THE OLD CHARGES OF BRITISH FREEMASONS.
70
made
inquiries respecting the original,
it
which was owned by the Rev. J. Wilton Kerr of Clinton, Canada.
but after a search it was traced, and generously placed in the
had been lent and mislaid
;
Unfortunately
hands of Mr T. B. Harris, " Grand Secretary of Canada," for that Grand Lodge.
"
published shortly afterwards by the editor of the
Craftsman,'" whose appeal for
with the earnest endeavours of
Mr
itself,
verbatim transcript was
recovery (in connection
"
Hughan has forcibly observed, Such a result
MSS. if other brethren displayed equal earnestness
what may yet be done in the tracing of further
and persistence." ^ The value of this version is really greater on account
MS.
its
Norton) was so successful.
illustrates
of the
A
of the endorsement, than for the text
the former being of special importance (as also the concluding record of No. 25).
Moreover,
the date of the minute partly determines the age of the document, the antiquity claimed by the Rev. J. Wilton
" We .•. .•. That att a
Kerr being the first decade of the sixteenth century. The record reads thus
private
:
—
lodge held att Scarbrough in the County of York, the tenth day of July 1705, before William Thompson, Esq.,
P'sident of the said Lodge and severall others brethren Free Masons, the severall p'sons whose names are
herevnto subscribed were then admitted into the said Fraternity. Ed. Thompson, Jo. Tempest, Robt. Johnson,
"
Tho. Lister, Samuel W. Buck, Richard Hudson." The editor of the Craftsman," who has carefully scrutinised
the MS., says, "unhesitatingly the year is 1705," and so did Mr Leon Hyneman but Mr Kerr maintains that
;
it is
1505.
by the
On
editor
;
internal evidence I strongly lean to the year 1705, and all- the more, because of the investigation
" that there is reason to believe that the
his decision being
figure has been altered, a microscopic
examination showing a difference in the coloiir of the ink between that part of the figure which makes a good
It is a very awkward
seven, and that part which has been added, if the seven has been transformed into a five.
remove the jjart supposed to be added, and a very good seven remains."
and considers that the copy of the " Old Charges " was probably made for
that meeting and subsequent ones intended to be held, the admissions being recorded on the blank side with
the signatures of the initiates. The newly initiated members signed the record of their admission in the early
proceedings of the old lodge at York.' There are several Thompsons entered as members in those records,
and unsymmetrical
Hughan
five as it stands
;
accepts the year as 1705,
but not a "
WiUiam" Thompson,
29.
"
the President in 1705 being Sir George Tempest.
Papworth."
* A.D. 1714.
Mr Wyatt
Papworth, London.
"
The document was originally in the form of a Roll,
Old Charges," pp. 75-79.
which were joined continuously. Afterwards, probably for convenience, the
"
"
pages were again separated and made into a book of twenty-four folios. The water-mark consists of a crown
" G. R."
and the letters
It was purchased by Mr
above, so that it could not have been written before 1714.
Published in Hughan's
written on pages of foolscap
size,
Papworth from a London bookseller about twenty years ago and, as it lacked the conclusion of the ordinary
MSS. (Rules 16 to 18 inclusive, as in No. 15), that gentleman has supplied the omission from No. 39, which it
The motto at the beginning of the Roll is, "In God is all our Trust," ^ the jirevious MS.
closely resembles.
;
(No. 28) having a similar one on
30.
its seal ("
"Gateshead."
In the Lord
*a.d. 1730.
is all
our Trust
Lodge of
"
").
Industry," Gateshead.
Published in " Masonic Magazine," September 1875, with an article (continued from the August number) by
the Rev. A. F. A. AVoodford, explanatory of the early history of the Lodge of " Industry," Gateshead.
We
here find a very late instance of a lodge utilising the " Old Charges," presumably for reading to the initiates.
Their occurrence at so advanced a period of the last century, as a portion of the laws of the craft, is doubtless
owing to the lodge having been mainly an operative one, and independent of the Grand Lodge until 1735. The
"
"
" Orders of
general and special clauses, which closely resemble those of No. 15, are entitled
Antiquity," and
consist of some twenty-one rules, being numbered accordingly.
They were written about a.d. 1730, the oldest
The "Apiirentice Orders" were
minutes being bound up with a copy of the "Constitutions" of a.d. 1723.^
be " In the Lord
1
The motto on the
°
Masonic Magazine, 1879, p. 104.
The Bricklayers and Tylers' Company had a similar motto.
*
»
seal is declared to
is all
our trust.'
Sketch of the Lodge of " Industry," with the By-Laws, 1870.
»
Masonic Sketches, part
1, p.
40.