The Architects of Eighteenth Century English Freemasonry, 1720

398 Pages·2011·4.72 MB·English

The Architects of Eighteenth Century
English Freemasonry, 1720 – 1740

Submitted by Richard Andrew Berman to the University of Exeter
as a Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Research in History
15 December 2010.

This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright
material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper
acknowledgement.

I certify that all material in this thesis that is not my own work has been identified
and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award
of a degree by this or any other university.

R A Berman

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Abstract

Following the appointment of its first aristocratic Grand Masters in the 1720s and
in the wake of its connections to the scientific Enlightenment, ‘Free and Accepted’
Masonry rapidly became part of Britain’s national profile and the largest and
arguably the most influential of Britain’s extensive clubs and societies. The new
organisation did not evolve naturally from the mediaeval guilds and religious
orders that pre-dated it, but was reconfigured radically by a largely self-appointed
inner core. Freemasonry became a vehicle for the expression and transmission of
the political and religious views of those at its centre, and for the scientific
Enlightenment concepts that they championed. The ‘Craft’ also offered a channel
through which many sought to realise personal aspirations: social, intellectual and
financial.

Through an examination of relevant primary and secondary documentary
evidence, this thesis seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of
contemporary English political and social culture, and to explore the manner in
which Freemasonry became a mechanism that promoted the interests of the
Hanoverian establishment and connected and bound a number of élite
metropolitan and provincial figures. A range of networks centred on the
aristocracy, parliament, the magistracy and the learned and professional societies
are studied, and key individuals instrumental in spreading and consolidating the
Masonic message identified. The thesis also explores the role of Freemasonry in
the development of the scientific Enlightenment.

The evidence suggests that Freemasonry should be recognised not only as the
most prominent of the many eighteenth century fraternal organisations, but also
as a significant cultural vector and a compelling component of the social,
economic, scientific and political transformation then in progress.

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Acknowledgment

I would like to express my thanks to Professors Jeremy Black, Nicholas Goodrich-
Clarke, Martin Thomas and Andrew Prescott, and to Dr Andrew Pink, for
reviewing early drafts of this thesis and for their helpful comments. I would also
like to express my gratitude to Professors Henry French and Bill Gibson for their
time and effort in reviewing and examining. Finally, may I also thank the staff of
the Library at the United Grand Lodge of England, Great Queen Street, London, in
particular, Diane Clements, Director, Martin Cherry, Librarian, and Susan Snell,
Archivist, for their kind assistance.

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Contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................ 2

Acknowledgment .................................................................................................. 3

Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ 8

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 10

Chapter One ........................................................................................................ 19
English Freemasonry before the formation of Grand Lodge................................... 19
Medieval English Freemasonry: an Economic Imperative ............................................19
Non-Operative Masonry prior to the formation of Grand Lodge .................................28
Randle Holme III and Thomas Tryon .............................................................................35
Elias Ashmole ................................................................................................................37
The Acception ...............................................................................................................40
John Aubrey and William Dugdale ................................................................................45
Aubrey and the Wren Controversy ...............................................................................47
Robert Plot (1640-1696) ...............................................................................................52
Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755) ....................................................................................57
Randle Holme and Chester Freemasonry ......................................................................59
The Ancient Lodge at York ............................................................................................62
Late Seventeenth Century London Freemasonry ..........................................................67
Summary .......................................................................................................................68

Chapter Two ........................................................................................................ 70
John Theophilus Desaguliers: Homo Masonicus .................................................... 70
Displacement and Poverty: an Insecure Childhood ......................................................71
Oxford University, John Keill, and a Newtonian Education...........................................78
London, Again ...............................................................................................................80
An Appliance of Science ................................................................................................87
Matters Masonic .........................................................................................................101
Through the Eyes of Others ........................................................................................102
Summary .....................................................................................................................109

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Chapter Three ................................................................................................... 111
Grand Lodge: The Inner Workings ...................................................................... 111
James Anderson and the authorship of the 1723 Constitutions .................................112
The Influence of Others ...............................................................................................118
George Payne – A Known Unknown ...........................................................................120
The Westminster and Middlesex Bench: a New Connection ......................................129
Charles Delafaye, loyalty personified..........................................................................132
William Cowper and the 1719 Intake .........................................................................136
Nathaniel Blackerby ....................................................................................................139
The June 1721 Intake ..................................................................................................147
The August 1724 Intake ..............................................................................................152
The November 1727 Intake .........................................................................................153
The Bench and the General Bank of Charity ...............................................................157
Summary - Power and Patronage ...............................................................................163

Chapter Four ..................................................................................................... 165
Martin Folkes and the Professional Nexus .......................................................... 165
Folkes and the lodge at the Bedford Head .................................................................165
The Royal Society and the Horn Tavern ......................................................................173
William Jones and William Stukeley ...........................................................................180
Other Learned Societies ..............................................................................................184
The Royal College of Physicians ..................................................................................185
The Society of Apothecaries ........................................................................................186
The Society of Antiquaries ..........................................................................................187
The Spalding Society ...................................................................................................189
Summary .....................................................................................................................192

Chapter Five ...................................................................................................... 193
The Rise of the First Noble Grand Masters .......................................................... 193
Aristocratic Patronage ................................................................................................194
A Positive Press Personified ........................................................................................196
John, 2nd Duke of Montagu, (1690-1749) ...................................................................201
Montagu, Freemasonry and the Military ...................................................................205
A Politically Convenient Grand Master .......................................................................213
Philip, Duke of Wharton, (1698-1731) ........................................................................218
An Inconvenience Incarnate ........................................................................................221
The Earl of Dalkeith, (1695-1751) ...............................................................................228
Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond & Lennox, (1701–1750) .................................231
The Successor Grand Masters .....................................................................................246
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The Political Dimension ...............................................................................................251
Summary .....................................................................................................................256

Chapter Six ........................................................................................................ 257
Freemasonry, the ‘Public Sphere’ and the Scientific Enlightenment ..................... 257
‘Through the paths of heavenly science’ ....................................................................258
John Ward, (1704-74) .................................................................................................260
Science and Self-Improvement within the Lodge ........................................................264
Martin Clare and the Old King’s Arms lodge ..............................................................274
Lectures Elsewhere .....................................................................................................279
Charles Labelye and the lodge at Madrid ...................................................................281
George Gordon and the lodge at Lisbon .....................................................................282
Freemasonry’s Wider Connection with the Scientific Enlightenment .........................286
Willem-Jacob s’Gravesande, (1688-1742) ..................................................................291
The Parliamentary Imprimatur ...................................................................................294
Summary .....................................................................................................................296

Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 297

Appendix 1: Grand Lodge of England, Grand Officers 1717–1740 ........................ 307

Appendix 2: The 1723 Constitutions – a comparative analysis ............................. 311
The Old Charges ..........................................................................................................312
The New Charges ........................................................................................................327
The Regulations ..........................................................................................................334

Appendix 3: Military Lodges ............................................................................... 337
Irish Military Lodges....................................................................................................337
Scottish Military Lodges ..............................................................................................343
Other British Military Lodges ......................................................................................345

Appendix 4: Masonic Membership of Selected Professional Societies ................. 348

Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 353

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Tables

Table 1. Grand Lodge Officers, 1718-30 119
Table 2. The First Charity Committee 158
Table 3. The Bedford Head Lodge - selected members 172
Table 4. The Noble Grand Masters 175
Table 5. Freemasons Proposing Freemasons as FRS 179
Table 6. The Society of Antiquaries 187
Table 7. The Gentlemen’s Society of Spalding 190

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Abbreviations

Add. Additional
AQC Transactions Ars Quatuor Coronatorum: Transactions of the
Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076
BL British Library, London
Bodleian Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Burney The Burney collection of seventeenth and eighteenth
century newspapers at the British Library
chap.(s) Chapter(s)
CLSes City of London Sessions
CMRC Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, London
CRFF Centre for Research into Freemasonry and
Fraternalism, University of Sheffield
CUL Cambridge University Library, Cambridge
CUP Cambridge University Press
DGM Deputy Grand Master
ed(s) Editor(s)
edn. Edition
ECCO Eighteenth Century Collections Online
EEBO Early English Books Online
EHR English Historical Review
fo. Folio
FRCP Fellow of the College of Physicians
FRS Fellow of the Royal Society
FSA Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians
GM Grand Master, Grand Lodge of England
GMY Grand Master (or President), York
GO General Orders of the Court
Grand Lodge Grand Lodge of England (formerly known as the
Grand Lodge of London)
Grand Lodge Minutes Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of England,
1723-39, reprinted as QCA, vol. X (London, 1913); or
if qualified ‘1740-58’, Minutes of the Grand Lodge of
Freemasons of England, 1740-58, reprinted as QCA,
vol. XII (Margate, 1960)
GS Grand Secretary
GTr Grand Treasurer
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GW Grand Warden
IHR Institute of Historical Research
HS The Huguenot Society, London
JGW Junior Grand Warden
JP Justice of the Peace
JWP Justices’ Working Papers / Documents
KG Knight of the Garter
KT Knight of the Thistle
LMA London Metropolitan Archives, London
MS(S) Manuscript(s)
MSes Middlesex Sessions
NA National Archives
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
OKA Old King’s Arms Lodge, the Strand, No. 28
OKA Minutes The first extant Minute book of the OKA
OUP Oxford University Press
PGM Provincial Grand Master
QC Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076
QCA Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha
QCCC Quatuor Coronati Correspondence Circle Limited
RS The Royal Society, London
SA The Society of Antiquaries, London
Sackler Archives The Sackler Archive of the Royal Society
containing the Biographies of past Fellows
SP Sessions Papers
SGW Senior Grand Warden
UGLE United Grand Lodge of England, London
VCH Victoria County History
WM Worshipful Master
WP Working Papers
WSes Westminster Sessions

Note: The Gregorian calendar was adopted in England in 1752, after which 1
January became the first day of the legal year rather than 25 March. Where
feasible, events have dated using the (modern) Gregorian calendar.
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Introduction

When this thesis was first developed in concept, it had been expected that the
evidence would lead to a narrow focus on a relatively small group of ‘architects’ at
the helm of the new Grand Lodge of England and to their relationships and
networks within a number of learned and professional societies and, in particular,
the Royal Society. Instead, an evaluation of relevant primary source material has
directed analysis to a far more diverse group of Masonic ‘movers and shakers’,
and to the identification of new networks and channels through which
Freemasonry expanded from its London hub.1 Moreover, although an initial
working assumption had been that the early noble Grand Masters, the first
aristocrats to head Grand Lodge, would be revealed as simple figureheads,
primary source material, including correspondence and contemporary press
reports, suggests that a small number including, in particular, Charles Lennox, 2nd
Duke of Richmond, were active Masonic proselytisers and that their Freemasonry
also served a political purpose.

In The Craft, Hamill argued that the prevailing historical methodology, which
posited ‘a direct descent from operative to speculative masonry through a
transitional phase’, was without substance.2 Despite nearly three centuries of
currency, Hamill suggested that there was no firm historical evidence to support
the established thesis of a gradual shift from the mediaeval working masons’
guilds to the more gentlemanly and ‘spiritual’ form of masonic lodge of the

1 The word ‘freemason’ can be dated back to the early twelfth century. Until the early
eighteenth century, a freemason could be defined as a skilled and non-indentured
stonemason. However, common usage of the term within England was extended in the
seventeenth century to include non-working or honorary members of a masonic guild or
lodge. By the mid-eighteenth century, its meaning had altered and the word referred
principally to non-working ‘Free and Accepted’ Masons, later known as ‘speculative’
freemasons, whose use of masonic tools was allegorical. Prior to this time, ‘speculative’
freemasonry meant the theoretical, geometrical or mathematical aspects of operative
masonry, and did not have any necessarily spiritual or allegorical connotations.
2 John Hamill, The Craft (London, 1986), pp. 15-40; the quote is from pp. 17-8. Hamill’s
analysis has not prevented recent academic and popular semi-academic work, e.g.
Christopher Lomas and Robert Knight, The Hiram Key (London, 1996), from advocating a
‘gradualist’ approach. N.B. Full publishers’ details are included in the Bibliography.
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