THE erection of a Grand Chapter sometime late in the eighteenth century was more or less inevitable, but it came sooner and somewhat differently from what might have been expected. It is obvious that late in the 1760s many distinguished Brethren of the Moderns’ were entering the Order, but in what might be regarded as an irregular manner, for there was no authority that could issue charters to chapters, and the Moderns’ Grand Lodge would have been horrified at any suggestion that it should do anything to regularize the increasingly common practice of making Royal Arch masons in its Craft lodges. Meanwhile Antient’ Brethren were being quite regularly and properly exalted in their ordinary lodges, solidly behind them being their Grand Lodge, enjoying the kudos and solid advantage of being known as the “Grand Lodge of the Four Degrees.” Modern’ Masons had a need for a Grand Chapter, both to regularize a growing practice and to meet the competition of their earnest and energetic rivals. And that Grand Chapter came in 1766, probably as warmly welcomed by the rank and file as it was keenly resented by some of their leaders and officials.
Lord Blayney, Grand Master of the Moderns’, recently exalted in a new chapter ‑ later the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter ‑ entered into a Charter of Compact which brought into existence the first Grand Chapter of Royal Arch masons, the first not only in England, but in the world. That Charter was signed in 1766, although in Masonic literature the date has, until very recently, been given as one year later, and it will therefore be necessary to explain the circumstances in which it is thought that the date became altered, probably within a year of the signing of the Compact.
The reader may excusably confuse one Grand Chapter with another. Let us briefly recapitulate them. The first Grand Chapter was that promoted by Lord Blayney, Grand Master, in 1766 under the title of “The Grand and Royal Chapter” or “The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter.” In 1795‑96 the title was altered to “The Grand Lodge of Royal Arch Masons,” and in 1801 again altered, this time to “The Supreme Grand Chapter.” The Antients’ founded a so‑called Grand Chapter in 1771. Another was the short‑lived York Grand Chapter or Grand Chapter of All England (its one minute is dated 1778). The present “Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England” was formed by a union in 1817 of the original Grand Chapter of 1766 and the Royal Arch masons under the former Grand Lodge of the Antients.’ Ireland founded its Grand Chapter in 1829 under the title of “The Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Ireland,” and Scotland its Grand Chapter in 1817 under the title of “The Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland.”
“The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter“
Most of the hitherto accepted stories of the way in which the first Grand Chapter came to be erected by Charter of Compact are, it is feared, somewhat inaccurate. The most reliable account available is that given in two valuable contributions to A.Q.C. (vols. lxii, lxiv) by J. R. Dashwood, to whose reproduction of the Grand Chapter minutes with his notes thereon, and to A. R. Hewitt’s Address to Grand Chapter in 1966, we are indebted for much of the information that follows.
It has been commonly understood that the first Grand Chapter came into being as a result of Lord Blayney’s constituting the Caledonian Chapter into a Grand and Royal Chapter; the present author fell into the same mistake. It is true that the Caledonian Chapter had much to do with the bringing into existence of the new Chapter whose members entered into the compact with Lord Blayney; both of these chapters had a close connexion with the Caledonian Lodge, which started life as an Antients’ lodge, but seceded in its second year and in 1764 obtained a charter from the Premier Grand Lodge, its then number being 325 and its present one 134. The first Caledonian Chapter, which may possibly have antedated the lodge of the same name, did not have a long life and a new Caledonian Chapter was in existence by 1780, but even that one is not to‑day’s, the present one dating back only to 1872 and being attached to Caledonian Lodge, No. 134; this lodge has a distinguished history, among its members in early days being William Preston, the famous Masonic author and lecturer.
The first minute‑book of the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter covers the period from March 22, 1765, to December 11, 1767, inclusive, the writer of the minutes being the first Scribe E., Francis Flower, who died within a few days of the last entry. The Chapter had at first no specific name. In contradiction of many earlier and inaccurate accounts it is well to say that, although this Chapter might appear to be a reincarnation of the Royal Arch activities of the Caledonian Lodge, this is now known to be impossible. Of twenty‑nine original members of that lodge whose names are known not one is included among the early members of the new Chapter ‑ not even the name one might most expect to find there, that of William Preston. By‑laws of February 12, 1766, make it plain that the new Chapter was not the Caledonian Chapter, although it was under some obligation to that body.
We can well suppose that the new Chapter was formed for the definite purpose of being erected at an early date into a Grand Chapter. Its name at its inception, as already said, is unknown, and it is convenient to call it straight away the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter, although it could not have functioned as such until it had received its authority from the Charter of Compact signed in its second year.
In the early pages of its first minute‑book is a self‑conferred charter under which the new Chapter considered itself entitled to act; this appears to have been agreed at a meeting on June 12, 1765, and it was signed by twenty‑nine Brethren at the next meeting (July 10), a further fourteen signatures being appended from time to time up to March 11r, 1767. The manifesto recited that the Companions had resolved to hold a chapter at the Turk’s Head Tavern, Gerrard Street, Soho, London, on the second Friday (“Wednesday” was crossed out) of every month at six o’clock in the evening, and that every member should pay two guineas (“twentysix shillings” crossed out) annually towards expenses:
Every Brother who desires to pass the Arch, or to become a Member of this Chapter must be regularly proposed in open Chapter: and it is expected that the Member proposing such a one, be able to give a satisfactory account of the Brother so proposed. Any Member may without offence demand a ‘Ballot: and if on being had there shall be found more than two negatives against such Brother, he shall not be permitted to pass the Arch in, or become a Member of, this Chapter.
“Every Brother passing the Arch in this Chapter” and also every joining member paid two guineas (” one guinea” crossed out), while visitors admitted “on very particular occasions” paid half a guinea each to the current expense. The penalty for behaving indecently or disorderly in the Chapter or being intoxicated with liquor therein was admonishment or, if incorrigible, expulsion. A Brother in arrears later than the fourth meeting of the current year was no longer deemed a member. Officers were elected at the first meeting after the Feast of St John the Evangelist every year, and continued in authority one whole year:
And if any Officer is absent on any night of meeting, the E:Z.L: shall appoint any able and experienced Brother to supply his place for that Night.
And if the E:Z.L: shall unavoidably be absent, the next Officer in Authority shall officiate for him, or appoint who he judges proper to do it. And the Brother so officiating shall in all respects have ample Authority for that Night.
(Obviously, then, at that early date there was no esoteric Installation of Principal Officers.) The manifesto with its regulations was followed by a set of seven resolutions, evidently of the same date (1765), and it is of advantage to give these exactly as they appear in the minute‑book:
Ist On Chapter night, the Companions being discreetly convened in the Antichamber, the P.H. Z.L. & L. together with the E. & N. and the Principal Sr. shall go into the Chapter Room, and being properly invested shall open the Chapter in due form. After which they shall come forth to the Companions in Order, who shall receive them with proper respect. And immediately the procession shall begin.
2nd That the E.G.s be clothed in proper Robes, Caps on their Heads, and adorned with proper Jewells.‑No Aprons.
3rd That the Sn appear with the emblems of their employment.
4th That the Secretarys be adorned with proper Jewells, etc. [The word “Robes” has been interpolated at a later date.]
5th That all the Companions wear Aprons, (except those appointed to wear Robes) and the Aprons shall be all of one sort or fashion. Vis. White Leather Indented round with Crimson Ribbon and strings of the same, with a TH in gold properly displayed on the Bibb. & Purple Garters Indented with Pink.
6th The Secretarys shall order all Liquor and refreshments and take proper account of the same. But no Liquor &c. shall be brought into the Chapter room, during Chapter, on any pretense whatsoever.
7th The Officers shall preserve their stations and Authority during the remainder of the Evening, after the Chapter is closed, for the sake of good order, etc.
A later by‑law seems to give an advantage in fees, either as a joining member or a visitor, to Brethren exalted before June 12, 1766, or in the Caledonian Chapter or in a chapter in the country, or beyond the seas. From this it is plain that the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter was not the Caledonian Chapter, and that it dated its own inauguration from June 12, 1765, and that any earlier meetings were preliminary meetings, but later minutes strongly support the suggestion that there was a close amity between the new Chapter and the Caledonian Chapter.
Many Exaltations took place, including one in April 1765, of Dr John James Rouby, whose Royal Arch jewel, now in the Grand Lodge museum in London, is the earliest at present known and bears the date 1766, although he was exalted a year earlier (see Plate VIII). At the meeting of June 12, 1765, officers were elected, their appellations being:
Bror. Keck Senr. P.H.
Bror. Maclean P.Z. Excellent Grands
Bro. Aynson P.I.
Bror. Galloway Principal Sojourner
Bror. Flower E.
Secretaries.
Bror. Jnｰ. Hughes N.
It will be noted that P.Z. comes second in the list, although it is known that Maclean ruled the Chapter, but the order above given is the same as that found in the Toast in the Antients’ Ahiman Rezon, 1756, and as used much later by the York Chapter in 1772. Elsewhere in the minute‑book of the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter the method of designating the Three Principal Officers varies considerably, and in the one year, 1766, we find the first two officers are P.Z. and P.H., but the third is given in one case as P.I., in another as J.P., and in still another as I.H.P. In all these titles the letter P stands for “Prince, Prophet, and Priest.” In expenses endorsed by an Audit Committee on March 21, 1766, occur these items: Robes, ｣8 2s.; 24 Aprons, ｣5 4s.; “Copper Plate and 1,000 Bills” (presumably Summons blanks), ｣3 6s.; 3 Candles, 2s. 6d.; Painting the Lodge, 10s. 6d.; Brass Letters, ｣1; Floor Cloth, 17s. 6d.; Inkstand and Stationery, 10s. 6d.; and a “Cable Tow 15 yd. long made of Purple Blue & Scarlet Worsted, and a Tassell,” ｣1 1s. (The 銑odge’ was probably the lodge board, the tracing‑board.)
At the anniversary feast Thomas Dunckerley attended the Chapter for the first time, was promptly elected a member, but paid no joining fee; he has been assumed to have been the moving spirit in the new Chapter, but this is not supported by available evidence. The Chapter was seven months old when he became a member; he was immediately elected Third Principal, but made very few attendances, even after he had gone through the Principal Chair.
Lord Blayney Head of the Royal Arch
A most important era in Royal Arch masonry began on June 11, 1766, on which day twenty‑seven companions witnessed the Exaltation of Cadwallader, Lord Blayney, in the new Chapter. Automatically, it appears, he immediately became head of the Royal Arch and First Principal of the Chapter, and he did in fact preside at the next three meetings, all held in July, the first of them on the 2nd of the month, being the day on which lames Heseltine, then Grand Steward, and three others were exalted.
Heseltine became Grand Secretary in the Craft three years later and was a keen spirit in the Chapter.
Cadwallader, ninth Lord Blayney, an Irishman, Moderns’ Grand Master from 1764 to 1766, was born in 1720, succeeded to the family title in 1761, was by profession an army officer, was a Major‑General in 1765 and later Commander‑in‑Chief, Munster, which office he held at the time of his death in 1775. He was initiated when young, but in which lodge is not known, and served in 1764 as Master of the (Moderns’) New Lodge, Horn Tavern, Westminster, No. 313, which took the name Royal Lodge in 1767 and in 1824 united with the Alpha Lodge (founded in 1722), now the Royal Alpha, No. 16. The inspiration and driving force behind him may have been Thomas Dunckerley; these two with Laurence Dermott of the opposite camp are the three great names in the formative period of the Royal Arch. But we are very much in the dark as to the parts played by some of the signatories to the Charter of Compact, and it is possible that a few of them ‑ notably John Maclean and James Galloway ‑ did as much as Dunckerley, or even more, to make possible the founding of a Grand Chapter. Lord Blayney was elected Grand Master of Ireland on May 6, 1768, but resigned before June 24 of the same year.
Lord Blayney proved a good Grand Master in the Craft, and during his office constituted seventy‑four lodges, of which nineteen, bearing honoured names, are in to‑day’s list. In his presence the Duke of Gloucester was initiated in Lord Blayney’s lodge at the Horn Tavern, Westminster, the first Initiation of a Royal Prince on English soil since that of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1757. Lord Blayney obviously had a great regard for Thomas Dunckerley, appointed him to high office, and we can well suppose regarded him as his chief Masonic mentor. Blayney was strongly Antient’ in sympathies, and evidently favoured the softening of the Moderns’ austere working. In support of that statement may be adduced his action ‑ after witnessing in the Old Dundee Lodge, then No. 9, an Initiation not altogether to his liking ‑ in requesting the members to alter their ceremonial in some particular, a request agreed to, but not without demur.
He was the first Moderns’ Grand Master to acknowledge and foster the Royal Arch, but not the first Grand Master to become a Royal Arch mason, for the Hon. Brinsley Butler (later Earl of Lanesborough) was exalted during his year of office as Grand Master of Ireland, an equally difficult event to understand from any official point of view, for the Irish Grand Lodge had officially no more use for the Royal Arch than the Premier Grand Lodge of England had shown itself to have.
The Charter of Compact, 1766
Out of the new Chapter in which Lord Blayney had been exalted came, under his direction, the Grand Chapter of England, and it came in 1766, and not, as all the historians‑Gould, Hughan, and Sadler among themhave stated, in the next year 1767. Masonic writers, including the present author, have helped to continue the mistake. Before explaining how the mistake arose it should be said that, although the major credit for the erection of England’s first Grand Chapter has customarily been given to Lord Blayney, the most likely truth is that a few keen spirits, among them Thomas Dunckerley, promoted the scheme, and the Grand Master gave it his encouragement and personal authority, without which the scheme would have had but small chance of success.
At Lord Blayney’s second meeting of the Chapter in which he had been exalted the famous Charter of Compact must have been decided upon, this being clear from indications in the minutes and in the Charter itself. The Charter, dated July 22, speaks of Lord Blayney as Grand Master. He was Grand Master in 1766, but not in 1767. The Charter is signed by the officers of the year 1766, not of the year 1767. “July 22” must have been of 1766 because there was no meeting of the Chapter on July 22 of 1767, nor did Lord Blayney attend the Chapter after July 30, 1766.
It is J. R. Dashwood’s contention (see.,4.Q.C, vol. 1xiv) that the original Charter itself displays evidence that the dates have been tampered with, the effect being that ” 1766″ is a trifle clumsily made to appear as “1767.” The cost of engrossing the Charter, a very beautiful piece of work, was two guineas. The draft of the Charter was probably approved on July 22, and the engrossment was ready for signing by Lord Blayney and the officers present, other officers signing at a later date.
A further alteration was, quite skilfully, to insert the letter “P” before the words ” Grand Master,” the whole tenor of the document proving that this is an interpolation. J. R. Dashwood’s suggested explanation of the true inwardness of the matter is that, although many Grand Officers had been exalted, it is well known (as reiterated in this book) that the Moderns’ officially did not regard the Royal Arch with favour; it is reasonable to suppose that they may have heard with horror that their Grand Master had allowed himself to be exalted during his period of office, that he had become a Principal Officer of his Chapter, had entered into a Charter of Compact setting up a Grand Chapter with power to grant charters, and had even consented to be named as the M. E. Grand Master of Royal Arch Masonry. J. R. Dashwood thinks that some persons were determined to undo the worst of the damage by making it appear that Lord Blayney had acted not officially as Grand Master, but in his private capacity after he had laid down that office, and the easiest way of doing this was by postdating the Charter by a year, the letter “P” being inserted in front of the words ” Grand Master” to suggest that Lord Blayney was no longer in office and was acting individually. The matter is dealt with at length in A.Q.C. at the references already given, and the interested reader can there study the matter and form his own judgment.
The Charter of Compact, a “Charter of Institution and Protection,” instituted and erected
[certain Excellent Brethren and Companions] to form and be, The Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem … with full power and absolute Authority . . . to hold and convene Chapters and other proper Assemblies for the carrying on, improving and promoting the said benevolent and useful Work. And also to admit, pass and exalt in due form and according to the Rites and Ceremonies Time immemorial used and approved in and by that most Exalted and sacred Degree, and as now by them practised, all such experienced and discreet Masters Masons as they shall find worthy. … And also to constitute, superintend and regulate other Chapters.
The Charter itself is a handsomely illuminated and engrossed document, twenty‑five inches wide and thirty deep (see Plate IV). The faded writing is quite legible. It bears three coats of arms (Royal, Premier Grand Lodge, and Lord Blayney’s), three hexalphas, nine triangles, the T‑over‑H’ device, etc. It has thirty signatories, of whom nine, including Lord Blayney, Dunckerley, Allen, and Thomas French, affixed their seals. At or near the head of the Charter are the words commonly found on the early Grand Chapter documents, “The Most Enlightened East.” In a central triangle appear the letters “I.N.,” which some students have thought stand for the “Ineffable Name,” but which more probably might represent “Jesus of Nazareth.” The triangles, in their curious disposition, are held to represent the positions of the Three Principals, the Three Sojourners, Scribe E., Scribe N., and the Altar. Framed and glazed, it hangs in the Librarian’s office in Freemasons’ Hall, London, as becomes such a most important document.
John Allen, attorney of Clement’s Inn, who at times acted as Deputy Grand Master in the Craft and whose seal and signature the Charter bears, not only, it is thought, drafted the document, but apparently retained it, for after his death it was found among his papers. Some time in the nineteenth century it was placed in a storeroom in Freemasons’ Hall, where late in the century it was discovered.
The Charter bears the (altered) date “1767,” the ordinary calendar year reckoned from the birth of Christ, and also a second date formed by adding 1767 to 4004= 5771. Nowadays the year Anno Domini is converted to Anno Lucis by adding 4000.
The eighth ‘clause’ of the Charter states “that none calling themselves Royal Arch Masons shall be deemed any other than Masters in operative Masonry” (a term which in this connexion must obviously mean “Craft Masonry”). This assumption appears to echo the claim to superior status made in earlier years by the ‘Scotch Masons’, and its presence in the Charter, besides strengthening any supposition that the earlier rite was related to the later one, may help us to arrive at an answer to a difficult question: how came it about that the new Grand Chapter, with no experience of esoteric Installation, was so soon to insist on a Past Master qualification in its Candidates? Is the answer, or some part of it, that, regarding itself as an association of Masters, it eagerly took a leaf from its opponent’s book to ensure that only Masters entered into its membership? The argument may not be quite watertight, but the truth may well be somewhere in it!
Thomas Dunckerley
Thomas Dunckerley (or Dunkerley) is credited with being the ‘master mind’ that continued Lord Blayney’s policy. Born in London in 1724 and later acknowledged as the natural son of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II, “to whom he bore a striking resemblance,” he died in Portsmouth in the year 1795. In a book‑plate known to the Rev.
A. F. A. Woodford he gives his name as Thomas Dunckerley Fitz‑George. He is believed to have been initiated in 1754 in Lodge No. 31, meeting at the Three Tuns, Portsmouth. He was called to the bar at about fifty years of age, but probably did not practise, and as the circumstances of his birth had by this time become common property he was now admitted into high social circles. In his last days he was reduced to penury by the profligacy of his son, and on his death in 1795 his estate was valued for probate at only ｣300, although he had been living free in apartments in Hampton Court Palace and had received from the King a pension of ｣800 per annum, quite a sum in those days.
Dunckerley acquired considerable Masonic experience, was a loyal officer of the premier Grand Lodge, although in sympathy with the Antients’ working, and at various times was the Grand Master of eight different provinces and Grand Superintendent in the Royal Arch of twenty‑eight counties.
There were early authors who credited Dunckerley with being the founder of Royal Arch masonry, obviously a ridiculous claim, but he did indeed take a leading and active part in its development. In his capacity of Provincial Grand Superintendent he took to Portsmouth in 1769 the warrant of constitution for a chapter in connexion with Lodge No. 259, and, while there, conferred for the first time on record the degrees of Mark Man and Mark Master Mason, which he himself had only recently received. He had some of the faults of the highly energetic worker, his zeal being inclined to run away with him, and we know that in 1777 the Grand Chapter criticized his action in exalting Brethren in Colchester otherwise than in a chartered chapter, and that in May 1780 he was again in trouble for having exceeded his powers (“with the utmost respect for Companion Dunckerley”), and it was finally decided to draw up a regular patent defining the powers of Grand Superintendents.
When the Provincial Grand Chapter for Dorsetshire, with Dunckerley as its Provincial Grand Master, met in 1781 to honour the birthday of the Prince of Wales the choir of St Peter’s Church of that city sang a special hymn written for the occasion by Dunckerley. Of its seven verses here are two having clear Royal Arch implications:
Thou who didst Persia’s King command
A Proclamation to extend;
That Israel’s sons might quit his land
Their holy Temple to attend.
All hail ! great Architect divine!
This Universal Frame is thine.
Thy watchful Eye a length of time,
That wond’rous CIRCLE did attend;
The Glory and the Pow’r be thine,
Which shall from Age to Age descend.
All hail! great Architect divine!
This Universal Frame is thine.
The attorney John Allen is believed, as already said, to have had a considerable hand in the drafting of the Charter of Compact. Of the highest standing, he was entrusted with the legal business of Grand Lodge in the 1770‑80 period, and is thought to have prepared the conveyance of the property in Great Queen Street (including part of the site of the present Freemasons’ Hall) which Grand Lodge bought in 1774.
Successors to Lord Blayney
While Lord Blayney was absent in December 1768 in Ireland on military duties he was continued or re‑elected as ” Grand Master of the Most Excellent Chapter or Fourth Degree,” but was not able to attend to his duties. The Duke of Beaufort, who followed Lord Blayney as Grand Master in the Craft, was also inclined to the Antients’ working, so much so that he encouraged the introduction of an esoteric Installation ceremony for Masters of Lodges, but it was not officially adopted until long afterwards. It will be shown in later sections how great a part the Craft Installation ceremony played in the development of the Royal Arch.
Owing to the continued absence of Lord Blayney, the Hon. Charles Dillon was elected in 1770 Grand Master of the Royal Arch, he being, at the same time, Deputy Grand Master in the Craft, but he did not attend Grand Chapter after his election and, as a consequence, in succeeding years the Grand Chapter elected not a Grand Master, but a Patron, who had the right to preside when present, although a Zerubbabel was elected to preside in his absence. Rowland Holt, Grand Warden in 1768 and later Deputy Grand Master, was the first Patron, and held that office until the Duke of Cumberland replaced him in 1774.
Many Grand Officers were exalted, among them Sir Peter Parker, Grand Warden, who became Deputy Grand Master of the Craft fifteen years later. H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland, exalted December 12, 1772, became Patron a year or so later, and from 1782 to 1790 was Grand Master in the Craft.
The Earliest Warranted Chapters
The first eight chapters warranted by the Grand Chapter, all in 1769, are as follow:
1. The Restauration Lodge or Chapter of the Rock Fountain Shilo (at Brother Brooks’ House in London).
2. The Euphrates Lodge or Chapter of the Garden of Eden (at Manchester).
3. The Lodge of Tranquility or Chapter of Friendship (at Portsmouth).
4. The Bethlehem Lodge or the Chapter of the Nativity (at Burnley, Lanes.).
5. The Cana Lodge or Chapter of the First Miracle (at Colne, Lanes.).
6. The Most Sacred Lodge or Chapter of Universality (at London).
6b. The Lodge of Intercourse or Chapter of Unanimity (at Bury, Lanes.).
7. The Lodge of Hospitality or Chapter of Charity (at Bristol).
(Some chapters must have worked under the authority of a dispensation until granted a proper warrant; as an example, a dispensation to form the Union Lodge and Chapter of Harmony at the Bedford Head, Maiden Lane, issued in 1770 by John Maclean of the Grand Chapter, is preserved at Freemasons’ Hall, London.) An important point arising from the consideration of this list has already been touched upon. The Royal Arch ‘lodge’ was in the course of becoming a ‘chapter,’ and it certainly looks as though the double title given to each body in the above list is meant to cover the eventual or inevitable translation. Obviously the Grand Chapter had no right or even a wish to establish Craft lodges. Its authority could not extend farther than the setting up of bodies devoted to the working of the Royal Arch. But there enters an anomaly or a serious question (as in so very many details of Masonic history), for the Craft Lodge of Hospitality, Bristol, the last entry in the list, was warranted by the premier Grand Lodge under a dispensation of July 22, 1769, confirmed by a warrant of August 12. This is now the Royal Sussex Lodge of Hospitality, No. 187, meeting in Bristol, while the Chapter of Charity was given its charter from the Grand Chapter on December 8, 1769, and, bearing the same name, is still at Bristol and still anchored to Lodge No. 187. Curiously and nevertheless, the Royal Arch Charter authorized the double body “by the Title of the Lodge of Hospitality or Chapter of Charity,” which is extremely difficult to understand, but there it is! It may, of course, be that the lodges named were the Craft lodges to which the chapters were attached or with which they were associated, but Lane’s Masonic Records mentions only the last of them, the Lodge of Hospitality, and it is certain that the first of them, the Restauration Lodge, was never officially other than a chapter, and twenty‑six years later was so called.
The rules of the Grand Chapter erected by Charter of Compact are practically those of the original Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter, and were written into the Compact itself (see the Appendix), but were revised and published many years later.
Events after the Founding of Grand Chapter
Following the founding of the first Grand Chapter came a formative period, one of considerable growth and development both in the Moderns’ and the Antients’ systems. The ritual continued to develop and by 1800, the Grand Chapter had issued 116 Warrants. Certain Masonic terms were changing; the ‘lodge’ was in the course of becoming a ‘chapter,’ the Royal Arch ‘brother’ of becoming a ‘companion’; and ‑ but not very quickly or generally – the ‘candidate,’ instead of being ‘raised,’ would be ‘exalted.’ The Grand Chapter began to issue charters to lodges authorizing them to work the Royal Arch, the charter to be attached to the warrant of the Lodge and so setting a pattern or custom in that respect strictly followed to‑day.
In the Grand Chapter itself the Zerubbabel was, according to the minutes, “appropriately Invested and Installed,” but we have no means of knowing what the Installation ceremony actually was, although it is strongly held that the Zerubbabel chair carried no secrets with it until the turn of the century, and in most places much later. At an Installation meeting on St John’s Day in Winter in 1768 the Officers resigned their several stations and delivered their Ensigns of Office to the M.E.Z. . . . Brother Galloway was elected by Ballot into the Office of Z. . . . and was appropriately Invested and Installed,
And on January 12, 1770, Brother Heseltine was by Ballot Elected into the Office of Z. . . . and was duly Invested and Installed accordingly, making a most solemn promise on the occasion, according to ancient usage.
Some prominent masons were exalted in the Grand Chapter, among them Chevalier Bartholomew Ruspini in 1772, becoming its M.E.Z. in 1780. Ruspini’s is the greatest name in the history of the Masonic charities, for the Royal Cumberland Freemasons’ School, from which developed the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls, the senior charity, was established in 1788 mainly by the exertions of this influential and energetic mason, who in private life was a well‑established dentist. At a committee meeting held in 1777 Ruspini produced drawings of proposed new robes for the Principals. These drawings, with some alterations, were approved.
Some trouble behind the scenes must have prompted the Grand Chapter in 1773 to resolve unanimously that the Royal Arch Apron be disused in this Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter until the Grand Lodge shall permit the Companions of this Chapter to wear them in the Grand Lodge, and in all or private Freemasons’ Lodges.
Which looks as though a fight to determine a higher status of the Royal Arch mason was proceeding; if this were the case the fight was lost, for there are no further minutes on the subject, the resolution was apparently quietly ignored, and the Companions soon resumed the wearing of their aprons in chapter.
James Heseltine had been exalted in the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter and had signed the Charter of Compact, but this did not prevent his writing as Grand Secretary to a foreign correspondent in 1774 in the following terms:
It is true that many of the Fraternity belong to a degree in Masonry which is said to be higher than the other, and is called Royal Arch. I have the honour to belong to this degree … but it is not acknowledged in Grand Lodge, and all its emblems and jewels are forbidden to be worn there…. You will see that the Royal Arch is a private and distinct society. It is a part of Masonry, but has no connection with Grand Lodge.
Next year we find him writing:
I have already told you a further degree, called Royal Arch, is known in England, in which the present Grand Officers are mostly members of the Chapter. They belong to it as a separate Society, without connection with Grand Lodge, and its explanations of Freemasonry are very pleasing and instructive.
During the period of the first Grand Chapter Masonic meetings were occasionally convened by means of public advertisements. An announcement in an unidentified London newspaper states that a “Chapter will be held on Sunday evening next, at the house of Brother John Henrys, the Crown and Anchor in King Street, Seven Dials.” Another advertisement calls a meeting of the Grand Chapter for the following Sunday, again at the Crown and Anchor, “in order for a Grand Installation.”
Grand Chapter soon left the Turk’s Head Tavern in Gerrard Street, Soho; in 1771 it went to the Mitre in Fleet Street, but moved four years later to the Freemasons’ Coffee House, Great Queen Street, which stood upon some small part of the site now occupied by Freemasons’ Hall and Connaught Rooms. The Chapter went into its new quarters in December 1775, in the May of which year had been laid the foundation stone of the first Freemasons’ Hall.
The “Most Enlightened East” appears as the heading of the minutes in January 1776, and is also the heading of charters and certificates of that period, although the more usual heading of the minutes up to 1793 is “Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem.”
Grand Chapter had a strong social side, for in its early years its annual festival was followed by a ball and supper to which apparently not only Royal Arch masons but Master Masons and their ladies were invited; and of one of these occasions the Secretary’s minutes related that “after an elegant supper, the evening concluded with that Harmony and Social Mirth which has ever been the peculiar criterion of Masons and True Citizens of the World.” At a ball held in January 1782 “four hundred ladies and gentlemen were present,” Ruspini acted as Master of Ceremonies, and Companion Ayrton composed the ode sung on the occasion.
To “form a complete code of laws and regulations not only for this Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter, but also for the subordinate Chapters,” a committee was appointed, and its report was received in May 1778; the laws were finally approved in the following October, and copies are in existence. The laws and regulations were revised and reprinted in 1782; other editions were produced in 1796 and 1807, and a further edition appeared after the ‘union’, 1817.
Four Most Excellent Companions were appointed in 1778 to hold the Great Seal in Commission and to act as Inspectors‑General, Thomas Dunckerley being one of them.
The Grand Officers in 1778 included a Patron (H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland), three Grand Masters, a President of the Council, four Inspectors‑General, a Correspondent General, a Treasurer, three Superintendents of Provinces, Past Masters Z., H., and J., a Chaplain, three Sojourners, two Scribes, two Stewards, a Standard Bearer, a Sword Bearer, an Organist, a Senior janitor or Messenger, and a junior janitor or Common Door Keeper.
Appointments to the “past rank of Z.” were made in 1778 and following years, a matter more particularly dealt with at p. 179.
An extraordinary petition for relief was received in 1784 from “John Vander Hey, Esq., Privy Counsellor to His Majesty of Prussia. Late Master of the Lodge Virtutis et Artis Ainici at Amsterdam.” He was voted five guineas.
The first of the stated Communications was apparently the general convention in 1785 of all Royal Arch masons in English chapters under the obedience of the Grand Chapter. It was attended by members of six chapters‑namely, Cumberland, Caledonian, Fortitude, Canterbury, Philanthropic, and Colchester.
Unknown trouble must have lain behind a serious attempt made in 1793 by the Chapter of Emulation to induce Companions to withdraw from Grand Chapter. At a Grand Convention held on May io it was resolved that the thanks of Grand Chapter be transmitted to the several Chapters that have expressed in such handsome terms, their determination to preserve inviolate the union subsisting between them and the Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem, in opposition to the Innovation proposed in the circular Letter sent to those Chapters by the Chapter of Emulation.
Emulation Chapter, No. 16, founded in London in 1778, had issued a ‘Memorial’ in the form of a circular letter, and for its attempt to create schism in the Order paid the penalty of being erased by vote of Grand Chapter.
Masonic Union in Contemplation?
The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter had a double existence. On the one hand it was a private chapter; on the other a Grand Chapter using its authority to warrant private chapters. But it will have been noted that the very first private chapter warranted was the Restauration Lodge or Chapter of the Rock Fountain Shilo, and it is more than likely that this may have been regarded up to the 1790’s as contained within Grand Chapter. At any rate, in the December of 1795 Grand Chapter, recognizing the need for a separation, revived Restauration Chapter, No. 1, as an “exalting chapter,” and (surprisingly, from our point of view) then styled itself “The Grand Lodge of Royal Arch Masons.” This title was an obvious misfit, and soon gave way (1801) to “The Supreme Grand Chapter,” although when the Duke of Sussex became in 1810 the highest officer of the Order he was styled “The First Grand Master of Royal Arch Masons.” From all this it will be seen that the change from ‘lodge’ to ‘chapter’ and from ‘Master’ to ‘principal’ was by no means a simple, automatic process.
Lord Moira, who, it is to be expected, was already quietly playing a part in preparing the minds of his Brethren for the coming Union, was exalted in June 1803, in Supreme Grand Chapter, “having been obligated prior to the ceremony in the Chapter of St James.” In 1810 he, as M.E. Zerubbabel, proposed for Exaltation H.R.H: Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, who, having been exalted and Lord Moira having immediately resigned office, was elected and consecrated M.E. Zerubbabel, taking the title, as already mentioned, of “First Grand Master of Royal Arch Masons.” The Investment and Installation of the Second and Third Principals followed. The Duke’s introduction into Royal Arch masonry was doubtless influenced by a prospect of the Craft union of the opposed bodies, particularly bearing in mind that in 1813, the year of Union, he would find himself Grand Master of the Moderns’ and his Brother, Edward, Duke of Kent, Grand Master of the Antients,’ and that in the negotiations for the settlement the future of the Royal Arch would be a very considerable factor.
By 1800 the premier Grand Chapter had warranted 116 chapters, some of which were not working (in addition, many Antient’ lodges were working the R.A.), but we see what is probably a move in the direction of the union of the two systems in a regulation of 1798 to the effect that no Royal Arch mason exalted in lodge, as distinct from chapter, could be admitted as a member of or visitor to a chapter. Obviously, at this date, there were still Modern’ lodges working the Royal Arch ceremonial, and, although the regulation was not everywhere observed, it does suggest that there was a growing feeling that the 喪egular’ Royal Arch mason was one who had received the degree in chapter, not in lodge.
The coming into force, late in the 1790’s, of the law against seditious meetings (39 Geo. III, Ch. 79) brought uncertainty into Masonic administration and affected the warranting of new lodges. The Grand Chapter, however, continued to warrant chapters during the period of uncertainty.
Sunday Meetings
Sunday meetings (often in private rooms) were, over a long period, regarded with great favour by Royal Arch masons. In Lancashire, for example, it was almost a general custom for chapters to meet on that day, and Norman Rogers has pointed out that when the Burnley and Colne Chapters were compelled to give up Sunday meetings the small attendance almost broke up the chapters, and it took a few years to recover from the change. This followed the official ban in 1811, when Grand Chapter decided that in future no warrants should be granted to chapters intending to hold Sunday meetings, and that chapters already meeting on a Sunday should be advised to change their day. Following the ‘union’ of 1817, Supreme Grand Chapter expressed its disapprobation of Sunday meetings. In any case, it appears that Sunday meetings on licensed premises were illegal, for in 1806, as one example, the Bolton magistrates fined a landlord twelve shillings for permitting a chapter to meet at his inn on a Sunday.
A Masonic Pantomime
An almost forgotten event is the presentation of a Masonic pantomime at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, the first performance being on December 29, 1780. Altogether there were sixty‑three performances at somewhat irregular intervals, the last of them being in December 1781. It was by no means the only theatrical performance presenting a Masonic subject, but from the present point of view it was notable in that it included two features having direct reference to the Royal Arch.
The words and music were mostly written and composed by Charles Dibdin, a great figure in the theatrical and musical life of the eighteenth century and best remembered as the author of the song “Tom Bowling”; the vocalists were well‑known singers of the time. The Morning Post spoke of the absurdity of this kind of performance, but the Press in general, as well as one or two authors since that day, spoke well of it. The modern critic would not have had a very high opinion of its versification. The pantomime included a “Procession of the Principal Grand Masters from the Creation to the Present Century,” the procession consisting of twenty different banners, with actors telling the story of each banner. The sixth banner was of Darius Hystaspes, “who married a daughter of Cyrus, confirmed his decree to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem: and in the 6th year of his reign his Grand Warden, Zerubbabel, finished it.” Two actors accompanying the banner bore the Temple of the Sun. The nineteenth banner was of the Royal Arch, and was attended by “Six Gentlemen Masons, Two bearing a Pageant.” It is thought that the word “Pageant” in this connexion meant a painted representation, perhaps a subsidiary banner. The pantomime included a well‑known Masonic song beginning with the line –
Hail masonry, thou Craft divine
In the Craft Constitutions of 1723 this song had been attributed to Charles Delafaye “To be Sung and Played at the Grand‑feast.” The presentation of this pantomime at such a well‑known theatre is clear evidence of the considerable public interest taken in freemasonry late in the eighteenth century.
Notes on a Few Early Chapters
The following notes relate to some of the chapters at work towards the close of the eighteenth century.
Chapter of Friendship, Portsmouth. Of the first three chapters warranted by Grand Chapter in 1769 Friendship was third on the list. The first two are now extinct and Friendship can claim the distinction of being the oldest warranted chapter in the world. It is attached to Phoenix Lodge, No. 257.
Britannia Chapter, Sheffield. In Lancashire the Royal Arch made great progress in the 1760s. Norman Rogers has brought to light that the first record of a Lancashire Royal Arch mason appears in the minute‑book of the Britannia Lodge, Sheffield (now No. 139), thus: “June 25, 1764. Thomas Beesley, Hosier, Royal Arch from Lodge 45, Liverpool.” Lodge No. 45 was Antients’ (founded in 1755), and Thomas Beesley was visiting a lodge of the same persuasion. Britannia Lodge had started as an Antients’ lodge, No. 85, in 1761; it absorbed another lodge, No. 75, of the same kind in 1764, and immediately afterwards applied to the Moderns’ for a warrant, which was granted in 1765! While still a Moderns’ lodge in 1796, it is said to have amalgamated with the Antients’ Lodge No. 72 and, not surprisingly, to have worked under the two systems. The chapter attached to Britannia Lodge, No. 139, has had the name Paradise since it was warranted in 1798.
Lodge ofLights, Warrington. The Royal Arch must have been worked at Warrington, Lancashire, in the 1765 period. The town’s oldest lodge (now No. 148) was warranted in 1765, received its name Lodge of Lights in 1806, and apparently worked the Royal Arch from its earliest days, for in December 1767 three members of the Chapter of Concord, No. 37, Bolton, visited Warrington to acquaint themselves with the ceremonial.
References to the Royal Arch activities of the Lodge of Lights appear on other pages of this book.
Anchor and Hope Lodge, Bolton. An early chapter formed in the Anchor and Hope Lodge, No. 37, Bolton, Lancashire, has a notable place in Royal Arch history. Before the years 1767‑74 inclusive it exalted twenty‑four Candidates, as we learn from a manuscript account of Royal Arch masonry in Lancashire by Norman Rogers, to whom the following information is due. The chapter above referred to became eventually (in 1836) the Chapter of Concord, No. 37, which is still attached to the same lodge, which dates back to 1732 and offers an outstanding example of Traditioner working (see p. 50). A Moderns’ lodge, it was considering in 1765 the possibility of taking an Antients’ warrant, and in December 1768 it ‘crafted and raised” three members of the friendly Lodge of Relief (Bury), “they being before Modern Masons.” These same three “were made Royal Arch Masons” in the following month after the “Royal Arch Lodge assembled in due form.” Now, all three Ralph Holt, Elijah Lomax, and James Wood‑had gone through the chair of their Moderns’ Lodge of Relief, in the neighbouring town of Bury, and yet had been compelled to submit to re-initiation in another Moderns’ lodge.
In November 1769 the same three Brethren were granted a warrant (number 6b issued by the new Grand Chapter) for the Unanimity Chapter or Lodge of Intercourse, Bury.
In the records of the Bolton lodge is a reference, dated December 1767, to “Expenses at Warrington in making Three Arch Masons… ｣.11. 6.” Three Brethren were named, all of whom were Past or Present Masters of their lodge, and had apparently been sent to the Lodge of Lights, Warrington, as Candidates for the Royal Arch. We learn of ‘passing the chair’ (,see Section 16) in a minute of November 30, 1769: “A Lodge of Emergency when Bror. John Aspinwall, Bror. Jas. Lever and Bror. Richard Guest were installed Masters and afterwards Bror. Jas. Livesey Senr. was re‑installed.” Subsequently all four were made Royal Arch masons. Now, Livesey had gone into the chair of the lodge in the preceding June, and yet had to be installed before he could be exalted. Why? Apparently because the mere fact of being made Master of a Moderns’ lodge did not at that time bring with it the conferment of any particular secrets, whereas ‘passing the chair’ was either in itself the Antients’ ceremony of Installation or a development of it. This was a Traditioner lodge, it must be remembered, strongly influenced by Antients’ ideas. Indeed, so Antient’ in its ways was it‑so convinced that its lodge masonry comprehended the Royal Arch ‑ that when this Bolton chapter decided in 1785 to obtain a warrant from the premier Grand Chapter many members objected, and the membership fell from seventeen to seven.
The first entry in the minutes of the newly warranted chapter is as follows:
Bolton, 5th October, 1785. At a General Encampment of Royal Arch Superexcellent Masons, held in due form, Bro. M. J. Boyle in the chair, the following Royal Arch Brethren were properly instructed and afterwards Initiated into the higher degree of Masonry [five names follow].
The minute is signed by Mich. James Boyle, who, quoting Norman Rogers, was probably a member of the King’s Own or 3rd Dragoons, and in the minutes of Paradise Chapter is termed a “Mason of the World.”
The Cana Lodge or Chapter of the First Miracle, Colne. A Lancashire lodge or chapter as here named received the fifth warrant (May 12, 1769) issued by the new Grand Chapter. It is now Cana Chapter, attached to the Royal Lancashire Lodge, No. 116, a lodge founded at the Hole in the Wall, Market Street, Colne, in 1762, possessing minutes going back to 1760, and known to have been at work earlier still. Norman Rogers has pointed out that, before the printing in separate form for distribution of the laws, etc., of the first Grand Chapter or those contained in the Charter of Compact (1766), it is obvious that some kind of written instructions must have been sent out to chapters with the early warrants (from 1769), evidence of which, he thinks, exists in the “Principia” preserved in the Cana Chapter. The full title is “The Principia to be observed by all regular constituted Chapters of the Grand and Royal Chapter,” and at the foot of the document is written: “This Principia is the oldest known copy of Grand Chapter Bye‑Laws, and is the work of the same hand as the Chapter Warrant, which is dated 1769,” Principia is Latin, the plural of principium, and means the beginnings or foundations, also the chief place, and, in a Roman camp, often the open space where speeches were made to the soldiers. In the Cana document the word can only mean “rules and regulations.” They are here given as in the original:
1st. That as soon as the Chapter is duly formed, an account shall be transmitted to Grand Chapter containing the names of each respective Officer and Companion, and that this be done annually immediately after election.
2nd. That they have full power to make Bye‑Laws for their own government, provided they don’t interfere with the fundamental ones of the Most Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter.
3rd. That their jewels and ornaments be such as are in use in Grand Chapter.
4th. That they make no innovations in the business of the chapter, and if any doubts should arise, they must always be referred to the Grand and Royal Chapter for decision.
5th. That they should contribute annually to the Grand Chapter so much as they reasonably can towards raising a fund to be employed to the most truly benevolent and advantageous purposes.
6th. That no man of bad or immoral character be admitted a Companion, nor anyone until he hath passed through the several probationary degrees of craft Masonry and thereby obtain the necessary passport as a reward for his services.
7th. That no man be admitted for an unworthy consideration, or for a less sum than is usually paid for the three previous degrees.
8th. That they take every method to forward the true purpose of our Order, which is to promote all the useful arts and sciences and create universal peace and harmony, and that every Companion do consider it as his duty to lay before the Chapter whatever may tend to such salutory purposes.
9th. That any new discovery or any other matter thought worthy of observation be communicated to the Grand and Royal Chapter, which will always be ready to support and forward whatever may be found useful to the public in general or that Chapter in particular, not repugnant to the common welfare.
Lodge Probity and Paradise Chapter, Halifax. The earliest record of a Royal Arch chapter in Yorkshire (other than at York, then in abeyance) is in the minutes of Probity Lodge, Halifax‑a resolution dated January 9, 1765, to form a chapter. The first meeting was twenty‑one days later. In the list of twenty‑nine lodge members for 1765 sixteen have the T‑over‑H symbol appended, and of these only two, plus the Master, had been in the lodge chair. But the Royal Arch had been worked earlier than this, for in the cash account for the second term of 1764 are references to two Brethren who had been “made Roy’ Arch,” at a fee of ios. 6d. each, on October 18, 1764.
Unanimity Chapter, Wakefield. References to the historic chapter at Wakefield appear on other pages, in particular one (p. 159) to its ancient ritual, the like of which is not revealed by the records of any other chapter. Two books or journals contain the minutes of all meetings held from 1766 to 1793 of this chapter‑Unanimity‑whose minutes are confused for a period as from 1844 with those of the Wakefield Chapter, now No. 495. In 1865 separate records started, and these continue to 1920, when Unanimity moved to Meltham, where it is attached to Lodge of Peace, No. 149. Unanimity’s beautiful and distinctive old jewels (Plate XXIV) were discovered after a long repose among “the accumulated rubbish of years,” and then, early in the 1940s, two pages of a minute‑book of the 1776 period were restored to the chapter, these having been found among some old prints in a dealer’s shop. J. R. Ryland’s papers in A.Q.C, vols. lvi and lxv, are a fund of valuable information on Wakefield’s Royal Arch activities. From them it appears that the early meetings of the chapter were actually held in a Craft lodge which, for the occasion, called itself a “Royal Arch Lodge Night,” or “Royal Arch Lodge,” and frequently the three Masters of the Royal Arch lodge were the Master and Wardens of the Craft lodge. In the minutes of the February 3, 1768, meeting the initials M., S.W., and J.W. were put against the names of the Three Principals respectively, but then crossed out and “Mr.” substituted in each case. At this meeting two Brethren were made “Excellent Royal Arch Masons.” At an emergency meeting of the Royal Arch lodge on July 30, 1776, four Brethren “propos’d themselves to be rais’d Royal Arch Masons ‑ the next Lodge Night ‑ balloted for and pass’d in ye affirmative.” (They were raised accordingly at the next meeting.) It is likely that these Brethren proposed themselves in the Craft lodge, which then resolved itself into a Royal Arch lodge. It was quite common in the early days for a Brother so to propose himself or be proposed by somebody else. A Candidate received the “Superlative Degree of R.A. Mason” on February 24, 1783. In February 1807 the chapter agreed to hold six meetings in the winter months, all of them on Sundays.
Richard Linnecar, referred to at p. 159, was a revered and prominent member of Unanimity Chapter, and was held in honour throughout his province and beyond. Among his many claims to attention was his book (1789) containing plays, songs, poems, and his “Strictures on Freemasonry” (comments, not adverse criticism as the word “strictures” would now imply). His poems may not have been of great worth, but certainly his “Hymn on Masonry” as well as a song written by him were popular and probably much sung. We learn from his “Strictures” of the curious legend of masons entreating St John the Evangelist, then Bishop of Ephesus, to honour with his patronage a lodge meeting in the city of Benjamin following the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, A.D. 70. “St. John told them, he was very old, being turned of ninety, but to support so good and ancient an institution, he would undertake the charge‑and from that day, all lodges are dedicated to him.” The story is, of course, a myth which attempts to explain (what never has been explained, so far as we know) why lodges are dedicated to St John, and why not only lodges but Craft masonry in general came to be associated with his name, and associated so closely that his festival, December 27, was regarded as a sacred occasion by the early Brethren. Possibly the old custom of reading from (or opening the Bible at) the first verses of St John’s Gospel is the only explanation now possible.
Loyalty Chapter, Sheffield. Surprisingly many of the chapters founded in the late years of the 1800痴 had but a short life, a marked instance being that of the Chapter of Loyalty, No. 95, Sheffield’s first regularly constituted chapter, warranted in 1795 with a notable local mason, James Woolen, as its first Z. and associated with the Royal Brunswick Lodge. It did not keep records or make returns to Grand Chapter, and as it was erased in 1809 its rather poor life did not exceed about fourteen years. A letter written in 1820 by Joseph Smith to Supreme Grand Chapter acknowledging a notice that Loyalty Chapter had been erased says:
I have enquired into the proceedings of the said Chapter & find that there were only three exalted by the Comp‑. who obtained the Charter. . . & two of them are no more & the third resign’d & all three without being registred & it also unfortunately happened that Two of the Principals for whom the Charter was obtained died in a few years after & consequently put a stop to the complete Knowledge of the Art.
(Since James Woolen did not die until 1814, there were two Principals alive at the date of the erasure.) A resuscitated Loyalty Chapter received a new warrant in 1821, this being attached to the Royal Brunswick Lodge, now No. 296, a lodge of which James Woolen had been Master thirteen times between 1793 and 1811.
Unity, Leeds. One of Yorkshire’s oldest chapters, the Chapter of Unity, No. 72, Leeds (now Alfred Chapter, No. 306), was warranted in 1790 at a time, it is thought, when there was no Craft lodge in its town, although possibly the Loyal and Prudent Lodge was meeting by dispensation there. Although warranted in 1790, it did not meet for business until six years later, and in the interval three Craft lodges had come into being in Leeds. It met on the third Sunday of every month, and the janitor had the duty of delivering the summons to each member. Candidates “must have duly passed the Chair” and be not less than twenty‑three years of age, although the son of a Companion or a Master Mason of two years’ standing was admitted at twenty‑one! The Exaltation fee was. ｣2 2s.
Rules agreed to in 1796 included the unusual one that the “master of the house” should light a fire in the chapter‑room in the winter season at least one hour before the time of meeting, at a cost of half a guinea each year, any failure involving him in a “forfeited sixpence.” In 1819 the chapter obtained a new Charter and became attached to Alfred Lodge.
Vigilance Chapter, Darlington. Brethren of the Darlington (Durham) Lodge (founded in 1761 and soon to be known as Restoration Lodgenow No. 111) acquired from an unknown source some knowledge of the Royal Arch, and proceeded to establish in 1769 “The Lodge of Royal Arch Masons,” which must have been one of the oldest examples of a selfcontained and unrecognized body working the degree. It met regularly, and in 1787 asked Grand Lodge whether it approved of what it was doing and inquired as to the charge for a warrant. The request was passed to Dunckerley, who arranged for a warrant to be issued, the members consenting to his request to be exalted (that is, re‑exalted) in Concord Chapter (now No. 124), founded in the previous year at Durham, the county town, rather less than twenty miles north of Darlington. The new chapter, Vigilance, now No. 111, was regularly constituted in February 1788 after apparently nineteen years of irregular working. The minutebooks are complete of “the Royal Arch Masters” up to 1788 and forward from that date of the warranted chapter.
William Waples, in a manuscript placed at the author’s disposal, gives much further information relating to the old lodge and chapter. “The Lodge of Royal Arch Masons” was known at one time as “The Hierarchical” Lodge, associated with a priestly order of the same name of which little is known. The lodge had a “Dedicated Arch,” which may possibly have been a floor‑cloth displaying Royal Arch emblems and carried in processions. William Waples believes that, following the Union, some of the symbols of the Royal Arch were carried over into the Master Mason’s Degree as practised by Restoration Lodge, with which the chapter was associated. As likely evidence of the early working of the veils ceremony, it is recorded that in 1769 the sum of £2 5s. 9d. was paid for sixty yards of ‘tammy’ (otherwise tamine or taminy, a glazed woollen or worsted fabric used for curtains), and at the same time curtain rods and rings were bought.
Chapter of St James, London. The many notes on this historic chapter (now No. 2), both those following and on other pages, are mostly from W. Harry Ryland’s history of the chapter issued in 1891. The ornate warrant, headed “The Almighty Jah,” was granted in 1788, and is signed by James Heseltine as Z. of Grand Chapter. The chapter records are almost continuous from 1791 to date as, although the minutes for 1812 – 29 have been lost, records for those years do exist in rough form. Originally the chapter met in Old Burlington Street or its immediate neighbourhood, but since 1797 has met at Freemasons’ Tavern or Freemasons’ Hall. Its early meeting‑places may in part explain how it came to draw many of its early members from Burlington Lodge, now No. 96 (founded 1756), and the still earlier British Lodge, now No. 8 (founded 1722). It is attached to the time‑immemorial lodge, Antiquity, now No. 2.
As from at least as early as 1791, and continuing for the greater part of the nineteenth century, the First Principal, and very often the Second and Third, held his chair for two years. The Exaltation fee in the early days was ｣1 1s., or, including sash, ｣1 5s. At an emergency meeting in 1792 two Brethren “were raised to the degrees of Master Masons,” an irregularity repeated on occasions until ten years later; after that date lodges for passing Brethren through the chair continued to be held, as was the case with many other chapters.
The double‑cubic stone is persistently called the pedestal in early minutes, and in 1814 comes a reference to the “mystical Parts of the Pedestal.” Caps were worn by the Principals in the 1797 period, as becomes evident from the purchase in that year of a trunk in which to keep them; in 1802 there is an item of 17s. 6d. for repairing them. Actually, over a very long period, the First and Second Principals have worn crowns, as they still do, and the Third Principal a mitre.
A sidelight upon the etiquette observed in forms of address at the turn of the century is afforded by a list of nine Brethren exalted at a special meeting on a Sunday in May 1797; the list includes two “Reverends,” one Colonel, three Esquires, one “Mr.,” one “Brother,” and one plain “David.”
Stewards are mentioned as assistants to the Sojourners in 180r. Both in lodge and chapter ‑ at any rate under the ‘Moderns’ ‑ Stewards had ceremonial duties well into the nineteenth century, and in general were of higher status than they are to‑day. A floor‑cloth was in use in the early years, for it is recorded that the sum of ｣1 10s. was paid for the painting of one in 1810. The Lectures (catechisms) had a big place in the early ceremonies, just as they had enjoyed in the Craft, and in 1811 the minutes record the appointment of three Sojourners as lecturers. In the chapter, on a pedestal near the Second Principal, is a carved and gilded eagle some 15 inches high.
At least twice in its history the chapter has been concerned with the activities of charlatans. Its Z. in the year 1792 attended Grand Chapter to report Robert Sampson, watchmaker, of Petty France, Westminster, “for pretending to exalt several Masons.” Sampson had been expelled from his chapter and had “formed an independent Society at his own house where he professed to exalt Master Masons for 5/‑.” Then, in 1808, the chapter heard ‑ probably not for the first time ‑ of another impostor, William Finch. Three Companions had been proposed as joining members in that year, but were found to have been irregularly exalted by Finch; however, they were allowed to attend as visitors on their consenting to be exalted ‘in regular manner, and they became members two months later. Finch, a breeches‑maker, initiated in Canterbury, was to some extent a real student of Masonic ritual. He became an author and publisher of Masonic books and made a practice of selling rituals ‑ of very doubtful authenticity. His troubled career included an action which he brought in the courts of law and in which the Grand Secretary of that day gave evidence not in Finch’s favour. He died in 1818 at the age of about forty‑six. His story, putting him in a rather better light, is told by Colonel F. M. Rickard in A.Q.C., vol. Iv.
A report in the Lewes Journal (Sussex) of October 5, 1801, speaks of a Royal Arch chapter that had just been held in the Old Ship Tavern, Brighton, under a deputation from St James’s Chapter, “when nine MASTERS of ARTS were exalted.” It should be explained that ‘Virtual’ Masters were commonly so designated.