As we continue to explore the masonic archive, we will find a great deal of information bearing on old kinds of history, on royalty, politicians and governments, and this cannot be ignored. Many of the English Grand Masters since 1782 have been members of the royal family, but the significance of this for the British monarchy as an institution has never been fully investigated. 18 Freemasonry is one of the British institutions in which the aristocracy still holds sway, and the role of the aristocracy in British freemasonry provides a fruitful area of study for scholars interested in the decline and fall of the British aristocracy. Occasionally, freemasonry has been caught up in wider political events. For example, in 1929, shortly before the election of the second Labour government, a new masonic lodge, the New Welcome Lodge No. 5139, was formed at the behest of the then Prince of Wales. 19 This lodge was intended exclusively for Labour members of parliament and party officials, and reflected a concern that Labour Party activists had frequently been blackballed by masonic lodges. The New Welcome Lodge was intended to ensure that the new socialist government was not alienated from freemasonry. It was also hoped that the lodge would draw more working men into freemasonry, and that masonic values would reduce « unsettling influences » on the shop floor. 20 Although the New Welcome Lodge was initially very successful in recruiting Labour M. P. s( including Sir Robert Young, the Deputy Speaker, Arthur Greenwood, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, and Scott Lindsay, the Labour Party Secretary), 21 the formation of the National Government changed the political situation, and from 1934 New Welcome Lodge was opened up to MPs of all parties and to staff working at the Palace of Westminster, becoming essentially a house facility of the Palace of Westminster. 22
Undoubtedly the most fascinating information in the masonic archive are the details of well-known people who were freemasons. The legal and social reformer, Lord Brougham, was initiated as a freemason on an impulse while he was on holiday in the Hebrides. 23 Was this a passing episode in Brougham’ s life, or did the values of
18 cf Roberts, op. cit., p. 324:“ There must surely be something of sociological interest in an institution whose English Grand Masters have since 1721 always been noblemen and have included seven princes of the blood...”.
19
New Welcome Lodge No. 5139, 50th Anniversary Meeting:“ The Grand Secretary informed Bro. Rockliff that the then Prince of Wales( afterwards King Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor) was somewhat concerned at the number of occasions on which ballots taken in lodges appeared to be used to exclude from masonry Labour MPs seeking membership therein. HRH had therefore suggested to the Grand Secretary that a lodge might be formed specially for the purpose of enabling Labour MPs and officials to become masons if they so desired”.
20
The petition and accompanying memoranda for formation of the lodge in the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, Freemasons” Hall, London, do not refer directly to the Labour party connection of the lodge, but stressed these broader connections: see Appendix, Document No. 2, below.
21
Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London, returns of New Welcome Lodge No. 5139; cf. Ben Pimlott( ed.), The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton, London: Jonathan Cape and London School of Economics 1986, pp. 224, 265, 268-9.
22
New Welcome Lodge No. 5139, 50th Anniversary Meeting states that in 1934 no Member of Parliament appeared for initiation. An emergency meeting of the Lodge was held and“ there was agreement that all future initiates and joining members should have some connection with Parliament”.
23
See Appendix, Document No. 1, below.
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