Book Excerpt
from the INTRODUCTION
In 1827 a letter from a police magistrate in the young colony of New South Wales arrived at the offices of the Grand Lodge of English Freemasonry. The magistrate's name was John Stephen. The son of an English judge, he had migrated to Sydney less than a year before sending the letter. In the intervening months, he told Masonic officials in the metropole, he had familiarized himself with "the state of Masonry in this distant part of the World?' Stephen expressed both concern and optimism. He was worried about what he saw as an overabundance of Irish lodges in the colony as well as the lack of a centralized authority to shepherd those who wanted to affiliate with English lodges. But he was sanguine about the prospects for Freemasonry in the settlements, which were rapidly expanding with the "almost daily" influx of free emigrants. In the letter, this rather ordinary colonist proceeded to make two keen observations about the role of Freemasonry in the burgeoning British Empire of the early nineteenth century. First he observed that "the greater part of the free community have been admitted as Masons in England from the prevailing notion of the necessity of being so on becoming Travellers?' By this point Masonry had earned a well-deserved reputation for being an institution that offered its members a passport to countless benefits available in all parts of the empire and, indeed, throughout the world. Second, Stephen realized that this brotherhood had a role to play in strengthening the British Empire. The growth of Freemasonry in the Australian colonies would serve to create "an eternal bond of unity which will more closely connect this colony with England than any other that can possibly be devised" Though Stephen was writing about a particular part of the empire at a particular moment, his observations about Freemasonry's value to colonists and the empire are applicable across time and space.
Book-review
British Masonic or Academic historians have always forgotten to investigate in depth the Freemasonry's role in the Empire and it is not surprising to me that only a woman and an american professor has fulfilled this task writing such a significant and sophisticated book.
Examining the fate of Freemasonry's inclusive promise - the Universal Brotherhood of Man - in the diverse historical circumstances presented by the British Empire is the central hinge upon which this valuable book by Pro. Harland-Jacobs unfolds.
The British Empire of the eighteenth century provided fertile ground for the building and functioning of an extensive Masonic network. In this period, the fraternity remained a relatively fluid and inclusive institution that did, at times, live up to its ideology of cosmopolitan brotherhood. Although dominated by white Protestant men, eighteenth century British Masonry did have room in its lodges for Jews and Muslims, African Americans and South Asians, and others.
Freemasonry's cosmopolitanism is by definition fraternal. Eighteenth-century Masonry also included men of a diverse range of political opinions who both supported and challenged the Whig oligarchy running Hanoverian Britain and its growing empire.
As Britain withstood the age of revolution and emerged victorious from the Napoleonic Wars, Masonry underwent a major transformation that reflected the strengthening currents of nationalism, capitalism, and imperialism. Like their eighteenth-century brethren, nineteenth-century Freemasons continued to champion Masonry's ideology of openness, but in practice the brotherhood abandoned, to a great degree, its cosmopolitan and radical pasts.
Reacting against Freemasonry's elasticity during the previous century, grand lodge officials fought and won a struggle to gain control over the brotherhood by consciously identifying the brotherhood with loyalty to the state. Meanwhile, as the Catholic Church waged a sustained campaign against worldwide Freemasonry, the brotherhood became a primarily Protestant institution.
In the colonies, Masonry's long-established associations with men of prominence ( such as military officers and colonial governors) made it attractive to rising men who sought status and power to accompany their wealth. Local lodges were willing to admit some men of humble origins, but colonial Masons made every effort to ensure the respectability of the brotherhood by regulating the membership, conducting elaborate public ceremonials, and keeping leadership positions in the hands of the most respectable brethren.
The brotherhood was thus instrumental in the making of a colonial middle class and defining its boundaries at the very moment its male constituents were entering into power sharing arrangements with traditional elites The brotherhood that was initially open to all men was, after the age of revolution, dominated by loyalist, Protestant, respectable white men. It thus reflected and contributed to the "fundamental reordering of the Empire" as the old Atlantic empire transformed into the so-called "Second British Empire" of the nineteenth century.
By the last third of the nineteenth century, the Masonic brotherhood had become an unquestioning ally of the British imperial state. It took part in various efforts to shore up the empire in the face of internal and external pressures during the age of high imperialism. Imperial proconsuls like Kitchener, Wolseley, and Connaught considered Freemasonry a valuable ally not only as they governed and defended the empire but also as they pursued the imperialist mission of making the empire a source of national strength. In places like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the brotherhood helped turn men into ardent citizens of the empire who contributed their energy, money, and even their lives to the imperial cause.
Meanwhile, outside the settlement colonies, indigenous men of various religious and racial backgrounds had begun seeking admission into Masonry. The empire became a practical testing ground of Freemasons' commitment to their ideology of cosmopolitan brotherhood in an age of increasingly racialized attitudes. British Freemasons on the imperial periphery ultimately and reluctantly admitted native elites but they did so - Pro.Harland-Jacobs writes - only because they believed it would help strengthen the Empire.
The book deals with all of the above subjects and makes a significant contribution to the history of the Freemasons and imperial Britain.
Bruno Gazzo
Editor, PS Review of Freemasonry.
|
