THERE is no historical basis for the claim made by the 羨ntients’ that they were York masons and were handing down to posterity a rite that had been worked at York for hundreds of years. The matter is gone into in the writer’s earlier book, and all that need be said here is that any claim that there is a York rite of great antiquity is more a matter of sentiment than of fact. Laurence Dermott, in claiming in Aihiman Rezon that Antient’ Masons were called York masons because the first Grand Lodge in England was congregated at York, A.D. 926, by Prince Edwin under a Charter from King Athelstan, was not only repeating a myth, but was astutely borrowing an appellation which he rightly thought would be an asset.
The York Grand Lodge
The only Grand Lodge at York (the Grand Lodge of ALL England) was one having a drawn‑out existence from 1725 to 1792. It had grown from a lodge in the city of York which had been meeting for twenty years or more, but the Grand Lodge thus brought into being had a sphere of influence limited to its own district; becoming dormant about 1740, it was revived in 1761, and was helpful to William Preston when, in his quarrel with the senior Grand Lodge, he availed himself of its help to form in London in 1779 the Grand Lodge of England, South of the River Trent, whose life was short and uneventful.
The original issue of Ahiman Rezon (1756) did its best to bracket the new Grand Lodge with the York masons. One of its headings was “Regulations for Charity in Ireland, and by York Masons in England,” and a Warrant of Constitution issued by the 羨ntients’ in 1759 carries the designation “Grand Lodge of York Masons, London.” But, remembering Anderson’s statements that freemasonry was known at the creation of the world, we are inclined to look indulgently upon Laurence Dermott’s claim to a mere eight hundred years or so of history.
T. B. Whytehead asks the following question in the preface to Hughan’s Origin of the English Rite:
Is it not in the bounds of possibility that the Royal Arch really had its far back origin at York amongst a superior class of Operatives and was revived as a Speculative Order by those who were associated in a special manner with their Brethren the Operatives, descendants of the old Guildmen?
How gratifying and comforting it would be to be able to answer this question with a simple ‘Yes.’ But how impossible! There is no evidence linking the Royal Arch with operative masonry. History, some acquaintance with the English operative system, plus a little common‑sense reasoning dictate a definite ‘No.’ We do not even know that there ever were mason operative ‘Guildmen.’ Some of the best of the operatives were, in some cases and at some time, members of a City Company, but it is extremely doubtful whether the operative craft, by its very nature, ever lent itself to control by local guilds ‑ for reasons explained in the author’s earlier work.
Fifield Dassigny in his boob: (1744), mentioned at p. 45, refers to an assembly of Master Masons in the City of York and to “a certain propagator of a false system … a Master of the Royal Arch,” which system “he had brought with him from the City of York.” Any basis in fact for the last statement is unknown. There is no evidence that the Royal Arch was worked in York before the year in which Dassigny’s book appeared. So far as the records go, the earliest connexion with York is to be found in the Minute Book belonging to the Royal Arch Lodge of York dated 1762.
York’s Earliest Chapter and its Grand Chapter
A Moderns’ lodge, the Punch Bowl Lodge, No. 259, was formed in York in 1761. Its Brethren were actors, all of them members of the York Company of Comedians, whose principal member and a great favourite with Yorkshire audiences was its first Master, a genius named Bridge Frodsham. (Gilbert Y. Johnson’s paper in A.Q.C. vol. lvii, to which we are indebted for much of our information, includes an entertaining character sketch of Frodsham.) Four members of the lodge proceeded to found a Royal Arch lodge, one of the earliest instances of a separate Royal Arch organization; of course, it had no warrant‑there was no authority that could have issued it. Members of the Punch Bowl Lodge joined the York Grand Lodge, which took over the control of the Royal Arch Lodge and developed it in 1778 into the Grand Chapter of ALL England, usually called the York Grand Chapter. This was not blessed with long life, and is believed to have collapsed soon after the date of its last minutes ‑ namely, September 10, 1781.
Its minutes date from 1778 and are headed “A Most Sublime or Royal Arch Chapter” (an instance of an early use of the word ‘Chapter’). The minute, bearing date 1778, is renowned in Royal Arch history. Its sequel is the presence of an engraving of the Crypt of York Minster on the summons of the existing York Lodge, No. 236 (see Plate X). The minute recording a meeting of the Grand Chapter of ALL England is headed “York Cathedral, 27th May, 1778,” and states that:
The Royal Arch Brethren, whose names are undermentioned, assembled in the Ancient Lodge, now a sacred Recess within the Cathedral Church of York, and then and there opened a Chapter of Free and Accepted Masons in the Most Sublime Degree of Royal Arch.
The names of nine members follow, the first three of whom have the letters S., H.T., H.A. respectively attached to their names; the fourth is Secretary and Treasurer.
A brief certificate of 1779, signed by the Grand Secretary of All England, speaks of “admitting” to the First Degree and of “raising” to the Second, Third, dnd Fourth, this “Fourth” being the Royal Arch. Actually the certificate mentioned one further degree, the Knight Templar, which was called the Fifth Degree, and it is worth while noting that in June 1780 (the following year) the York Grand Lodge, by arrangement with the York Grand Chapter, confirmed its authority over “Five Degrees or Orders of Masonry,” the rite consisting of first, Entered Apprentice; second, Fellow Craft; third, Master Mason; fourth, Knight Templar; and fifth, Sublime Degree of Royal Arch. This does not agree with the above noted brief certificate of the previous year or with a reference dated February 7, 1762, in which the Royal Arch is distinctly termed the “Fourth Degree of Masonry.” While to a great many lodges and chapters the Royal Arch was the Fourth Degree, to some others it was undoubtedly the Fifth, and it may be that some few lodges were not very consistent in the matter.
A resolution of the York Grand Chapter dated May 2, 1779, foreshadows the arrangement, made at the Union, by which Officers of Grand Lodge are given, if qualified, corresponding rank in Grand Chapter. The resolution lays down that;
in future the Presiding Officers of the Grand Lodge of All England shall be Masters of this Royal Arch Chapter whenever such Presiding Officers shall be Members hereof and in Case of Default they shall be succeeded by the Senior Members of the Royal Arch Chapter.
But there is still earlier evidence of the application of this principle, as, for example, the association existing from the very birth of both the premier and the Antients’ Grand Chapters.
Some Other York Chapters
The oldest chapter still at work in York to‑day is the Zetland Chapter, No. 236, consecrated January 25, 1849, and attached to York Lodge (founded as the Union Lodge in 1777), but there were much older ones – the York Grand Chapter, already dealt with; the Chapter of Unity; and the Chapter of Unanimity; the last‑named was the predecessor of the Zetland Chapter.
Unity Chapter, York. In 1773 the ‘Moderns’ constituted Apollo Lodge, York, whose founders, two or three of whom were Royal Arch masons, had resigned in a body from the York Grand Lodge. Apollo Lodge decided to form a Royal Arch chapter, and when the senior Grand Chapter assented in 1778 to an application to grant a warrant to William Spencer, Richard Garland, and Thomas Thackray, the curious thing is that of these three only one was a Royal Arch mason‑William Spencer, who joined the Royal Arch Chapter at York in 1768 and was soon appointed Superintendent for the County of Yorkshire. Neither the name of the chapter nor the names of the Three Principals were given in the application: the chapter was No. 1G in the Grand Chapter Registry, and was there called Chapter of Union at York, a mistake for Chapter of Unity. The chapter may possibly have never been opened, but it continued to have a place in the official list.
Unanimity Chapter, York. The Moderns’ issued a warrant in 1799 for a Chapter of Unanimity to be founded in connexion with the Union Lodge of York, now York Lodge No. 236. The registry is at fault in some respects, but, in effect, a warrant was granted to three masons, one of whom, John Seller, was the first candidate in the new chapter. The warrant stated that the members of the chapter were to consist solely of masons belonging to the Union Lodge, but the restriction was not observed, and no other chapter warrant is known to contain a corresponding clause.
The original minutes, still in existence, show that the first meeting was held on a Sunday, February 1, but there was no ceremony of consecration. For the first few years the chapter prospered, and among its exaltees was the Hon. Lawrence Dundas, later first Earl of Zetland and Pro First Grand Principal of the Grand Chapter (his title name many years later was given to what is now York’s oldest existing chapter). The chapter was soon in trouble, and was struck off the rolls in 1806 for failure to pay its dues. In 1823 only two of the old members were left, and there had been no Exaltation since 1807. As from 1831 the chapter met only about once every two years. In 1845, after exalting two candidates, it sought confirmation of its warrant by Supreme Grand Chapter, but it had not made returns or paid fees to any Grand Chapter since 1802, well over forty years before, had been struck off the rolls in 1809, and none of the Companions exalted during the past forty‑five years had been registered at Grand Chapter and could be recognized as petitioners. There were, however, two Companions in York whose signatures as petitioners were eligible, and for the third the chapter made contact with Abraham Le Veau, a wine merchant of London, a regular visitor to York, a mason of outstanding ability, later a Grand Officer and a member of the Board of General Purposes.
The full story of the negotiations for the founding of the revived chapter is told in Gilbert Y. Johnson’s paper “The History of the Zetland Chapter, No. 236,” read at the Centenary Convocation in January 1939, and to that paper the present writer is greatly indebted. The revived (actually new) chapter was given the name Zetland and attached to Union (now York) Lodge, No. 236, and at its consecration on January 25, 1849, nine members of that lodge were exalted and at once made officers. All officers in this chapter were elected except Assistant Sojourners, and these were appointed by the Principal Sojourner. From 1850 the custom was for the Three Principals with the Past Principals to open the chapter and then admit the Companions. The Mystical, Symbolical, and Historical Lectures are mentioned for the first time in the minutes of 1853. It has happened that when an Installation of a First Principal had to be postponed owing to the absence of qualified Companions the ceremony was postponed indefinitely, this not affecting the status of the officer so far as the conduct of ceremonies was concerned.