The Origins of Freemasonry and the Invention of Tradition
of 1717 . 62 He had been initiated at the Goose and Gridiron and was encouraged by Christopher Wren to revive masonry and arranged the meetings which led to the formation of Grand Lodge . Oliver claimed that Desaguliers and Anderson insisted that the ritual at that time should be explicitly Christian . Oliver alleges that at that time ‘ the Book of Common Prayer , according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England , was an established lodge book , as it was considered to contain all the moral principles of the order ’. 63 What the Scottish presbyterian James Anderson would have made of such a claim , it is difficult to imagine — it is of course all complete invention by Oliver .
The myth of 1717 was a creation of the Victorian period and Oliver was one of the major contributors to its development . You will remember how Hobsbawm described the rise of nationalism and imperialism as the generator of invented traditions , and Oliver epitomises this . He was keen to stress the Christian dimension to freemasonry so that freemasonry could provide a social underpinning to the British Empire . On the occasion of a presentation of an engraved silver cup and service of plate as a masonic offering to Oliver at Lincoln in June 1844 , Robert Goodacre junior , a journalist , prominent freema- son and Oddfellow and member of the Lincoln Board of Guardians , 64 made the imperial and evangelical implications of Oliver ' s work explicit , noting that the contributors to the fund came from all over the British Empire and expressing enthusiasm that a lodge had recently been established for Indians in India . Goodacre saw ' the introduction of Freemasonry amongst our native fellow subjects of India as but the precursor to that better intercourse which shall terminate in their civilization , and , I trust I am not out of order when I add , their Christianization '. 65 For Oliver , 1717 was an act of Christian freemasonry , led by clergymen , and an expression of English moral primacy . While Oliver saw the roots of freemasonry reaching back millennia , it was England that had brought the light of masonry to the modern world .
The influence of clergymen like Oliver on English freemasonry horrified those exiled French freemasons who arrived in Britain after 1848 and the coup of Louis Napoleon in 1851 . 66 They loudly criticised English freemasonry through émigré publications like La Chaîne d ’ Union . Such criticisms encouraged a reaction against Oliver and earlier writers such as Preston , and the researchers associated with the creation of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in
The publication of a volume under this title was announced in the Public Advertiser of 26 June and 8 July 1754 , but no copy has so far been traced .
62 Revelations of a Square , pp . 1-20 . 63 Revelations of a Square , p . 16 .
64 John T . Godfrey , Manuscripts relating to the County of Nottingham in the Possession of Mr James Ward of Nottingham ( London : Henry Southeran , 1900 ), p . 91 .
65 Freemasons ' Quarterly Review , 30 June 1844 , p . 129 . 66 Prescott , ' Cause of Humanity ', pp . 28-39 .
17