masonic processions. 30 In London, the Prince Regent, who was Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge, was the driving force behind the redevelopment of large parts of the west end. When the Prince as Grand Master formally dedicated in enormous public ceremonies such major new buildings as the Covent Garden Theatre, on the site of the present Royal Opera House, this conjunction between freemasonry and public space achieved a very potent expression. 31
While freemasonry had a close engagement with public space through its processional activity, lodge meetings by contrast took place in a private, closed space, guarded by the Tyler. In a recent article, Hugh Urban has used the insights of theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu to consider ways in which the closed space and secrecy of the lodge meeting facilitated the elaboration of concepts of social power and hierarchy in late 19th-century America. 32 Changes in spatial relationships within the lodge meeting could reflect wider social changes. Mary Ann Clawson, for example, has shown how the use of stage settings with proscenium arches and elaborate drop curtains in Scottish Rite initiations from the late 19th century onwards can be related to the rise of leisure activities which stressed consumption by a passive audience. 33 In England, the most concrete expression of this need for a closed space was the development of the masonic hall. Until the 1850s, most masonic meetings took place in rooms in taverns, a space which was on the borderland between private and public. 34 The campaign for purpose-built masonic halls was an expression of the fetish of respectability which was a characteristic of the Victorian middle classes. In towns such as Sheffield, the masonic halls formed part of the development of a new city centre with public squares
30
Stewart, op. cit., pp. 101-102; The History of Free Masonry... with an Account of the Grand lodge of Scotland, Edinburgh: Alex. Lawrie 1800, pp. 168-183, 192-5, 200, 212-21, 236-41, 243-55, 256-62, 281-91. An illustration of the laying of the foundation stone of New College, Edinburgh, is in: John Hamill and R. A. Gilbert, World Freemasonry, London: Aquarian Press 1991, p. 135.
31
William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, London: G. Wilkie 1812, pp. 392-8: see Appendix, Document No. 5, below.
32
Hugh B. Urban,“ The Adornment of Silence: Secrecy and Symbolic Power in American Freemasonry”, Journal of Religion and Society 3( 2001): available online at http:// moses. creighton. edu / JRS / 2001 / 2001-2. html.
33
Mary Ann Clawson,“ Spectatorship and Masculinity in the Scottish Rite”, in: C. Lance Brockman( ed.), Theatre of the Fraternity: Staging the Ritual Space of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Minneapolis: Frederick R. Weismann Art Museum 1996;“ Fraternal Association and the Problem of Masculine Consumption”, paper at the University of Sheffield conference“ Lodges, Chapters and Orders: Fraternal Organisations and the Shaping of Gender Roles in Europe”, 2002( abstract available on-line at: www. shef. ac. uk /~ crf / news / besantconf / clawson. htm)
34 cf. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780- 1850, London: Hutchinson 1987, pp. 427-9. The drive for the building of masonic halls can be traced in The Freemasons” Magazine in the 1850s and 1860s. The details for individual lodges are documented in Lane, op. cit. 106