The Scottish Historical Review, Volume XC, 2: No. 230: October 2011, 280295 DOI: 10.3366/shr.2011.

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Survey Four Hundred Years of Freemasonry in Scotland

ABSTRACT
Scotland has the oldest masonic lodges and the oldest masonic records in the world, predating their English counterparts by over a century. Yet freemasonry is usually neglected by social and cultural historians, partly, it may be, through ignorance and negative stereotypes of the movement and partly through the excessive secrecy of freemasons in the past. It is the purpose of this paper to survey the movements development and indicate the many aspects of the Craft that could prove rich subjects for research. Scottish lodges began as organisations of stonemasons but, at rst slowly, began to admit men from other crafts and men of higher social status. This process accelerated fast after the foundation of a Grand Lodge in London in 1717: freemasonry became fashionable. But though many lodges came to be dominated by men of high status, many others remained and remain skilled working class in membership.

When the London-based Aberdonian James Anderson compiled his famous (but almost entirely ctitious) history of masonry, in the Constitutions of the Free-Masons of 1723, he began with the creation of the world.1 The principles of masonry were inherent in God, so when He created man in his own image mankind inherited these principles. Rather less ambitiously, this paper begins in the sixteenth century. In Scotland (as elsewhere) stonemasons had already had myths and traditions of their craft, and probably rituals associated with them, for centuries. Medieval masons had temporary lodges, in the sense of covered work sheds, and doubtless sometimes these were used for social and ritual purposes. These lodges were attached to individual buildings, rather than serving the masons of a whole town or area. However, in Scotland at least some of these lodges evolved into permanent entities. Large stone buildings required continuous routine maintenance, provided by a master of works with a varying number of waged stonemasons under
1

Material relating to the period up to the early eighteenth century is derived from the following works: David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotlands Century, 15901710 (Cambridge, 1988) and David Stevenson, The First Freemasons: Scotlands Early Lodges and their Members (2nd edn, Edinburgh, 2001).

david stevenson is Professor Emeritus of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Centre for Research into Freemasonry, at the University of Shefeld, in 2006.

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him, and they regarded themselves as forming lodges, with traditions to uphold. Thus, in Dundee in 1537 the council and kirkmaster of Dundee appointed George Boiss mason for life according to the auld use and consuetude of Our Lady Luge of Dundee.2 The lodge was becoming an institution, though still one attached to a particular building, in this case St Marys church in Dundee. Then, at the end of the sixteenth century, evidence appears that there was an interest in organising the mason craft on a wider basis there is mention of a regional warden of masons in the north-east of Scotland. But the major change came in the late 1590s when William Schaw, James VIs master of works, claimed authority as warden general over all Scotlands masons and sought to establish a network of lodges that, though probably in many cases based on existing institutions, were to be reformed, standardised and regulated by him. Codes of statutes were issued by Schaw in 1598 and 1599. One of his reforms (for which historians are grateful) was to order that lodges keep written minutes. As a result, lodges suddenly emerge from obscurity: the earliest surviving lodge minutes date from 1599. Schaw died a few years after he began his reforms but these new-style lodges survived as permanent, recordkeeping institutions, even although the sort of centralised supervision of the lodges that Schaw had planned died with him. Why did Schaw innovate in the ways he did? This can only be guessed at but ambition to increase his own power is obviously present. Perhaps too there was recognition that the craft and its traditions were in poor shape. Protestant Reformation had deprived the craft of one of its main patrons, with more church destruction than construction. Religious ritual based on craft guilds having their own altars in burgh churches was suppressed and perhaps there was felt to be a need to replace it with secular rituals based on masonic traditions. On the more positive side, Scotland was by 1600 escaping from decades of political instability. With greater stability came a surge of new building castles, country houses and municipal projects. Intellectually, there were developments that meant that masons could claim high status. The modern exalted concept of the architect was emerging and masons claimed to be architects. Geometry and mathematics were increasingly accepted as keys to understanding the world and the idea of God as the Divine Architect was already current. Masons had proudly boasted of being geometricians, practitioners of one of the seven liberal arts, for centuries, and now these Renaissance ideas seemed to lend credibility to their claims to high status. It is signicant that William Schaw, master of works, was described as an architect on his tomb. The Schaw lodges were entirely operative that is, their members were all stonemasons. Their functions were similar in many ways to
2

Douglas Knoop and G. P. Jones, The Scottish Mason and the Mason Word (Manchester, 1939), 612; R. S. Mylne, The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1893), 934.

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those of craft guilds regulation of a craft, especially the regulation of admission and training. They also, like guilds, had functions similar to those of later Benet Societies or Friendly Societies payments to members who were incapacitated by illness or injury, or in case of death to their widows. Finally, though not mentioned in minutes, it is all but certain that from the start these lodges carried out ritual initiation into secrets, though written reference to these do not survive before the 1630s. These secrets had a utilitarian purpose, for they were largely concerned with recognition codes, through which the initiated could tell whether men claiming to be initiates really were. If they were not, initiated masons were supposed to refuse to work with them. The idea of having secrets was also an assertion of pride masons were superior to all other trades, and the rituals which conveyed the secrets were full of references to the crafts traditional claims to greatness and antiquity. These lodges were autonomous bodies. Though there are exceptions, most did not want to be ofcial guilds (incorporations), regulated and licensed by burgh authorities. They prided themselves on their independence, the fact that they were not answerable to burgh councils. In some cases lodges deliberately met outside towns instead of in them. In metaphorical terms they were always outside towns or burghs, not part of them. A true lodge, it was said with literary exaggeration, should meet a days journey from a burgh town without barking of dog or crow of cock.3 In most crafts in burghs mens careers involved seeking to advance in a single hierarchy, that of their incorporation, moving from apprentice to journeyman wage earner and then (hopefully) to master. But masons in Edinburgh and perhaps some other burghs rose also in a second parallel institution, the lodge, becoming rst entered apprentices and then fellow crafts or masters. Why was this? First, masons valued their independence. Secondly, many incorporations bundled together several crafts masons often being grouped with other building trades. This meant that incorporations could not fully meet the needs of masons, for they needed a place to perform rituals and initiate men into secrets that were exclusive to them, secret from all other craftsmen. In Aberdeen masons followed a different strategy to preserve their exclusiveness. From the mid-sixteenth century no masons became burgesses and when the burgh started recording apprenticeship in the early seventeenth century no masons were listed. The masons, it seems, had opted out of the structure of burgh government. Though at rst Scotlands lodges were entirely composed of stonemasons, in time a trickle of outsiders, mainly gentlemen, begin to join them. In the 1690s a new lodge in Dunblane was established which was dominated by gentlemen from the outset. What was going on? Firstly, why would lodges agree to admit outsiders to their exclusive organisations and secrets? One motive was that, in a hierarchical society,
3

Douglas Knoop, G. P. Jones & Douglas Hamer (eds), The Early Masonic Catechisms, ed. Harry Carr (2nd edn, Manchester, 1963), 32. Spelling modernised.

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it was deeply attering for these craftsmen to have gentry wishing to join their brotherhood. That gentlemen wanted initiation to their secrets seemed to validate the high claims they made for their craft as the embodiment of geometry, the science that rendered the world explicable. Another reason for admitting high-status outsiders was that they were often willing to pay high fees into the lodge box. In the eighteenth century, when the trickle of outsiders wanting to join became a ood, money was often the main incentive for admitting them. Many old lodges were in trouble. Traditional trade regulation was breaking down. The lodges had been supposed to be bodies in which masons worked together for the common interest but internal divisions emerged. Masters broke the rules strictly limiting the numbers of apprentices they could take. Apprentices were cheap labour. But once their apprenticeship was over and they became journeymen they found they had little hope of ever becoming masters. They would be stuck as wage labourers for life and they resented it. They might have the rank of fellowcrafts and masters in the lodge but in the real world they were powerless. Tensions caused by such developments led many journeymen in Edinburgh Lodge to secede in 1707 to form their own lodge, to protect their interests. Up until as late as 1840 the lodge insisted that 90% of new members be craftsmen.4 And there are still today lodges that only admit skilled, time-served tradesmen. Thus a whole range of lodge types began to emerge, some dominated by operatives working men some by better off tradesmen, some by gentry. Older lodges experiencing nancial difculties often looked for a solution in diversifying membership letting in the gentry and others. The other side of the coin to why did lodges admit outsiders is, of course, why did these outsiders want to join lodges? At rst, chance and curiosity brought them. Masons were known to have secrets, the Mason Word as they were known, perhaps deliberately alluding to the Bible being Gods Word. And it may be suspected that some masons liked to boast in general terms of the secrets they had, the powers these gave them and of the ancient lore they possessed. Gentlemen were intrigued they wanted to be in on the secrets and rituals they heard about. Perhaps those with mathematical interests were especially attracted by masons talking of their art being geometry. There may also have been an element of going slumming having a look at what these tradesmen folk were getting up to and socialising with them as brothers. Many gentlemen masons, once initiated, were never seen in the lodge again. From about 1700 it was, however, cultural and social developments that drove the development of freemasonry. The associational world described by Peter Clark was emerging, a male culture based on a
4

R. F. Gould, Goulds History of Freemasonry, ed. Herbert Poole, 4 vols (London, 1951), i. 155.

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wide variety of voluntary organisations, centred on London and other cities.5 Huge numbers of clubs and societies appeared. At their hearts lay sociability, groups of men meeting in coffee houses and pubs to talk, joke, drink, eat and sing. It may be noted that many of the clubs had values that later freemasons were to claim as specically masonic. Clubs often mixed men of differing social status, they were based on friendship or brotherhood and to avoid controversy many did not talk of politics and religion. Some clubs developed specic interests. Sometimes these were entirely serious cultural, educational or literary. Others found it fun to invent their own mock or semiserious rituals and myths of ancient origins. England had not in the past developed permanent lodges like Scotland but the same sort of masonic lore and initiations were known, and in the seventeenth century small, uctuating groups of gentry in the countryside met from time to time to carry out initiations. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the swirling melee of London clubs some picked masonic themes. In 1716 four lodges named after London pubs came together and decided to form a Grand Lodge. Grand was a bit of an exaggeration but the idea caught the fancy of the day. Within a few years men from the nobility downwards hastened to join the fashion of being a mason, founding many new lodges. Masons were the great success of what might be called the branding of the club world, the Starbucks of the day, with a growing network of local lodges loosely bound together by Grand Lodge. This London craze for freemasonry soon spread to Scotland and pressures on existing lodges to admit large numbers of outsiders grew. Some resisted, stonemasons fearing their institutions would be swamped and taken over. They were often right but the nancial rewards for admitting newcomers were very tempting. Debate can sometimes be traced. Edinburgh Lodge was having problems in the 1720s because many young stonemasons were not bothering to join, as membership of a lodge was no longer necessary for them to have a career. One suggestion made in the Edinburgh Lodge was to reduce fees to attract these stonemasons. Another was to admit outsiders to the lodge but only craftsmen from other trades. There was at rst hostility to such dilution of masonic exclusivity. Nonetheless, through nancial pressures, by 1730s most new initiates were from other crafts plus a few noblemen.6 St Andrews stubbornly remained a lodge exclusive to stonemasons until 1767 but an unusually frank minute reveals that by then it was in a mess nancially and lacked leadership. There were good masons in the lodge, it was stated, but few were t to be master through lack of ability and interest. It was decided, therefore, to recruit Gentlemen in
5 6

P. Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 15801800: The Origins of the Associational World (Oxford, 2000). Lisa Kahler, The lodge of Edinburgh, 15981746, in R. W. Weisberger (ed.), Freemasonry on Both Sides of the Atlantic: Essays concerning the Craft in the British Isles, Europe, The United States and Mexico (New York, 2002), 631.

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this Neighbourhood, who would pay high fees and provide leadership.7 But after they were admitted they soon came to dominated the lodge. Attitudes to initiation were sometimes distinctly casual. The lodge of Melrose in 1751 was short of money and resolved that anyone wishing to join for their own pleasure or fancy should be admitted provided that they paid high fees.8 Some lodges were happy to see initiations carried out by individual members outside the lodge provided the fees were then forwarded to the lodge.9 In 1835 the lodge of Scoon and Perth commissioned a member to initiate new members whenever he liked.10 An Edinburgh lodge recruited extensively in Montrose to the fury of the local lodge, for this poaching meant that it was losing out on initiation fees. In some lodges it was accepted that gentlemen applicants were solely interested in seeing what went on at initiations and it was bothersome for them to have to come more than once, so they should be allowed to go through all the degrees of initiation at a single meeting.11 How protable recruiting up-market members could be is shown by Haughfoots scale of initiation fees. A craftsman paid 1, a knight paid 7.12 Recruitment of large numbers of the well-off could lead to strains. When it came to refreshment, rich new members wanted better quality food and drink than craftsmen could afford and could push up fees to pay for more lavish meals. Splits sometimes followed. An amicable arrangement in 1816 saw the poorer members of Kelso Lodge withdraw and form a new lodge with lower fees.13 Thus, masons might say they met on the level but they did not always want to socialise or eat on the level. Other inequalities between supposedly equal brothers also appear from time to time. Men useful to a lodge might be initiated free such as musicians but sometimes they were not allowed a vote in lodge affairs. Similarly, some lodges sought to dene all members who were not craftsmen as honorary masons, so they would not have voting rights. All lodges used some of their funds to make charitable payments to members in need. From the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries in many lodges in rural Scotland such benet rights became the main reason that many men became masons. Lodges become nancial institutions with initiation rituals attached. A late-eighteenthcentury report on the Cunningham district in Ayrshire said of the
7 8 9

10 11 12 13

St Andrews, Lodge of St Andrews, Minutes. I am grateful to Mark C. Wallace for this reference. W. F. Vernon, History of Freemasonry in the Province of Roxburgh, Peebles and Selkirkshire (London, 1893), 32. D. M. Lyon, History of the Lodge of Edinburgh (Marys Chapel) No. 1, Embracing an Account of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1873; tercentenary edn, 1900), 109. Lyon, History, 11213. E.g. Dunblane in 1716 (Lyon, History, 109). Vernon, History, 283. Vernon, History, 2245.

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masonic lodges that all of these harmonic societies may also be considered as associations for the relief of the sick and distressed. They all have funds appropriated to that purpose some of them very considerable.14 With economic change, increasingly large numbers of men worked for money wages. Without insurance companies or banks, those seeking to save for the future had to form their own mutual benet societies and very often they turned to masonry as a type of insurance. Masonry was widely known and offered established principles of brotherhood and charity to members, which were, it seems, widely trusted. Thus, many working men accepted a masonic framework for their friendly societies just as in the nineteenth century many early trade unions were to copy masonry in their organisation and ritual. Sometimes men who joined lodges for nancial reasons had doubts about masonic ritual. In Jedburgh in 1811, for example, there was a difculty with members who were initiated to the rst degree but refused to be initiated as masters. There was a move to ban them from receiving benets, as they did not pay the masters initiation fees, but it turned out that the motives of the refusers was not nancial. They would not become masters because they had conscientious scruples about the rituals involved they had heard enough about the secret ritual, it seems, to know that it involved themes of death and attempted resurrection, which some thought blasphemous. In the end Jedburgh Lodge ruled that men who refused to be initiated as masters should be allowed benet rights provided they paid the fees that they would have had to pay if they had become masters! These non-initiates were banned from taking part in running the lodge and obviously had to withdraw before some rituals were performed.15 One of the clearest statements of the importance of lodges as benet societies comes from Robert Burns in 1782. His lodges nances were in a mess. Its master was a local landowner but he seldom attended meetings. Burns appealed to him for help. We look on our Mason Lodge to be a serious matter, both with respect to the character of Masonry itself, and likewise as it is a charitable society. The master might not be much interested in this, but to us, Sir, who are of the lower orders of mankind, to have a fund in view, on which we may with certainty depend to be kept from want should we be in circumstances of distress, or old age, that is a matter of high importance. Burns begged the master to call a meeting to sort things out.16 It became frequently difcult to reconcile lodge and benet society activities. There were increasing disputes as to how the moneys collected in the lodge box were to be used. Some lodges spent only on running costs and paying out benets. But others paid for food and drink out
14

15 16

George Robertson, Topographical Description of Ayrshire (Irvine, 1820), 430. Legislation from the 1790s led several lodges to register ofcially as benet societies: see Edinburgh, National Records of Scotland, FS1/10/1; FS1/12/13; FS1/16/38; FS1/17/91. Vernon, History, 183. John Weir (ed.), Robert Burns the Freemason (Edinburgh, 1996), 25.

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of the box, or for attending plays, or made donations to local causes, such as the building of a new bridge or town hall. In lodges with socially mixed membership, the well-off did not give the priority to building up lodge funds that poorer members did. Those who saw the lodge primarily as a place for social enjoyment almost inevitably had different views from those who saw themselves as paying insurance premiums. In the last decades of the eighteenth century and rst of the nineteenth state legislation began to regulate benet societies. They could achieve a recognised legal status as incorporations but only if their funds were devoted purely to administrative costs and paying benets. Lodges often had to separate general lodge funds from benet funds. Some went further and abandoned their benet activities. In 1841 Tweed Lodge at Kelso decided to do this. One quarter of the existing funds were retained by the lodge while the rest was repaid to those who had been entitled to benets.17 Over 230 members received payments, a number showing that the lodge had been operating as a benet society with masonic frills, not as a small social institution of friends. The lodges of Edinburgh that attracted elite membership, or were founded specically for them, were very different from the struggling provincial benet society lodges. But their fortunes often uctuated dramatically. Take Holyrood House Lodge. It was founded in 1734 by ve stonemasons, three other craftsmen and two gentlemen. In 1758 it started to meet at premises near the University. A great many initiates were doctors and medical students. After a period where it neared extinction, it revived with strong leadership and moved up-market, with many lawyers, bankers, army ofcers and other members of the burgh elites. Edinburgh lodges in general tended to be dominant in the Grand Lodge of Scotland (established in 1736) because of poor communications, and Holyrood became the most powerful, virtually running the Grand Lodge of Scotland by 1800; and it was noted as being dominated by Whigs.18 How did the masonic ideal of universal brotherhood, which evolved in the eighteenth century, t in with other loyalties, such as patriotism and politics? Did lodges live up to their ideals of being places of equality for men with diverse backgrounds and beliefs? Masons, when in the lodge, were supposed to be above party politics but at times it did impinge. Indeed, in that British freemasonry as a whole became strongly committed to the status quo Protestant government and the Hanoverian dynasty it could be regarded as a political movement. It is true that some lodges admitted Jacobites but nonetheless the movements overall political bias was obvious. As to diversity, social mingling was achieved to a much greater degree than in most institutions but, as already noted, different tastes
17 18

Vernon, History, 231. R. S. Lindsay, A History of the Masonic Lodge of Holyroodhouse (St Lukes), No. 44, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1935), i. 251.

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and pockets often meant different lodges for rich and poor. Other forms of diversity were difcult to achieve because Scotland was not a country that attracted many visitors from abroad or large numbers of immigrants except for poor Irish Catholics, who certainly did not meet with a fraternal masonic welcome and did not want one. English ofcials and army ofcers stationed in Scotland were, however, commonly admitted to Scots lodges. After the suppression of the Jacobite rising of 17456 regimental lodges began to be chartered by the Scottish Grand Lodge and the earliest regiments to gain Scottish charters were English. More exotic forms of stranger were eagerly snapped up. Holyrood House and other Edinburgh lodges happily enrolled two Turkish Muslim shoemakers, recommended by brethren in other countries, and in 1784 Holyrood bagged two passing Russians, presumably Russian Orthodox in faith.19 The lodge of Inveraray admitted three nobles in 1802 a Frenchman, an Italian and the chamberlain to the czar of Russia: they must have been guests of the duke of Argyll, who acted as absentee master of the lodge for several decades.20 But the largest overseas presence in lodges in this period was French. In 181014 many French prisoners of war were released on parole in inland towns in southern Scotland. Those who were already masons were allowed into lodges such as Kelso and many new French masons were initiated. Fraternal feelings became strained, however, when some of the French prisoners began to form their own lodges, without warrant from Grand Lodge, arguing that their actions were perfectly justied in terms of French masonic traditions.21 But their presence brought some benets. In Kelso it was noted that the lodges standards in conversation and singing were greatly increased by the polite manners and vocal powers of the French brethren.22 Thus enemies in war might nd it to be helpful to be masons, captives nding themselves treated as brethren by some of their captors. A case in point is that of a Scottish sea captain whose ship was forced ashore on the Spanish coast. He became a prisoner of war but when brought before Don Antonio de Pizarro, governor of Tarragona, the two men identied themselves to each other as freemasons. Pizarro then freed the captain and his crew and allowed them to sail to Gibraltar. When the Grand Lodge of Scotland heard of this, in 1762, it ordered all Scottish lodges to make Pizarro an honorary member.23 It is possible that the popularity of masonry in the armed forces was to some extent inuenced by the hope that if captured members might come across enemies who would treat them as brothers. This incident of brotherhood over-riding patriotic duty raises the issue of conicting loyalties. Grand Lodge ruled on the point in 1778.
19 20 21 22 23

Lindsay, History, i, 2223. John Johnstone, The History of Inveraray Masonic Lodge, No. 50 [n.d.], 25, 31. Vernon, History, 46, 69, 201; Lyon, History, 623. Vernon, History, 131. Lindsay, Holyroodhouse, i. 1423.

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The lodge of Kelso had run into trouble for excessive patriotic zeal in pursuing the war against the American colonists. A recruiting party for the Atholl Highlanders whose commander was an English freemason was welcomed to Kelso by the lodge, which marched in procession with the soldiers and offered every new recruit who enlisted a bounty from lodge funds of three guineas. Complaints were made to Grand Lodge and it ruled that the bounties were an improper alienation of lodge funds, diverting them from the poor and distressed. Moreover, such conduct amounted to a prostitution of masonry. Masonry is an Order of Peace and looks on all mankind to be Brethren as Masons, whether they be at peace or war with each other as subjects of contending countries.24 It was not spelt out what in practice this meant but the message seems to have been that serving in a countrys armed forces was a patriotic duty but masonry should not be used to aid the war effort. Yet, in 1797 St Andrews Lodge agreed to contribute two guineas to a voluntary subscription for defence of the country because of the present alarming situation of Publick affairs another threat of French invasion. In times of crisis political tensions sometimes tended to erupt within freemasonry and there were few crises as intense as those in the 1790s, sparked off by the French Revolution. In some quarters there was early enthusiasm for revolutionary ideas and many radical political societies and associations emerged. In 1791 Grand Lodge ordered that lodges did not have power to exclude members for differing from the majority about the political affairs of their town or village, reecting squabbles in provincial lodges.25 But there were fears that some lodges were admitting radicals or at least providing them with meeting places. In 1793 it was reported that some lodges in and around Edinburgh were allowing the Friends of the People to assemble in their premises. Evidently these radicals were actually being initiated, for Grand Lodge, in banning them, observed that they were not men whose entry would help lodge funds they were too poor to be freemasons, as well as tending to be turbulent and seditious. Four members of Edinburgh Journeymens lodge were later suspending for having continued to admit radicals.26 This was political discrimination but, as Britain and revolutionary France were on the verge of war, it could be justied as patriotic masonic loyalty to the regime. The passing of an act in 1799 which outlawed secret oaths might have seemed to threaten freemasonry but masonic lodges which were already established were exempted from the act, provided they registered with the authorities. Some might fear that masonic lodges harboured dangerous radicals but many nobles and several members of the royal family were masons. Indeed, the prince of Wales was Grand Master of
24 25 26

Lyon, History, 89; Vernon, History, 127. Lindsay, Holyroodhouse, i. 246. Lindsay, Holyroodhouse, i. 2467.

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England and was to become Grand Master of Scotland in 1806. To have condemned British freemasonry would have been an attack on the crown. The master and senior warden of one lodge were, however, tried for sedition and administering unlawful oaths in 1800, though they were acquitted. The whole affair blew up as the result of bitter disputes between some Ayrshire masons. A group of men seceded from the lodge of Maybole and formed a new lodge. The older lodge then alleged that some of the seceders were members of an outlawed organisation, the United Irishmen, and that in the new lodge the Bible had been replaced by a copy of Thomas Paines notoriously revolutionary Rights of Man.27 The case was dismissed but some years later Grand Lodge itself was torn by political divisions. In 1807 Dr John Mitchell, master of Edinburgh Caledonian Lodge, proposed a motion in the Grand Lodge of Scotland to send an address to King George III. In the context of a political crisis of the time, the address implicitly congratulated the king for dismissing a Whig regime and installing a Tory replacement. The Grand Lodge was at rst divided. Mitchell lost the motion for making the address but only by one vote. Mitchell then led Edinburgh Caledonian and several other lodges in secession from Grand Lodge, splitting Scottish masonry between a Whig-dominated Grand Lodge, upholding political neutrality, and Tory seceders. Not until 1813 was this secession brought to an end.28 It may have been lessons derived from these events that persuaded Grand Lodge to avoid involvement in one of the most intense political debates of the century, the agitation leading up to the great Reform Act (1832), which sought to widen the electorate. One masonic body, the Royal Arch Chapter of Freemasons of Cupar, took remarkably overt political action by petitioning parliament in favour of reform.29 Other lodges tore themselves apart on the issue. Kelso lodge ceased meeting for ten years.30 In Hawick numbers attending the lodge fell sharply. After the Reform Act was passed, the lodge had joined a triumphant procession of about a thousand people, a blatantly political demonstration of allegiance to the Whigs. But then the lodge ceased to meet for nearly three decades.31 There is plenty of evidence that in the elites of society as a whole the bitterness of the Reform Bill disputes broke up life-long friendships. Clearly this sort of lasting bitterness was present in some lodges. Possibly this is the reason that numbers of new initiations into the craft dropped in the mid-century decades. Foreign menace was to provide a new patriotic unity. In 185960 a perceived threat of French invasion led to the widespread creation of volunteer rie companies. An Edinburgh Regiment of Rie Volunteers
27 28 29 30 31

L. D. Wartski, The Maybole trial, Grand Lodge of Scotland Year Book (1985) 6971; Lyon, History, 3249. Gould, History, iii. 2679; Lyon, History, 285310. House of Lords Journal 63 (4 Oct. 1832). Vernon, History, 138. Vernon, History, 2045.

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appeared and in 1859 there was formed within it the Freemasons Company. It drilled in Freemasons Hall and at its head strutted Captain W. A. Lawrie, Grand Secretary and author of a History of Free Masonry and the Grand Lodge of Scotland, published in the same year. This unique masonic unit of the armed forces still existed in the 1890s. In the First World War Scottish freemasonry ofcially conned its war effort to support for such humanitarian causes, such as military hospitals, but the movements patriotism intensied.32 War raised issues about the international nature of masonic brotherhood. In 1916 it was ruled that all members of Scottish lodges who had been born in, or were citizens of, enemy nations should not attend lodge meetings.33 In this the lead of the Grand Lodge of England was accepted and the same probably happened in World War II. But the situation then was complicated by the fact that many of those born in enemy countries who had become masons were refugees and had been granted British nationality. Compromise was agreed: such cases should be considered individually and exclusion from lodges should not be automatic.34 Thus, national politics occasionally impinged on freemasonry. Far more common were links between lodges and local government. Examples could be multiplied endlessly but just three instances demonstrating how close such links could be will be cited here. In Greenock in the 1760s it was decided to build a town house. The local masonic lodge contributed generously and was given the right to meet in its building. In 1877 after new municipal buildings were constructed, the lodges right to meet there was accepted and to this day Greenock Lodge meets in the Saloon of the Town Hall.35 In Old Aberdeen in the late eighteenth century a similar arrangement saw the merchant gild and the incorporated trades join with the masonic lodge to built a new town house, one oor used by the trades, one by the lodge. Finally, the town house built in St Andrews in the late nineteenth century has a little passage at the side which leads to the masonic lodges rooms incorporated in the building. These buildings indicate a relationship between masonry and local government that would now be unacceptable. It looks as though freemasons were seeking to dominate the councils but those involved would have seen things differently. A sense of civic duty and the public good led men to serve on councils and such values were in tune with masonic ideals and sense of brotherhood. Freemasons saw themselves (especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century) not as belonging to a fringe

32 33 34 35

John Agnew, William Russell and A. N. MacInnes, History of the Province of Dunbartonshire, 17391989 (Glasgow, 1991), 43. The Scotsman, 5 May 1916, p. 7. J. W. Stubbs, The last fty years, in A. S. Frere (ed.), Grand Lodge, 11771967 (Oxford, 1967), 182. H. S. Tibbles, Lodge Greenock Kilwinning No. xii, 17282003, Grand Lodge of Scotland Year Book (2005) 90107.

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GRAND LODGE OF SCOTLAND INITIATIONS
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Numbers of Initiates

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1919

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1800-2003

Figure 1: Grand Lodge of Scotland Initiations 18002003.

institution but to one that lay at the centre of society, an elite of civic virtue. They were a benecent force eager to serve the community. The Grand Lodge of Scotlands records allow gures for numbers of initiates per year to be compiled from 1800 (see Figure 1).36 The gures show initiations running between one and three thousand a year in the rst three decades of the nineteenth century, with a decline in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s. Considering that total population was growing strongly, freemasons were losing ground. But then from the late 1850s the trend was strongly upwards until 1914. From one or two thousand initiates a year, gures soared to up to 13,000 a year. Freemasonry was thriving and spreading and the gures suggest that Scotland was a much more masonic country than England. In the 1870s, for example, Scotland had a population about 15% the size of that of England and Wales but the number of masons being initiated was over 50% of the English total.37 The Scottish initiation gures are not, however, an accurate guide to the numbers of freemasons actually in Scotland, for many lodges supervised by the Grand Lodge of Scotland were based overseas, scattered around the growing British Empire Scotland had a far higher proportion of overseas lodges than England and Wales.38
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Figures for the nineteenth century and for the rst World War period have long been in print but seem to have roused little interest. See Lyon, History, 4734 and Lindsay, Holyroodhouse, ii. 505. To these can now be added gures for the rest of the twentieth century, which have been compiled by Bob Cooper, Curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. I am grateful to him for allowing me to use the results of his labours. This generalisation is based on gures supplied to me by Andrew Prescott. This remains true today. Of lodges under the jurisdiction of the United Grand Lodge of England, 9.4% are overseas, whereas 42% of lodges under the Grand Lodge of Scotland are located overseas. See Grand Lodge of Scotland Year Book (2005) 36 and, for England, Directory of Lodges and Chapters (2006).

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It does seem, however, that even after allowance is made for this, masonry was increasingly popular in Scotland. Masonry grew among the rich of the industrial and commercial worlds, the middle classes and sections of the working classes. But as in the past although men of all classes were brothers and on the level, in practice which lodge a man joined was often dictated by class. The dislocation of the rst years of the First World War, from 1914 to 1916, caused some decline in numbers but then something remarkable happened. Initiations exploded, reaching 45,000 a year in 1919.39 It seems a safe assumption that this great expansion in numbers was largely brought about by recruitment of men into the armed services and by their subsequent demobilisation. It looks as though men, separated from home and family, sent to strange and unknown places among strangers, increasingly felt that freemasonry offered them brotherhood and a sense of identity in the alien worlds into which they had been thrown. It also offered benets to them if injured or to their families if killed. Such fast expansion brought delight but also worries about unsuitable candidates and irregular procedures. In 1917 one provincial grand lodge reported that lodges were growing at a phenomenal rate but expressed concerns about the quality of candidates. There was a need to take care to avoid tainted candidates and candidates taking admission for the purposes of receiving aid from, rather than being able to confer benets on their fellows, should not be encouraged.40 In response to the 191819 peaks, a regulation was introduced that a lodge could initiate no more than seven candidates in a single meeting and this was held to be one reason for the fall in annual numbers that followed. Financially this was too late. The Grand Lodges funds for payment of benets proved hopelessly inadequate, with many claims having to be rejected.41 Nevertheless, at least one Grand Lodge ofcer saw booming numbers as a dawn of a new age. Masonry, he is reported to have declared, had played a great part in the war. It was a great comfort to those in the trenches and to those prisoners who found beside them brethren who would help them in their darkest hours. He ventured to think that freemasonry was going to form the backbone of the country. All good masons were good citizens.42 Of course, this dreamed-of masonic nation failed to materialise. By the 1930s recruitment had dropped to below pre-war levels, economic depression and high unemployment doubtless being partly responsible. In 1923 masons prided themselves on lodges rendering splendid services in alleviating distress caused by unemployment but many could not afford to join or to remain active in the movement
39 40 41 42

The English peak in initiations came later, in 1923, and only reached 27,000. Agnew, Russell and MacInnes, Dunbartonshire, 43. The Scotsman, 4 Nov. 1921. The Scotsman, 1 Dec. 1920.

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if they were already masons.43 Nonetheless, Christopher Harvie has argued that in this period freemasonry provided one of the few areas of interclass mixing in Scotland. He compared this aspect of masonry with the role of ex-servicemens organisations, such as the British Legion, and in fact the two overlapped.44 In 1920 one former ofcer recalled with melancholy all the friends he had lost in the war, and how those who had lived felt they were in a new, alien post-war society:
My thoughts then turned as to how we who were left might keep together and remember our departed friends, and bring closer together those who remained of our ranks into one friendly body which could not exist under military conditions.

He then founded the Lodge Queens Edinburgh Ries (The Royal Scots) in which ofcers and men could recall and recreate the comradeship of the trenches.45 In World War II, the World War I pattern was repeated, though on a much smaller scale. Again, fast expansion brought some concerns and strains. In England Grand Lodge was worried by reports that many irregular or bogus initiations had taken place in the armed forces in Egypt.46 The lodge of Canongate and Leith, a favourite for men serving in the navy, halted initiations because it was swamped by petitions for membership.47 The post-war slump was not nearly as severe as after World War I. Decline took place but even in the early 1980s there were around 8,000 initiations a year. Continuing decline has, however, seen a fall to about two to three thousand initiates a year. The trend has now been downward for over half a century. Obviously this is a source of much dismay and heart-searching among masons but one way to put it in perspective is to liken it to the plummeting attendances at church services in the same period. Society and culture have changed fast, new forms of socialising and bonding and being entertained having an impact on the old. As has been shown, the early lodges recruited only stonemasons, skilled working men, but over time there developed a mixed membership ranging from nobles to skilled working men, the widest membership of any institution except the Church. But though the stonemasons were swamped by men from other classes, Scottish masonry maintained a strong working-class membership. There are still
43 44

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46 47

Agnew, Russell and MacInnes, Dunbartonshire, 47. Chistopher Harvie, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes: Scotland, 191480 (Edinburgh, 1981), 126. Harvie bravely makes a guesstimate of the number of masons in Scotland: 10% of the adult male population. W. Kerr, Lodge Queens Edinburgh Ries (The Royal Scots), No. 1253. Story of the Foundation and Early History of the Lodge, http://www.grandlodgescotland. com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=183&Itemid=167 (accessed Nov. 2007). Stubbs, The last fty years, 1856. C. M. Douglas, A History of Canongate and Leith, Leith and Canongate, No. 5 (Edinburgh, 1949), 160.

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lodges with the word operative in their titles and many other lodges are made up entirely of the time served, skilled tradesmen. The differences between Scottish and English freemasonry in modern times have never been investigated but it seems that the working class element in freemasonry is very much stronger north of the border; and being a mason in Scotland is considerably less expensive than in the south, thus attracting men with lower incomes. Among the explanations of this class-difference between the masonries is the different ways in which they have evolved. In Scotland modern masonry emerged directly from organisations of working men, whereas in England lodges only began to appear in the early eighteenth century and they were largely created by men from the middle classes who had virtually no links with workers organisations. Academic historians in Britain have until recently been very reluctant to study freemasonrys role in culture and society because they are suspicious of the craft, or because the vast amount of rubbish written about it puts them off, or perhaps because of a tendency to assume that such a secret movement will deny access to its archives. Yet, as this article demonstrates, in Scotland more than in any other country, masonry is deeply embedded in the nations past for good or ill. That academics have held back from studying freemasonrys history has partly been the fault of the movement itself. In the early twentieth century, with dinners to which wives were admitted, public processions and foundation stone-laying ceremonies, masonry had a very public face. But over time the craft in Britain became increasingly inwardlooking, low prole and secretive. Why this was so is unknown but it is very likely that one part of the answer lies in the inter-war period when masonry came under attack from far left and far right. Communists denounced it because it encouraged brotherhood across class divides, whereas class struggle required workers allegiances to be exclusively to fellow workers. The far right denounced masons for their ideals of international brotherhood. As masons have sometimes said to me wryly, there must be some good in us we were persecuted by both Hitler and Stalin. Political attacks may have helped drive masonry into an almost paranoid secrecy but such secrecy led to increasing suspicion of the movement. In the last few decades British freemasonry has, however, changed its policies and become much more welcoming of outside interest. It accepts the need for a public relations makeover and professional historians interested in the movements past are likely to meet with co-operation. The archives are there, a rich but neglected source for the social and cultural historian. DAVID STEVENSON