‘Its members are of all sorts…’

the Male Element of Early Co-freemasonry in England

Authors

  • Diane Clements The Library and Museum of Freemasonry

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jrff.v4i1.110

Keywords:

Co-freemasonry, women's rights, Cobb, Besant

Abstract

This paper analyses the ages and occupations of the men who joined co-freemasonry for men and women in the period 1902–1914. In seeking to establish why these men joined this form of freemasonry rather than the much larger, established and highly respectable all male freemasonry, it seeks to establish their beliefs and in particular their attitude to contemporary topics. The profile of the men in co-freemasonry was very similar to the members of all male lodges but what appears to distinguish them was their attitude to women and in particular their belief that freemasonry and the knowledge that it gave should be available to women.

Author Biography

  • Diane Clements, The Library and Museum of Freemasonry

    Diane Clements is Director of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London.

References

Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076). London: 1886-

The Bulletin: a quarterly journal of the British Federation, International Co-Freemasonry. London: 1931-

The Co-Mason (International Co-Masonic Order). London: 1909–1924.

The Gavel (Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Masonry). London: 1909–

The International Freemason: the Journal of the British Federation of International Co-Freemasonry Le Droit Humain. London.

The Speculative Mason (International Co-Masonic Order). London: 1925–1955.

Bellamy J.M. and J. Saville. Dictionary of Labour Biography. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987.

Cowman, K. Women of the Right Spirit: Paid Organisers of the Women’s Social and Political Union 1904–18. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007.

Curry, P. A Confusion of Prophets. London: Collins and Brown, 1992.

Fenn, R.W.D. The Bardon Hill Quarries. Available at: http://www.aggregate.com/PageFiles/11/AboutUs-History-Bardon-Hill-Quarries-1858–1918.pdf

Gilby, F.W.G. Women and Freemasonry: in the Past and in the Present. Birmingham: n.p., 1925.

Nord, P. ‘Republicanism and Utopian Vision: French Freemasonry in the 1860s and 1870s’, The Journal of Modern History 63(2).

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Phillips, M. The Ascent of Women: A History of the Suffragette Movement. London: Abacus, 2003.

Pilcher-Dayton, A. The Open Door: The History of the Order of Women Freemasons 1908–2008. London: Order of Women Freemasons, 2008.

Tillett, G. The Elder Brother: a Biography of Charles Webster Leadbetter. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1982.

Published

2014-12-30

How to Cite

Clements, D. (2014). ‘Its members are of all sorts…’: the Male Element of Early Co-freemasonry in England. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, 4(1-2), 110–145. https://doi.org/10.1558/jrff.v4i1.110