Pre 1797 Before Forssteen

27 September, 2016

The second edition of James Anderson’s “Book of Constitutions of the Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons” published in 1738 includes the History of Masonry based, to some extent, on the Old Charges, some manuscripts of which pre-date the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717. This ‘history’ includes a reference to part of Hertfordshire, a reference that has subsequently, and probably implausibly, led to the statement that “St. Alban formed the first Lodge in Britain, AD287”. The reference is worth quoting in full: –

“The joint Emperors Dioclesian and Maximian employ’d Carausius as their Admiral against the Saxon Pirates, who being at Peace with the Picts, and gaining the Army, put on the Purple and was own’d by the other Two. AD287.

Carausius encouraged the Craft, particularly at Verulam, (now St. Albans, Hertfordshire) by the worthy Knight, Albanus, who afterwards turn’d Christian, and was call’d St. Alban, (the Proto Martyr in Britain under the Dioclesian Persecution) whom Carausius employ’d (as the old Constitutions affirm) to inviron that City with a Stone wall, and to build him a fine Palace; for which that British King made St. Alban the Steward of his Household and chief Ruler of the Realm.

St. Alban loved Masons well, and cherished them much, and he made their Pay right good, viz. Two Shillings per Week, and Three Pence to their Cheer; whereas before that Time, through all the land, a Mason had but a Penny a day, and his Meat, until St. Alban amended it. He also obtained of the King a Charter for the Free Masons, for to hold a General Council, and gave it the Name of Assembly, and was thereat himself as Grand Master, and helped to make Masons, and gave them good Charges, etc”.

Against this passage is the marginalia “This is asserted by all the old Copies of the Constitutions, and the old English Masons firmly believ’d it”. It is rather more difficult now to find good reason why they should have done so.

Although the four Lodges which came to together to form the first Grand Lodge of England in 1717 are hardly likely to have been the only Lodges then in existence, there is no evidence of Masonic activity in Hertfordshire until 1739. On 10th February that year, during the Grand Mastership of the Marquess of Carnarvon, a Lodge meeting at the Red Rampant Lyon in St.Albans, was warranted and given the number 181 on the Roll of Grand Lodge. The payment of £2.2s. for its Warrant of Constitution is in the list of payments to the Grand Lodge Charity Fund dated 13th April 1739. The Lodge moved from the Red Rampant Lyon to the Woolpack in 1740 when it was represented at Grand Lodge and paid 10s. 6d. to the Charity Fund. In that year it became No. 168 on the renumbering of Lodges. Sadly, on 24th July 1755, Grand Lodge minutes record “Ordered that the Lodge No. 168 held at the Woolpack at St. Albans be erased from the Book of Lodges, they not having attended at any Q.C. (i.e. Quarterly Communication) or even met for several years.

On 21st December 1767 another effort was made in the same part of the county, when a Lodge was warranted named, in honour of the friend and fellow-martyr of St. Alban, the Lodge of St.Amphibalus, numbered No. 412, and meeting in a private room in St. Albans which remains untraced. In 1770 on the further renumber of Lodges, it became No. 347. In 1775 it moved to London Colney; there is no firm evidence of this new meeting place, but there is some circumstantial evidence that it might have been the Bull. In that year it paid its £1 Is. to the Fund of Charity. Sadly, on 18th April 1777 it was erased from the books of Grand Lodge.

The year before the demise of St.Amphibalus, a Lodge was warranted, in March 1776, to meet at the White Horse, Baldock, and called the Lodge of Harmony No. 491. It was reported to Grand Lodge on 13th November 1776 as having paid in its fees of Constitution. The following year, on 12th November 1777 it paid 10s. 6d. as its subscription to the Fund of Charity. In 1780 it became No. 396, and in 1781 No. 397. Sadly, on 7th February 1787 it too was erased from the list of Lodges.

All these Lodges were adherents of the premier Grand Lodge dubbed ‘the Moderns’ by the Antients, the adherents of the Grand Lodge of England according to the Old Institutions, the other major body in the dissension which split English Freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century. There is no evidence of any Lodges in Hertfordshire under the Antients Grand Lodge that were also known as Atholl Masons.

In later years, Lodges have taken the names of all of the three original Hertfordshire Lodges; the second is commemorated by Baldock Lodge of Harmony No. 5262 and the third by St. Amphibalus Lodge No. 9154. – sadly this Lodge has since handed in its Warrant,.  Although thought was given to commemorating Red Rampant Lyon Lodge, the first Hertfordshire Lodge, when the 200th Lodge in the Province was in formation, the name Veritatem Sequere, No. 9615 was finally chosen.  A new Lodge of the Red Rampant Lyon, with the number 9843 was finally consecrated in 2009 by VW Bro. Allan Atkinson (then Depurty Provincial Grand Master) with RW Bro Colin Harris as its first Master.

After the erasure of Lodge of Harmony No. 397 in 1787, more than forty years passed before the county had another Lodge; in 1829 two Lodges, both still flourishing, were consecrated – Hertford Lodge No. 849, now No. 403, and Bamborough Lodge No. 851, now Watford Lodge No. 404. But before that, the county had become a Province with the appointment by Patent dated 24th March 1797 of William Forssteen as the first Provincial Grand Master of Hertfordshire. The following Chapters tell the story of the subsequent growth of Freemasonry in Hertfordshire

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