Act 1835, each English borough admitted freemen according to its own peculiar custom and by-laws. The rights and privileges of a freeman, though varying in different boroughs, generally included the right to vote at a parliamentary election of the borough, and exemption from all tolls and dues. The act of 1835 respected existing usages, and every person who was then an admitted freeman remained one, retaining at the same time all his former rights and privileges. The admission of freemen is now regulated by the Municipal Corporations Act 1882. By section 201 of that act the term “freeman” includes any person of the class whose rights and interests were reserved by the act of 1835 under the name either of freemen or of burgesses. By section 202 no person can be admitted a freeman by gift or by purchase; that is, only birth, servitude or marriage are qualifications. The Honorary Freedom of Boroughs Act 1885, however, makes an exception, as by that act the council of every borough may from time to time admit persons of distinction to be honorary freemen of the borough. The town clerk of every borough keeps a list, which is called “the freeman’s roll,” and when any person claims to be admitted a freeman in respect of birth, servitude or marriage, the mayor examines the claim, and if it is established the claimant’s name is enrolled by the town clerk.
A person may become a freeman or freewoman of one of the London livery companies by (1) apprenticeship or servitude; (2) patrimony; (3) redemption; (4) gift. This last is purely honorary. The most usual form of acquiring freedom was by serving apprenticeship to a freeman, free both of a company and of the city of London. By an act of common council of 1836 apprenticeship was permitted to freemen of the city who had not taken up the freedom of a company. By an act of common council of 1889 the term of service was reduced from seven years to four years. Freedom by patrimony is always granted to children of a person who has been duly admitted to the freedom. Freedom by redemption or purchase requires the payment of certain entrance fees, which vary with the standing of the company. In the Grocers’ Company freedom by redemption does not exist, and in such companies as still have a trade, e.g. the Apothecaries and Stationers, it is limited to members of the trade.
See W. C. Hazlitt, The Livery Companies of the City of London (1892).
FREEMASONRY. According to an old “Charge” delivered
to initiates, Freemasonry is declared to be an “ancient and
honourable institution: ancient no doubt it is, as having subsisted
from time immemorial; and honourable it must be acknowledged
to be, as by a natural tendency it conduces to make those
so who are obedient to its precepts ... to so high an eminence
has its credit been advanced that in every age Monarchs themselves
have been promoters of the art, have not thought it
derogatory from their dignity to exchange the sceptre for the
trowel, have patronised our mysteries and joined in our
Assemblies.” For many years the craft has been conducted
without respect to clime, colour, caste or creed.
History.—The precise origin of the society has yet to be ascertained, but is not likely to be, as the early records are lost; there is, however, ample evidence remaining to justify the claim for its antiquity and its honourable character. Much has been written as to its eventful past, based upon actual records, but still more which has served only to amuse or repel inquirers, and led not a few to believe that the fraternity has no trustworthy history. An unfavourable opinion of the historians of the craft generally may fairly have been held during the 18th and early in the 19th centuries, but happily since the middle of the latter century quite a different principle has animated those brethren who have sought to make the facts of masonic history known to the brotherhood, as well as worth the study of students in general. The idea that it would require an investigator to be a member of the “mystic tie” in order to qualify as a reader of masonic history has been exploded. The evidences collected concerning the institution during the last five hundred years, or more, may now be examined and tested in the most severe manner by literary and critical experts (whether opposed or favourable to the body), who cannot fail to accept the claims made as to its great antiquity and continuity, as the lineal descendant of those craftsmen who raised the cathedrals and other great English buildings during the middle ages.
It is only needful to refer to the old works on freemasonry, and to compare them with the accepted histories of the present time, to be assured that such strictures as above are more than justified. The premier work on the subject was published in London in 1723, the Rev. James Anderson being the author of the historical portion, introductory to the first “Book of Constitutions” of the original Grand Lodge of England. Dr Anderson gravely states that “Grand Master Moses often marshalled the Israelites into a regular and general lodge, whilst in the wilderness.... King Solomon was Grand Master of the lodge at Jerusalem.[1]... Nebuchadnezzar became the Grand Master Mason,” &c., devoting many more pages to similar absurdities, but dismisses the important modern innovation (1716–1717) of a Grand Lodge with a few lines noteworthy for their brief and indefinite character.
In 1738 a second edition was issued, dedicated to the prince of Wales (“a Master Mason and master of a lodge”), and was the work of the same brother (as respects the historical part), the additions being mainly on the same lines as the former volume, only, if possible, still more ridiculous and extravagant; e.g. Cyrus constituted Jerubbabel “provincial grand master in Judah”; Charles Martel was “the Right Worshipful Grand Master of France, and Edward I. being deeply engaged in wars left the craft to the care of several successive grand masters” (duly enumerated). Such loose statements may now pass unheeded, but unfortunately they do not exhaust the objections to Dr Anderson’s method of writing history. The excerpt concerning St Alban (apparently made from Coles’s Ancient Constitutions, 1728–1729) has the unwarranted additional title of Grand Master conferred on that saint, and the extract concerning King Æthelstan and Prince Edwin from the “Old MS. Charges” (given in the first edition) contains still more unauthorized modern terms, with the year added of 926; thus misleading most seriously those who accept the volume as trustworthy, because written by the accredited historian of the Grand Lodge, Junior Grand Warden in 1723. These examples hardly increase our confidence in the author’s accuracy when Dr Anderson comes to treat of the origin of the premier Grand Lodge; but he is our only informant as to that important event, and if his version of the occurrence is declined, we are absolutely without any information.
In considering the early history of Freemasonry, from a purely matter-of-fact standpoint, it will be well to settle as a necessary preliminary what the term did and does now include or mean, and how far back the inquiry should be conducted, as well as on what lines. If the view of the subject herein taken be correct, it will be useless to load the investigation by devoting considerable space to a consideration of the laws and customs of still older societies which may have been utilized and imitated by the fraternity, but which in no sense can be accepted as the actual forbears of the present society of Free and Accepted Masons. They were predecessors, or possibly prototypes, but not near relatives or progenitors of the Freemasons.[2]
The Mother Grand Lodge of the world is that of England, which was inaugurated in the metropolis on St John Baptist’s day 1717 by four or more old lodges, three of which still flourish. There were other lodges also in London and the country at the time, but whether they were invited to the meeting is not now known. Probably not, as existing records of the period preserve a sphinx-like silence thereon. Likewise there were many scores of lodges at work in Scotland, and undoubtedly in Ireland the craft was widely patronized. Whatever the ceremonies may have been which were then known as Freemasonry in Great Britain and Ireland, they were practically alike, and the venerable Old Charges or MS. constitutions, dating back several centuries, were rightly held by them as the title-deeds of their masonic inheritance.
It was a bold thing to do, thus to start a governing body for the fraternity quite different in many respects to all preceding organizations, and to brand as irregular all lodges which declined
- ↑
If history be no ancient Fable
Free Masons came from Tower of Babel.
(“The Freemasons; an Hudibrastic poem,” London, 1723.) - ↑ The Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry and Medieval Builders, by Mr G. F. Fort (U.S.A.), and the Cathedral Builders: The Magestri Comacini, by “Leader Scott” (the late Mrs Baxter), take rather a different view on this point and ably present their arguments. The Rev. C. Kingsley in Roman and Teuton writes of the Comacini, “Perhaps the original germ of the great society of Freemasons.”
