Hibiscus Masonic Review
Volume III for the Years 2009-2010iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 The Hibiscus Masonic Review
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-6913-1Contents
EDITORIAL POLICY.............................................................................................................................................viiLIST OF PLATES...............................................................................................................................................xiTHE FOUNDERS OF HIBISCUS MASONIC REVIEW......................................................................................................................xiiiTHE DONORS FOR HIBISCUS MASONIC REVIEW 2009-10...............................................................................................................xiiiTHE 2009 OFFICERS OF HIBISCUS LODGE, No. 275, F.&A.M.........................................................................................................xivTHE 2010 OFFICERS OF HIBISCUS LODGE, No. 275, F.&A.M.........................................................................................................xvHIBISCUS LODGE...............................................................................................................................................xviiPREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................................................xxiBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES...........................................................................................................................................xxviiFREEMASONS AND THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF THE BRITISH ATLANTIC WORLD, 1717-1798 BY JESSICA L. HARLAND-JACOBS, Ph.D.............................................1SCOTLAND'S MASONS: MEMBERSHIP AND OCCUPATIONS OF FREEMASONS 1800-2000 BY JOHN L. BELTON, MSc & ROBERT L. D. COOPER, FRSA, BA, FSA(Scot)......................27TO ADVANCE THE RACE: PRINCE HALL FREEMASONRY AND THE FOUNDING OF THE NIAGARA MOVEMENT BY RICHARD P. MULCAHY, Ph.D............................................55THEOLOGICAL CONUNDRUMS FROM THE "BURNED OVER DISTRICT" AS THE KEY TO MORMONISM FOR FREEMASONRY BY PETER PAUL FUCHS, B.A......................................81ASPECTS OF THE MASONIC CITY OF LONDON BY YASHA BERESINER, LL.B...............................................................................................123FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINT BY JULIAN REES........................................................................................................................175LOUIS KOSSUTH: HIS ACHIEVEMENTS, HIS FAILURES, AND HIS RELATIONSHIP TO FREEMASONRY. BY STEVEN B. VÁRDY, PH.D............................................179PRINCE ADAM JERZY CZARTORYSKI: LIBERAL ENLIGHTENER AND CONSERVATIVE POLISH REVOLUTIONARY BY R. WILLIAM WEISBERGER, PH.D......................................209TRUE BELIEVERS: FREEMASONRY, REVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT AND THE RISE OF SIMON BOLIVAR BY FRANK J. BELL, B.S.......................................................223LOYALIST MASONS DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION BY WALLACE McLEOD, PH.D.......................................................................................261BRO. WILLIAM G. GRUFF, AN INTRODUCTION TO OUR BEARDED BROTHER. THE LODGE GOAT: FACT & FICTION BY DAVID NAUGHTON-SHIRES.......................................277THE INFLUENCE OF MEMBERS OF ANCHOR & HOPE LODGE NO.37 IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOLTON 1765-1813 BY DAVID B. HAWKINS.............................................295THE HIMALAYAN BROTHERHOOD LODGE No. 459 BY TREVOR I. HARRIS.................................................................................................303INDEX OF PRIOR ISSUES:.......................................................................................................................................313
Chapter One
FREEMASONS AND THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF THE BRITISH ATLANTIC WORLD, 1717-1798 * * *
BY JESSICA L. HARLAND-JACOBS, Ph.D.
British Freemasonry's first Constitutions, compiled by James Anderson for the Grand Lodge of England in 1723, urged a Mason to "be a peaceable subject to the Civil Powers" and avoid plots and conspiracies against the state. It claimed that kings and princes encouraged the fraternity because of its members' reputation for "peaceableness and loyalty." If a brother did rebel against the state, he was to be discountenanced, but the regulations made clear that he could not be expelled from his lodge on the basis of his being a rebel. His relationship to his lodge "remain[ed] indefeasible." The Constitutions even went so far as to ban the discussion of politics—the brethren were enjoined to leave their "Quarrels about Religion, or Nations, or State Policy" outside their lodges. For much of the eighteenth century, these words constituted the extent of the British grand lodges' directives to individual Masons concerning politics.
When the English Grand Lodge published a revised version of The Constitutions almost a century later in 1815, the clause protecting political rebels from expulsion was conspicuously absent. It took a Mason's loyalty for granted:
A Mason is a peaceable subject to the civil powers wherever he resides or works, and is never to be concerned in plots and conspiracies against the peace and welfare of the nation.
During the early nineteenth century British Freemasonry did everything in its power to cultivate its reputation as a loyalist institution. It made a conscious effort to identify itself with the defining features of the British state: constitutional monarchy, Protestantism, and empire. This effort marked a dramatic departure from the brotherhood's relationship to politics during the eighteenth century—the focus of this [article]—when Freemasons could be found along the complex political spectrum of the period between the 1720s and the 1790s. The changes in the language of Freemasonry's Constitutions are thus emblematic of a broader shift in the nature of the brotherhood's role in the political culture of the British Atlantic world.
Although historians have written more about Freemasonry between 1720 and 1800 than any other period and added significantly to our understanding of the relationship between Masonry and politics, they have seemed too eager to see Freemasonry as either fundamentally conservative or fundamentally radical. Examining English Freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century, John Money, for example, argues that the brotherhood was a "major agent" in the process by which "the varied potential elements of loyalism at the grass roots [were] drawn together in a single chorus of national devotion to the Crown." H. T. Dickinson, on the other had, includes Freemasonry as part of the "many-headed hydra of heterodoxy." Eric Hobsbawm, John Brewer, and Kevin Whelan emphasize the brotherhood's associations with radicalism. Margaret Jacob presents an interesting twist: an institution that was "aggressively royalist" and never really posed a threat to established institutions in Britain became, in the European context, radical and subversive.
Yet, as I argue here, during the eighteenth century British Freemasonry was never associated with a particular political position, movement, or even leaning. Rather, it demonstrated tremendous elasticity and adaptability. As Irish Masonic historians John Lepper and Phillip Crossle put it, eighteenth-century Freemasonry "include[ed] men of the most diverse theories in regard to civil government." To be fair, several historians have made this point. In Living the Enlightenment, Jacob admits:
Predictably in a British context lodges were, on the whole, remarkably supportive of established institutions, of church and state. Yet they could also house divisive, or oppositional, political perspectives. They could be loyalist to the Hanoverian and Whig order, yet they could also at moments show affiliation with radical interests, whether republican or Jacobite, and, possibly at the end of the century, Jacobin.
Building on this idea, James Melton describes Freemasonry as "a protean form of association that could be appropriated for very different political ends. Its social and ideological elasticity enabled Masonry to accommodate a broad spectrum of political attitudes, ranging from royalist celebrations of absolute monarchy to Jacobin assaults on it." While these observations squarely hit the mark, no historian has explored the extent of British Freemasonry's elasticity and explained why men of such wide-ranging political views found membership useful.
One reason historians have not been able to take full account of Freemasonry's elasticity vis à vis eighteenth-century political culture has been their propensity to limit their area of analysis to a particular place (e.g., Wales), political movement (e.g., Wilkite radicalism), or event (e.g., the American War of Independence). Because of this circumscribed approach, Philip Jenkins' observation, made in 1979, that "the [British Masonic] movement urgently needs to be placed in its contemporary political context" remains valid today. For Masonry's "contemporary political context" in the eighteenth century included not only Britain but also Ireland and the American colonies. To demonstrate the extent of Freemasonry's appeal to men of wide-ranging political positions and the various uses to which they put the brotherhood, this [article] therefore examines the brotherhood's concurrent connection to the Whig establishment and the various political challengers it faced across the late eighteenth-century British Atlantic world ... [including, but not limited to,] the Wilkite agitation (1760s), the American War of Independence (1776-1783), and the United Irish Rebellion (1798)....
BRITAIN: OLIGARCHY AND OPPOSITION
The Grand Lodge of England emerged amid an atmosphere of political instability. The country was adjusting to its new German-speaking king, George I, who had occupied the throne for only three years. The House of Stuart, in exile on the Continent, was constantly on the lookout for opportunities to reclaim the throne. Meanwhile, a true party system was just beginning to take shape, with momentum shifting in favor of the Whigs who supported the Hanoverian succession. The Tories had held the upper hand during the reign of Anne, but they found their influence waning under George I. Though the Whigs suffered many internal divisions and weathered the profound financial crisis caused by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720, Robert Walpole, as of 1721 the leader of the Whigs and chief minister to George I, was firmly in command of his party when George II ascended the throne in 1727. Under Walpole and his successors, the Whigs became the dominant political force of the eighteenth century, though it is important not to underestimate the significant subculture of oppositional politics represented, in turn, by Jacobites, Tories, and radicals (and even within the Whig party itself). Freemasons could be found not only among the oligarchy's supporters but also in the ranks of those who challenged Whig ascendancy.
Early in the history of speculative Freemasonry, the brotherhood—at the national level—became closely identified with the Whig oligarchy and was associated with powerful men (for this reason, it also attracted those seeking social and political advancement.) The men active in founding the first grand lodge in 1717, the first nobleman to serve as grand master in 1721, and most of its subsequent leaders were all "resolutely Whig." They lost control of the grand lodge for a year (to the Duke of Wharton), but in 1723 prominent Whigs who were loyal to the Hanoverians resumed control over its operations. According to Margaret Jacob, grand lodge leaders actively supported Walpole, and "the mythological history and official constitutions of British freemasonry self-consciously argued for ministerial and court-centered government based on the constitutional settlement of 1689." Walpole himself was a Freemason. At a lodge meeting held in Walpole's Norfolk home, several prominent supporters, including the Duke of Newcastle, were initiated into Freemasonry. In London, supporters campaigned for Walpole in taverns, hosted party dinners, and issued pamphlets. Masons like Sir Robert Rich (army commander), the Hon. Charles Stanhope (Treasury Secretary), the Duke of Chandos (Paymaster General), and Martin Bladen (Comptroller and later commissioner of the Board of Trade and Plantations) benefited from the extensive Whig patronage networks and used their positions to their own financial advantage.
Freemasonry's identification with the Whig regime is also evident in the basic ideas and practices of the brotherhood. Its official publications championed strong constitutional monarchy and loyalty to the royal ministry. The lessons conveyed through Masonic rituals elaborated upon natural liberties like justice and toleration that Whigs championed. Moreover, the governing practices of lodges were largely Whiggish in inspiration. One of Jacob's central arguments in Living the Enlightenment is that Masonry was a constitutionally governed society; from the national through the provincial and to the local level, lodges were expected to abide by the published Constitutions.
The goal of government by consent within the context of subordination to `legitimate' authority was vigorously pursued by the Grand Lodge of London and was demanded of all lodges affiliated with it." In terms of governing practices, this meant majority rule, elections by ballot, the investing of the master with executive power, and deliberation through committees. It also required members to pay dues and demanded civil behavior and allegiance to the national government
Freemasonry's appeal to a variety of political groups is suggested not only by the participation of Whigs ... but also opposition Tories and the Prince of Wales, who too used the brotherhood to forward political agendas. Sir Walter Blackett, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle and a Tory MP, dominated Northumberland Freemasonry during the 1720s and 1730s. Freemasons among the Tory supporters of Bolingbroke took part in the political activities of the Brothers Club and the Beef-Steak Society and dined in taverns affiliated with the Tory Party. Masons John Byram and Edwin Ward were among the Tory pamphleteers who critiqued Walpole's government. Frederick, Prince of Wales joined the brotherhood in 1737. John Desaguliers, one of the royal chaplains, and other members of the English Grand Lodge initiated the prince in a ceremony at Kew. Historians have noted that the prince's initiation marked a turning point for English Freemasonry: no longer would it be consistently subject to the public insults and parodies it had experienced in the 1720s and early 1730s. But, like Wharton earlier, Frederick seems to have had political motives for joining. His initiation coincided with his entering into active opposition against the royal ministry. Several politicians attended his initiation. According to Masonic historian Aubrey Newman,
At a time when he was already canvassing as many factions as he could find in Parliament, when it was important for him to build up as much support as possible in the House of Commons, Frederick chose to join an organization which contained a number of Members of Parliament in its ranks. After his initiation, Frederick did not demonstrate much interest in Masonic affairs, and so the brotherhood failed to secure in the prince the kind of royal patron its leaders sought.
Whatever the prince's motives for joining the brotherhood, his participation, at the very least, provides further evidence of Freemasonry's ability to accommodate a range of political positions during the mid-eighteenth century. Its protean nature and role in furthering individual political agendas became apparent again during the radical Wilkite agitation of the 1760s. John Wilkes, an Aylesbury squire who was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1757, took over the ownership of a middle-class London paper, the North Briton, in 1762. The paper became an outlet for Wilkes' radical political views; in it he not only denounced the Peace of Paris, but also accused the king of being a liar. Arrested for seditious libel, he mounted a successful defense based on the argument that his detention represented an assault on English liberty itself. He was released but shortly thereafter fled to France (and as a result was expelled from Parliament). After being convicted of libel and sentenced to four years of exile, he returned to England in 1768, stood for election, and was returned by the shopkeepers of Middlesex. The government immediately put him in prison, where street mobs rioted on his behalf and in opposition to oligarchic government. Two times, Wilkes was again elected and expelled by the house.
Wilkes joined the Freemasons during the height of his troubles, in 1769, while serving his sentence for libel and blasphemy. On March 3, 1769, The Gentleman's Magazine reported that "the officers and members of the Freemasons' Lodge, held at the Jerusalem Tavern in Clerkenwell, by virtue of a deputation, signed by the Deputy Grand Master, attended at the King's Bench Prison, and made Mr. Wilkes at Mason. It was said in the papers that the dispensation was obtained from the Grand Master, but this was contradicted." Newman points out that Wilkes' initiation was a serious breach of Masonic regulations, which required an initiate to be a "free man." He argues that Wilkes' participation in Freemasonry was another instance of his joining as many societies and associations as possible in order to gain more publicity. While Wilkes was certainly a joiner, the connection between Masonry and the radical agitation of the early 1770s was not based on Wilkes' political opportunism alone. John Brewer contends that "the political implications of Wilkes's admission were obvious." Masons were among those who supported the Wilkite cause. Some Masonic lodges had taken part in the agitation drummed up by the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, founded to champion Wilkes' agenda. Even Newman admits, "It is clear that those Masons associated with Wilkes were undoubtedly acting politically, and that many of the individual lodges involved in these waves of agitation had political overtones." In Wales, Jenkins argues, Freemasonry was instrumental in carrying on the tradition of Country opposition during and after the 1760s. He demonstrates this by tracing the continuities between the political organization and social contacts of Jacobitism, Wilkite radicalism, and Freemasonry. Several close friends of Wilkes, for example John Pugh Pryse (of Gogerddan) and Robert Jones (of Fonmon in Glamorgan), were descendants of ardent Jacobite families and Freemasons.
Further testifying to the elasticity of Freemasonry during the eighteenth century, the Wilkite agitation coincided with the strengthening of the relationship between the brotherhood and the royal family. Though Frederick was not an active Freemason, he set an example for his sons, three of whom joined the Craft in the 1760s. Edward, Duke of York, became interested in Freemasonry while on the Continent and was initiated in 1765 in Berlin. His brothers, William Henry (Duke of Gloucester) and Henry Frederick (Duke of Cumberland), joined in 1766 and 1767 respectively. In a letter to the Master of a lodge in Calcutta in 1768, one grand lodge official noted: "Masonry flourishes with amazing success in the present era, Their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland have joined the fraternity and the first noblemen in Britain vouchsafe to protect us.... In short, every thing tends to cultivate and promote our Royal Art here, and we earnestly hope that the zeal and ardour of our worthy brethren abroad will not fail in this respect, but emulate them to vie with each other in establishing the virtues of our ancient and honourable society." The Modern Grand Lodge, under the leadership of the Duke of Beaufort between 1767 and 1771, actively encouraged the participation of all three royal princes by conferring the high Masonic rank of "Past Grand Master" on each.
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