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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The list of eighteenth-century celebrities who were freemasons is an impressive one with the names on it of Chesterfield, Gibbon, Burke, Boswell, Burns, Mozart, Paine, Washington, Franklin, and scores of other major and minor lights in the earlier as well as the later years of the century. It is rather surprising, therefore, in view of what we know of the temperament, ideas, and career of Sir Richard Steele not to find his name there also. But although the question of his membership has often been raised, no special effort has ever been made to answer it with certainty either in the affirmative or the negative. I have gone into the subject not so much with the purpose of proving that he was or was not a freemason as with the hope of opening up approaches leading to new facts about his life. It has been an interesting pursuit which, though not yielding any documentary proof in the way of lodge minutes or membership lists, has led me to the conclusion that in all probability Steele was a freemason. This summary of my study may lead someone to suggest methods of carrying the investigation further. Possibly it may serve also to call attention to a subject which appears to have had but little study, freemasonry as a social force in the England of George the First.
1 Following are some typical comments made by masonic historians. J. W. Lewis, “A Fragment of History”, Masonic Eclectic (N.Y., 1865), i, 144: “Whether Sir Richard Steele was a Mason, I do not know.” John Yarker, “The Stuarts and Freemasonry”, Freemason's Magazine (London, 26 Feb. 1870), p. 165, quoting a statement by Matthew Cooke: “Steele was a Freemason of the York Rite or Ancient Masons.” W. J. Hughan, Masonic Sketches and Reprints (. Y., 1871), p. 86: “There is no evidence that Steele was a Freemason of the York Rite.” R. F. Gould, The History of Freemasonry (. Y., 1886), iv, 276n: “There is no further evidence to connect Sir Richard Steele with the Society of Freemasons beyond the existence of a curious plate.” G. W. Speth, Transactions of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati, No. 2076 (London, 1892), v, 57: “[the Picart Plate] is indeed the only evidence on that point.” W. J. Chetwode Crawley, Transactions, op. cit. (1897), x, 55: “the difficulty of bringing Dick Steele within the scope of the Amsterdam engraver.” E. L. Hawkins, Transactions, op. cit. (1911), XXIV, 71 : “I should like to know why the portrait of Sir Richard Steele was introduced by Picart.” Sir Alfred Robbins, English-Speaking Freemasonry (London, 1930), p. 35: “Whether he [Steele] was himself a Mason has been subject for speculation.”
One point, in my opinion, has not been sufficiently emphasized anywhere: the question of Steele's membership may have been clouded by the fact that another man of the same name, Sir Richard Steele, Bart, was in the midcentury a member of Royal Arch Lodge, No. 198, in Dublin. See A. Q. C. Transactions (1910), xxiii, 180, 184.
2 Ceremonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde Représentées par des Figures dessinées de la main de Bernard Picart (Amsterdam: Chez J. F. Bernard, 1723–41), Folio. Vol. iv:… Qui contient les Anglicans, les Quaquers, les Anabaptistes (Amsterdam, 1736). (The plate follows p. 251.) The copy examined is in the Library of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, Md.
3 Various details of Pine's membership are well known; for example, in 1725 he was a member of The Globe Tavern Lodge in Moorgate. For comment on his engraved Lists see John Lane, A Handy Book to the Study of the Engraved, Printed, and Manuscript Lists of Lodges …from 1723 to 1814 (London, 1889). For facsimile reproductions of the frontispieces for the years 1729, 1734, 1735, and 1736, and of the Lists themselves for 1729 and 1736, see A. F. Calvert, The Grand Lodge of England, 1717–1917 (London, 1917). I have not found any reproductions made from the original of the 1735 List, which is under scrutiny in this article; that it is extant, however, is shown by the fact that a facsimile of the frontispiece is given by Calvert (p. 51). He gives also the list for 1736, which is very similar to that of the print.
4 A masonic lodge had been founded at The Hague as early as 1725, but not until 1731 did freemasonry make much headway in Holland. In that year a special lodge meeting was held under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of England to admit into the fraternity no less a person than Francis, Duke of Lorraine, subsequently Grand Duke of Tuscany and Emperor of Germany, with Dr. J. T. Desaguliers, F. R. S., presiding as Master, and Lord C hesterfield, English Ambassador to Holland, assisting at the initiation. By 1735, when the commentary was written, there were several lodges in Holland, located at The Hague and in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, but they were under suspicion of seditious activities; and in December 1735, after the pillaging of a lodge in Amsterdam, chiefly English in coloring, a magisterial order forbade assemblies. This seems to have been the first action taken by civil authorities against freemasonry on the continent. See Gould, The History of Freemasonry, v, 201-202; and Emmanuel Rebold, A General History of Freemasonry in Europe, trans, by J. Fletcher Brennan (Cincinnati, 1868), pp. 123–125.
5 The French lodges in London and their membership lists from about 1723 to 1740 as given in the Minutes of the Grand Lodge 1723-1739 (London, 1913) were: Solomon's Temple, Hemming's Row; The Swan in Long Acre; Prince Eugene's Read Co fee House, St. Alban's Street (later the Union French Lodge); and The Arbor and Crown in Shorts Garden.
6 Faber's masonic record is not complete, but it is known that in 1738 he was a member of the historic lodge in St. Paul's Churchyard and was its master in 1746. He was a Steward in the Grand Lodge in 1739–40. See C. W. Firebrace, Records of the Lodge Original No. 1, Now the Lodge of Antiquity No. 2 of the Free and Accepted Masons of England (privately printed, 1926), Vol. ii.
7 Thornhill was master of The Swan in East Street, Greenwich, between 1723 and 1725 and by 1728 was a senior warden of the Grand Lodge. We find that he designed the masonic frontispiece of Pine's Engraved List (used first in 1725 and for many years thereafter) and that used also for L' Histoire, Obligations, et Statuts de la très vénérable Confraternité des Franc-Maçons (Frankfort, 1742)—a book compiled as early as 1733 by De La Tierce, who belonged to La Loge Française (No. 98) in London. The portrait of Thornhill in the Museum at Freemasons' Hall, London, shows him in his masonic collarette and apron : Catalogue of the Contents of the Museum at Freemasons' Hall. … Compiled and arranged by Major Sir Algernon Tudor-Craig, 3 vols. (London, 1938), Vol. II.
8 The engraving of Highmore's masonic portrait of Anthony Sayer seems to have been Pine's first important work as an engraver (see DNB). Highmore was given a sitting also by the Duke of Lorraine, initiated in 1731. He seems to have been admitted to masonry at The Swan in East Street, Greenwich, and according to the Minutes of the Grand Lodge, he was a Grand Warden in 1727–28 and a very faithful attendant at the meetings between that time and 1735. For Highmore's letter addressed to Steele on the subject of Steele's play The Conscious Lovers, produced in 1722, see John Nichols, The Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele (1809), p. 624.
9 Hogarth is listed as a member of The George in Northampton Street. By virtue of a stewardship in the Grand Lodge in 1735, he belonged also to the “Stewards' Lodge”, and he is said to have designed for that lodge the celebrated “Hogarth Jewel.”
10 These references are to Toiler, No. 26 (9 June 1709) and No. 166 (2 May 1710). Both papers are by Steele, but in No. 26 he is quoting a correspondent.
11 In Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha. Masonic Reprints of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati, No. 2076, ed. by G. W. Speth and others, 10 vols. (Margate, 1889–1913). Vol. x (1913): Reprint of The Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of England 1723-1739, ed. by W. J. Songhurst. (No. 2076 is the Lodge of Research, London.) The copy used in this study is in the possession of the Library of the Supreme Council, 33°, A.A.S.R. Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. Washington, D. C.
12 On this subject, see Gilbert W. Daynes, The Birth and Growth of the Grand Lodge of England 1717–1726 (London, 1926).
13 Love in a Forest. A Comedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. … By-Mr. Johnson. London. Printed for W. Chetwood at Cato's Head in Russell Street, Covent Garden, and Thomas Edlin … 1723. See Calvert, op. cit., for contemporary newspaper accounts.
14 Calvert, p. 56, quotes from The Weekly Journal for 12 January 1723.
15 See Minutes of the Grand Lodge 1723–1739, p. 96.
16 Ibid., p. 177.
17 Steele's publications in 1716: Town Talk; An Account of the State of the Roman Catholick Religion; The British Subject's Answer; and The Condemn'd Lords; in 1719, A Letter to Lord Oxford; The Antidote I and 11; and The Spinster; in 1720 (with Chetwood and Lillie and others), The Crisis of Property; A Nation a Family; The State of the Case; and The Theatre.
18 Daynes, op. cit., p. 132.
19 This was printed by William Hunter for John Senex and John Hunter. Evidence of Steele's acquaintance with Hunter is found in his correspondence of 1722.
20 The Generous Free-Mason or the Constant Lady with the Humours of Squire Noodle, and his Man Doodle. A Tragi-comi-farcical Ballad Opera. … Printed for J. Roberts. A copy of this play is to be found in the Library of Congress.
21 The Daily Advertiser for 13 Sept. 1737 is authority for this statement; at the same meeting the poet James Thomson was initiated (quoted by . H. Dring, English Masonic Literature before 1751 [London, 1913], p. 30).
22 Delafaye's song was given in the authorized masonic publication, The Constitutions of the Freemasons (London, 1723); it appears in The Free-Mason's Pocket Companion (Edinburgh, 1752), in James Callendar's Collection of Free Mason's Songs, and elsewhere.
23 Minutes of the Grand Lodge 1723-1739, List of 1730, p. 156.
24 Read's Weekly Journal, 18 April 1730 (quoted by Dring, op. cit., p. 20).
25 See The Correspondence of Richard Steele (1941), pp. 57, 91.
26 Noted in Anderson's Old Constitutions of 1738. See also Gould, History of Freemasonry, iv, 388.
27 Robbins, English-Speaking Freemasonry, p. 54.
28 See The Correspondence of Steele (1941), p. 218, for an account of a curious incident in 1719 involving the two men, in which Steele was not altogether blameless, but which only goes to show his high regard for the scientist.
29 Hughan, “History of Freemasonry in York”, in Masonic Sketches and Reprints, pp. 33–34. If understood aright, the purport of Hughan's statement is that records of this lodge and of the Grand Lodge of Yorkshire are preserved in the archives of York Lodge, No. 236. For Steele and the York rite, see Note 1 above, Pts. 2 and 3.
30 The search was very kindly made at my request by Mr. John Kippen, Past Master of Lodge Canongate, Kilwinning, No. 2. See also the exhaustive study: David Murray Lyon, History of Ike Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) No. 1. Embracing an Account of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Scotland (Edinburgh and London, 1873).
31 For Steele's account of this visit, see Correspondence, pp. 121, 124; for the Marchmont item, Lyon, p. 90.
32 See Lyon, op. cit., for a full discussion.
33 The authorities consulted on the Carmarthen Lodge were : reprint of The Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of England 1723-39 (described above), especially Minute Book No. 1, 24 June 1723–17 March 1731; William Spurrell, Carmarthen and its Neighborhood (1876), pp. 120-121; Pine's Engraved List of Lodges as given by John Lane, op. cit.; A.Q.C. Transactions, xxiv (1911), 180.
34 See The Minutes of the Grand Lodge, pp. 24, 44, 155. On the 31st he addressed a lodge in Silver Street, to which he seems originally to have belonged. This address is mentioned by Cox, Old Constitutions (1871), p. xxiv. I infer that Oakley's address is given at the end of B. Cole's Book of the Ancient Constitutions (1729).
35 The facts of the meeting are recorded in The New Book of Constitutions (London, 1738), Chap, v; and this record is reprinted by Calvert, op. cit., p. 264. That Oakley was present is also made known by a news item in The Maryland Gazette for April 1729, in which a brief article datelined London, 4 January 1729, reports the meeting, stating that “Wardens be longing to the Lodge at Caermarthen in South Wales” were visitors. Both Thornhill and Highmore are also mentioned in the Gazette article. My attention was called to the item by Mr. J. Willis Smith.
36 Spurrell, op. cit., p. 121; also Weekly Journal or the British Gazetteer, 16 July 1726, as quoted by Dring, op. cit.
37 The Minutes of the Grand Lodge, pp. 231-233, 240, 252.
38 A suggestive book on this subject: Bernard Fay, Revolution and Freemasonry 1680–1800 (1935).
For various kinds of assistance given me during my reading on this subject, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and express my thanks to Mr. Claud Shaffer, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Maryland; Dr. Henry W. Meikle, National Library of Scotland; Miss Eleanor Falley, Librarian, Goucher College; R. Baker Harris, Librarian, Library of the Supreme Council, 33“, A. & A. S. R., Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A., Washington, D. C; Major Sir Thomas Lawson‐Tancred, Aldborough, Yorkshire; Mr. Sidney A. White, Grand Secretary, United Grand Lodge of England; the Rev. Edgar C. Powers, 33°, Grand Inspector General, A. & A. S. R., Valley of Baltimore, Md., Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. I owe special thanks to Mr. J. Willis Smith, Past Master, Secretary and Historian of Concordia Lodge, No. 13, A. F. & A. M., and Curator of the Masonic Museum, Baltimore, Md.