, a third and fourth at the city of York, and at Darlington the one two months before and the other three months after the York Grand Lodge had been resuscitated; in 1762, a fifth at Orley; in 1763, a sixth at Richmond; and in 1766, a seventh at Wakefield, all situated within the county of York, and one in the very city where the Grand Lodge held its sessions.
It is not surprising that the York Grand Lodge in time resorted to reprisals, and as will presently be seen, most decidedly invaded the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge at London.
Dr. Bell, in his History of the Grand Lodge of York, (1) says that "the two Grand Lodges continued to go on amicably until the year 1734, when in consequence of the Grand Lodge of England having granted Warrants, out of its prescribed jurisdiction, shyness between the lodges ensued."
Both Bell and Findel, who make the same statement as to a lodge warranted in 1734, are wrong as to the date, for no lodge was constituted in York by the Grand Lodge of England in that year. But as it had constituted one in 1729, I am ready to give credit to the account of the “shyness." The mistake of a date will not affect the existence of the feeling.
Preston commits the same error as Bell and Findel concerning the Constitution of two lodges in York in 1734. (2) But he adds what is of importance, considering his intimacy with the subject, that the Grand Lodge in York highly resented the encroachments
(1) "History of the Provincial Grand Lodge of North and East Yorkshire, Including Notices of the Ancient Grand Lodge of York," cited by Bro. Hughan in his "History of Freemasonry in York," p. 45. (2) It is from Preston that Bell and Findel have derived their authority for the statement of lodges having been constituted in 1734. Bro. Hughan investigated the subject with his wonted perseverance and says that "there is no register of any lodge being warranted or Constituted in Yorkshire or neighborhood in A.D. 1734. We have searched every List of Lodges of any consequence from A.D. 1738 to A.D. 1784, including the various editions of the Constitutions, Freemason's Calendars, Companions and Pocket Books, etc., but can not find any "Deputation granted within the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of all England, during 1734 by the Grand Lodge of England." "History of Freemasonry in York," p. 47.
of the Grand Lodge of England on its jurisdiction and "ever after seems to have viewed the proceedings of the Brethren in the South with a jealous eye; as all friendly intercourse ceased, and the York Masons from that moment considered their interests distinct from the Masons under the Grand Lodge in London." (1)
Soon after the revival of the Grand Lodge it was visited by Preston and Calcott, two distinguished Masonic writers, and Hughan supposed that about this time the Royal Arch degree was introduced into the York system by the latter. This subject will, however, be more appropriately considered in a distinct chapter devoted to the history of that degree.
From the time of its re-opening in 1761 until near the close of the 18th century the Grand Lodge appears to have flourished with considerable activity. (2)
The festival of St. John the Evangelist was celebrated in 1770 by a procession to church, and a sermon on the appropriate text "God is love." Representatives from the three lodges at Ripon, Knaresborough, and Iniskilling were present. Sir Thomas Gascoigne was elected Grand Master. (3)
In the same year a Warrant was granted for the Constitution of a lodge at Macclesfield in Cheshire, so that there were now at least four subordinates acknowledging obedience to the York Grand Lodge.
A controversy having sprung up between the Lodge of Antiquity in London and the Grand Lodge of England, the former body withdrew from its allegiance to the latter, and in 1778 received a Warrant from the Grand Lodge of York, authorizing it to assemble as a Grand Lodge for all that part of England situated to the south of the river Trent.
This episode in the history of the Freemasonry of England,
(1) Preston, Jones edition, p. 214. (2) Findel says that from 1765 the name of "Bro. Drake is seldom mentioned." If we consider that at that date Drake had reached the seventieth year of his age, and that five years afterward, in 1770, he died, we will find ample cause in the infirmities of age for his withdrawal from participation in the active duties of Masonic labor. (3) This baronet was a lineal descendant of Nicholas Gascoigne, the brother of that celebrated Chief Justice who in the reign of Henry IV. committed the heir apparent to the throne, the "Merry Prince Hal," to prison for contempt of court. He was a native and resident of Yorkshire, having seats at Barstow, Lasingcroft, and Parlington, all in the county. See Kimber and Johnson's "Baronetage of England," London, 1771, vol. iii., P. 352.
which involved very important results, demands and must receive a more detailed consideration in a distinct chapter.
It is scarcely necessary to pursue the minute history of the Grand Lodge of York from that period to the date of its final collapse.
The last reference in the minutes of the lodge at York to the Grand Lodge of all England has the date of August 23, 1792. It is a rough minute on a sheet of paper, which records the election of Bro. Wolley as Grand Master, George Kitson as Grand Treasurer, and Richardson and Williams as Grand Wardens. (1)
We have no evidence from any records that the Grand Lodge ever met again. It seems to have silently collapsed; the lodge at York continued its existence as a private lodge, and finally came under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of England.
In fact, as the Rev. Bro. Woodford has stated, the York Grand Lodge was never formally dissolved, but simply was absorbed, so to say, by the predominance of its more prosperous southern rival of 1717. (2)
In bringing this history of the rise and progress of Speculative Freemasonry in the city of York to a close, I am almost irresistibly impressed with the opinion that the "Old Lodge at York" was never, in the legal sense of the word, a Grand Lodge. It was not formed, like the Grand Lodge at London, by the union and co-operation of several private lodges. It was never recognized as such by the Grand Lodge of England, but was always known as the "Old Lodge at York."
Anderson so called it in 1738, and his successor, Northouck, writing in 1784, says of it that "the ancient York Masons were confined to one lodge, which is still extant, but consists of very few members, and will probably be soon altogether annihilated." (3)
It was simply, like the lodges of Kilwinning in Scotland and of Marseilles in France, a "Mother Lodge," a term which, in Masonic language, has been used to denote a private lodge which, of its own motion, has assumed the prerogatives and functions of a Grand Lodge by granting Warrants. This title was applied to it by Drake,
(1) Hughan, " History of Freemasonry in York," p. 79. (2) The connection of York with the "History of Freemasonry in England," by A.F.A. Woodward, A.M., in Hughan's "Unpublished Records of the Craft," p. 172. (3) Northouck, " Book of Constitutions," p. 240.
its Junior Grand Warden, when he delivered his "Speech" in 1726, the year after it had assumed the attitude of a Grand Lodge.
But it continued at all times to exercise the function of a “making Masons," a function which has been invariably delegated by Grand Lodges to their subordinates.
As late as the year 1761, when, after a long slumber, the Grand Lodge was revived, one of its first acts was to ballot for five candidates who were, on the first opportunity, initiated by it.
In the rules adopted for its government in 1725 the title of "Lodge" is used by it five times as the designation of the Society, and that of "Grand Lodge" only once in reference to the funds.
Their rules are signed by Ed. Bell, who calls himself not "Grand Master," but simply “Master." In the vacillating position in which the Freemasons of York had placed themselves, between a desire to imitate their London brethren by establishing a Grand Lodge and a reluctance to abandon the old organization of a private lodge, they entirely lost sight of the true character of a Grand Lodge, as determined by the example of 1717.
It is not, therefore, surprising, as Bro. Hughan remarks, that these rules should offer a strange contrast to the Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England which had been published two years before.
There can, however, be little or no doubt, as the same astute writer has observed, that in consequence of the publication of the London Constitutions the Freemasons of York is began to stir themselves and to assume the prerogatives of a Grand Lodge."
It is to be regretted that in borrowing from their Brethren the title of a Grand Lodge, the York Freemasons did not also follow their example by adopting the same regularity of organization.
In view of all these facts it is impossible to recognize the body at York in any other light than that of a Mother Lodge, a body assuming, without the essential preliminaries, the prerogatives of a Grand Lodge, while to the body established at London in 1717 must be conceded the true rank and title of the Mother Grand Lodge of the World, from which, directly or indirectly, have proceeded as its legitimate offspring all the Grand Lodges which have been organized in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Now, what must we infer from these historical facts? This and no more nor less: that there never was, as a legitimate organization, a Grand Lodge of York or a Grand Lodge of all England, but only a Mother Lodge in the city of York, which assumed the title and prerogatives of a Grand Lodge, but exercised the functions both of a Grand and a private lodge - an anomaly unknown to and unrecognized by Masonic law.
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Chapters in Part 2
- Chapter I Preliminary Outlook
- Chapter II The Roman Colleges of Artificers
- Chapter III Growth of the Roman Colleges
- Chapter IV The first link: Settlement of Roman Colleges
- Chapter V Early Masonry in France
- Chapter VI Early Masonry in Britain
- Chapter VII Masonry among the Anglo-Saxons
- Chapter VIII The Anglo-Saxon Guilds
- Chapter X The London Companies and the Masons' Company
- Chapter XI The General Assemblies and the Lodges of Medieval Masons
- Chapter XII The Harleian Manuscript as a Germ of History
- Chapter XIII Early Masonry in Scotland
- Chapter XIV Customs of the Scottish Masons of the 17th Century
- Chapter XV The French Guilds of the Middle Ages
- Chapter XVI The Travelling Freemasons of Lombardy or the Masters of Como
- Chapter XVII The Stonemasons of Germany
- Chapter XVIII The Cathedral of Strasburg and the Stonemasons of Germany
- Chapter XIX The Cathedral of Cologne and the Stonemasons of Germany
- Chapter XX Customs of the German Stonemasons
- Chapter XXI The Secrets of the Medieval Masons
- Chapter XXII Gothic Architecture and the Freemasons
- Chapter XXIII Two Classes of Workmen, or the Freemasons and the Rough Masons
- Chapter XXIV Masons' Marks
- Chapter XXV The Mark Degree
- Chapter XXVI Transition from Operative to Speculative Freemasonry
- Chapter XXVII The Remote Causes of the Transition
- Chapter XXVIII The Way Prepared for the Transition
- Chapter IX The Early English Masonic Guilds
- Chapter XXIX Organization of the Grand Lodge of England
- Chapter XXX Was the Organization of the Grand Lodge in 1717 a Revival?
- Chapter XXXI The early years of Speculative Freemasonry in England
- Chapter XXXII The early Ritual of Speculative Freemasonry
- Chapter XXXIII The One Degree of Operative Freemasons
- Chapter XXXIV Invention of the Fellow-Craft's Degree
- Chapter XXXV Non-Existence of a Master Mason's Degree among the Operative Freemasons
- Chapter XXXVI The Invention of the Third or Master Mason's Degree
- Chapter XXXVII The Death of Operative and the Birth of Speculative Freemasonry
- Chapter XXXVIII Introduction of Speculative Freemasonry into France
- Chapter XXXIX The Grand Lodge of All England, or the Grand Lodge of York
- Chapter XL Organization of the Grand Lodge of Scotland
- Chapter XLI The Atholl Grand Lodge, or the Grand Lodge of England According to the old Institutions
- Chapter XLII The Grand Lodge of England, South of The Trent; or the Schism of the Lodge of Antiquity
- Chapter XLIII The Union of The Two Grand Lodges of England
- Chapter XLIV The Grand Lodge of France
- Chapter XLV Origin of the Grand Orient of France
- Chapter XLVI Introduction of Freemasonry into The North American Colonies
- Chapter XLVII The Early Grand Lodge Warrants
- Chapter XLVIII Origin of The Royal Arch
- Chapter XLIX The Introduction of Royal Arch Masonry into America
- Chapter L The General Grand Chapter of the United States
- Chapter LI General History of Christian Knighthood
- Chapter LII The Introduction of Knight Templarism into America
- Chapter LIII The General Grand Encampment of Knights Templars in the United States
- Chapter LIV History of The Introduction of Freemasonry into each state and Territory of the United States. The First Lodges and the Grand Lodges
- Chapter LV The First Lodges and the Grand Lodges (Continued)
- Chapter LVI Royal Arch Masonry
- Chapter LVII The Cryptic Degrees
- Chapter LVIII History of the Grand and Subordinate Commanderies in the several States and Territories of the United States
- Chapter LIX History of Coloured Masonry in the United States
- Chapter LX The Anti-Masonic Excitement
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