It isn’t easy to get an interview with the new Grand Secretary. Not because he isn’t willing to talk, but because, since taking over from Michael Higham on 1 June 1998, Jim Daniel has been incredibly busy. However, he is well aware that many masons simply do not know who he is, and at a time of many changes in the government of the Craft, and of severe challenges to the Craft in the public realm, this lack of knowledge is something he is keen to correct.
    One thing becomes immediately clear when speaking to Jim Daniel. He is no éminence grise or mere bureaucrat. He is a man who is passionate about his Masonry and determined to do all he can to serve the Craft in his new role: helping to guide the Craft into the new millennium.
    Born in 1941 and now married for 37 years, Jim and his wife Jenny have two grown up children of 32 and 30 respectively. Educated at Truro School in his native Cornwall, Jim Daniel went to Brasenose College, Oxford in 1960 to read Modern Languages, leaving university after four years for a job in the British Council. Although he has now discovered there was Masonry in his family in the past, he arrived in Oxford with little knowledge of the Craft. What brought him to Freemasonry in the first place?

“It was both my university studies of French and German Enlightenment literature and also sheer youthful curiosity that awoke in me a real interest in the subject of Freemasonry. The subject of Masonry kept coming up in what I was reading, so I discussed the subject with my tutor. Although not a mason himself, he put me in touch with some fellow students who were masons and, as a result, I was initiated in 1961 as a 19 year old undergraduate in the Apollo University Lodge No 357, which has a dispensation to admit men under 21. I was extremely excited by what I had joined. It was in Oxford and later when I visited lodges in my home county of Cornwall and abroad with my job in the British Council and also the Foreign Office that I realised the very real relevance of Freemasonry to men of all walks of life and to the community of which they were a part.
    I also don’t remember it being so secretive as it seems later to have become with some. As a student, I would go back to college, my regalia was seen by all my friends; they knew I had been to lodge. I was perfectly open about my Freemasonry. My tutor knew about it. My drinking colleagues, my rowing colleagues all knew; they weren’t all masons by any means, but it was perfectly normal for me to talk about it and it was known at home and in the British Council. I didn’t find Freemasonry closed. Oddly enough, I found it closed when I began to visit certain Provinces and found that it was treated as something very secretive; the idea that masons were superior because they were secret. I am afraid that that attitude has not done anyone any good at all.”

I asked the Grand Secretary about his career and masonic experiences overseas, while at university in his year abroad and subsequently with the British Council and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

“I took a year off while at Oxford and spent it in the Rhineland, where I was introduced to a lodge in Bonn, practising a version of the Swedish Rite with eleven degrees. The membership was small and advanced in years, and the members were surprised to receive such a young mason in their midst, but they made me very welcome. I remember being particularly impressed by the fact that in those days in Germany, the more senior a mason you were, the simpler the regalia which you wore.
    My first overseas postings with the British Council to Kuwait and Cambodia provided few chances for masonic activity, although each time I came home on leave I returned to Treganna Lodge in Cornwall, which I joined in 1966, and in Oxford I gradually made my way in office in the Royal Arch, Mark, Mariners, Knights Templar and Rose Croix. However, a four year posting to Sri Lanka found me in a masonic paradise: three Craft constitutions working in amity, a KT Preceptory, a Rose Croix Chapter - and, new to me, the Cryptic Degrees. I joined three Craft lodges and was installed in my first chair as Master of St George No 2170 by Sri Kumaranayagam, now the English Constitution District Grand Master of Sri Lanka. I was also later Secretary of a lodge in Venezuala! That was just part of a wonderful and varied period of fellowship that I am still enjoying in my Masonry.”

What did he feel he had gained most from being a Freemason?

“Personally, a great deal of happiness. I have learnt a lot about myself and other people, and I have learnt a great deal which has led me into historical research. It has also enabled me to meet people in overseas contexts which I would not otherwise have had the joy of doing. Freemasonry has been a stabilising influence for me, and an anchor in a very mobile career where I have travelled a great deal. I have always been able to come back to Freemasonry, and particularly my roots in Freemasonry in Oxford, Cornwall and later, London.”

The Meaning of Freemasonry

“Most important are Freemasonry’s ideals and we mustn’t lose sight of those. They are put before us at every ceremony we attend, and we see the impact the teaching has on candidates; we know they also have an impact on us and give us things to strive for. There is this general feeling that in the lodge room, of whatever degree, we are somehow distanced for a moment from real life and can think about what we ought to be doing and how we ought to be behaving and take that away with us. It probably decreases by a few percentage points the moment you go out through the door, but generally speaking in lodge there is a peace and harmony - yet also a challenge and work - which I find totally satisfying.”

So what does he feel that Freemasonry is all about?

“It is clearly about all those great lessons which we are taught through the system of morality which we have built up over the centuries, that plus friendship and fraternal love. I certainly don’t see Masonry as having a little pocket of secret, esoteric knowledge. What knowledge there is consists of knowledge of oneself, as well as of oneself in society and life as a whole. That is something which you can learn in Freemasonry by applying to yourself the teachings of Freemasonry, and taking advantage of the time which Freemasonry gives you: those times during a ceremony when the spine tingles and it means something and you realise, yes, that was a great moment; that was important to me. I see Freemasonry as being able to do that.
    If you ask me ‘is there a spiritual content?’ I would say yes, although it is not religious, nor a religion, although it can complement the great religions. There certainly has to be a spiritual message in Freemasonry, but that message is not the same for everyone. When you are in a masonic ceremony, or thinking in a masonic way, you have certain spiritual opportunities which you as an individual can take advantage of. But you are not told, as you are in a religion, what it means spiritually. You have to experience that for yourself. Freemasonry is not dogmatic. There is no sacerdotal element in Freemasonry which teaches you what you have to believe. It tells you what you ought to do and how you ought to behave, but it doesn’t tell you what you must believe.”

Did he think that our masonic forebears were spiritual people?

“There is obviously a strong element still in Masonry of spiritual movements and experiences from long ago and different cultures. If you were to ask me where Freemasonry comes from, I don’t think there will ever be one answer. Freemasonry, like so many things, has grown out of a vast pool of experience, as there are certain things which attract men of faith and which have done so over the centuries and which have been passed on. There then comes a stage when that particular pool is viewed by other people and they shape it in a way and it stays in that shape for a while. That is what we have done with Freemasonry. But pools change in size and shape, Some of the pool will evaporate, some of it becomes rather muddy. But we have drawn from this well of experience. We are drinking from it now, and I hope that we are also able to realise that what we have has to be kept pure, because if impurities come in, future generations won’t be able to enjoy it as we have.”

Masonic government

It was whilst working in Washington DC’s British Embassy in the 1980s that Jim Daniel was asked to be interviewed for the post of Grand Secretary-General of the Ancient and Accepted Rite. He was surprised but delighted. He was already putting out feelers for a transfer to the Home Civil Service after 25 years on the move. He flew to London, was interviewed and appointed on the spot. He started work as a member of the nine man Supreme Council 33° in June 1989. Nine years to the day after a most successful time which saw the Rite go through unprecedented growth, Jim Daniel took over as Grand Secretary, or in management speak, Chief Executive of the United Grand Lodge of England. For a year or so before taking over, people began to speculate about who would succeed Michael Higham and it was clear that Jim Daniel did not want the appointment. Why, after all had he accepted?

“Two reasons in the end: one was that I felt it was a duty. There was, apparently, at that time no-one else who could be found to do the job as those in charge thought it should be done. And it is also true that in the end I convinced myself that I probably needed another challenge, although I didn’t think so when they first asked me! I was already 57, and I told those doing the headhunting my own description of a Grand Secretary - and it was not me. They needed someone who was considerably younger than me from whom they could get ten years, or someone who could give a very short-term touch to the tiller and do the sorting out which was apparently required. I did know that what I was keen on doing when I had my time as Grand Secretary-General in the Ancient and Accepted Rite was to go on and do a doctorate on some aspects of Freemasonry and Victorian society. I had got myself lined up with potential tutors and so on, and so that was starting to happen. I really wasn’t looking for a major new challenge in the government of Freemasonry. I genuinely didn’t look for the job and I was very hesitant about accepting it. I knew it would put further pressure on me and limit my private life. I could see that happening from the way I am. Every time I was given a new posting as a diplomat, I knew that the initial stages were totally absorbing and one had less and less time for one’s personal life.”

Changes at the Top

As Grand Secretary, Jim Daniel reports most closely to the President of the Board of General Purposes on a day-to-day basis, but also serves the High Rulers including, of course, the Grand Master. He also has to try and be at the centre of a network of Provincial and District rulers. He works mainly through his re-structured system of three central directors: Finance and Administration, Secretariat and the new Director of Communications. There is also London and the Library, both of which have become considerably more autonomous since he was appointed. The Grand Charity now has its own Secretary, rather than the Grand Secretary needing to deal with that as well. Despite some rogue criticisms that he has acquired too much power, in fact, in many ways, the Grand Secretary now controls less.
    As many will know, there have recently been changes in the structure of the Board of General Purposes, with the Board itself becoming smaller, and a consultative body, the General Council, being formed. The Grand Secretary is on the Board, rather than merely reporting to it. I commented to Jim Daniel that some people felt that this could make the Grand Secretary much more powerful and create a less independent Board.

“I have heard that said and the Board and I hope to prove them wrong. I can assure you that there are other models of management which can be equally dangerous, such as where the chief executive is not a member of the board, and when the board and he are not, for whatever reason, seeing eye to eye, and there is not good enough communication between them and they go off in different directions. What we now have is the chief executive and the board of management sitting round the same table with the same information and then reaching, if you like, a cabinet decision. That is a stronger, safer decision-making process for the Craft as a whole.
    I don’t think that the world today will allow us to have the rather laid-back big committee structure which we had in the past, with the slow emergence of an approach to problems. I think it more appropriate today to have a small group of people who really know what the problems are and are able to manage on a day-to-day basis either at Board level or at chief executive level as a team. When I was appointed, this issue was already under discussion. The big questions were: what is the role of the Grand Secretary? What is the role of the Rulers? What is the role of the Board, and how do we make sure we are not all trying to do the same thing with the same degree of inefficiency, but rather to do our own things in a co-ordinated and efficient way.
    The General Council will most likely act as a debating and consultative group on which certain ideas can be tried; the General Council will also bring ideas to the Board of General Purposes. It is a sounding board, which we have not had for a long time. If the General Council has ideas, they will go to the Board and, if appropriate, to Grand Lodge.”

Visiting

Jim Daniel’s days are a series of meetings, conferences, correspondence, phone calls and so on. There is also a fair amount of travel: recently a short trip to Norway for its 250th anniversary and then off to Istanbul and Ghana, as well as visits around the country outside London.

“Visiting is the one area where I have to be very, very careful. I find that if I spend too many nights out on the trot, my energy levels go down so far that I am not able to do my job, so there I have to disappoint not only myself, but particularly, potential hosts. Compared to my predecessors, I do very little evening visiting. I know this can make me seem rather distant. I know people want to see me to chat, to moan, to discuss, but there are thousands of lodges and chapters and I will never be able to get to them all before I retire, so what I prefer to do is not to attend the occasional private lodge since there is not the time to spread myself so thinly, but to pick carefully what I attend. If I can get to an Installed Masters group or a group of masons who have a particular problem, or a Provincial meeting that is not pure ceremonial so I can meet and talk to as many people as possible, I do try and go. I will come to meetings if there is a good reason in the Craft’s interests for me to be there and where I can be of real service.”

I commented that some people have said that he was really quite ruthless in how he dealt with staffing at Freemasons’ Hall. Did it need a lot of restructuring?

“It is dangerous for any organisation to sit still because the world isn’t going to allow it to. Occasionally you have the moment to look and see whether you have the right people for the right tasks at the right time, and I was given that as one of my major tasks with regard to the Craft. I think the Grand Secretary and his staff owe it to the organisation to make the best use of the members’ money, especially with staff costs of more than £2.5m!
    As to the situation now, we are really getting there. The confidence and competence of the staff is greatly improving. We now have staff training; we have regular directors’ meetings; we have outside consultants advising us on how we do our work. Again, it is by no means perfect yet, but I think we are getting better equipped to deal with the Craft today.”

Public Relations

“We have to consider the way we project ourselves as masons in the community and, I hope, achieve a better opinion of Freemasonry in society as a whole. This has had to happen. There I have succeeded my predecessor, Michael Higham, who was very much involved with that role. There is clearly a need to make our membership much more confident about speaking about Masonry, because it is terribly easy for the Craft as a whole, that is, the individual member of the Craft, to say ‘London should do this’; ‘why doesn’t the Grand Secretary do that?’. Yes, I must ensure that headquarters does all that it can, but what we also need is for the majority of our members to know enough about their Masonry to speak confidently about it to the people who know they are good men. The problems of perception that we have will then improve. They will not, however, disappear. There will always be those who are bigoted and unwilling to know what Freemasonry is really like, and unwilling to accept us, but essentially we will get away from too many of the good people out there being critical of Masonry without knowing enough about what Freemasonry really is. That is our biggest challenge.”

Jim Daniel is aware, of course, that there are those in the Craft who say that Grand Lodge has not done enough to hit back at our critics and defend Masonry. There is now a register; there is prejudice against us; jobs may not be safe any more. Is it a fair criticism that not enough is being done and if it isn’t, what are we doing?

“It is, if by ‘Grand Lodge’ you mean all its members. We can certainly all do better, must do better, but I think the Board and the General Secretary’s Office have done a great deal, particularly this year, and it really is a continuation from what was there before. We have learnt from experience. We now have a Communications Department; we have a network of more than 40 information officers around the country. We regularly update them on what is happening at the centre. They tell us what is happening on the local level and what local concerns are. The two new square booklets seem to have gone down well. We get people now who are much more willing to take on the opponents of Freemasonry, to talk to their MPs, to talk to local newspapers, to inform communities of what we are doing and to deny those ridiculous charges made against us.”

What about this register? Are we going to try and get that stopped?

“We are still resisting the introduction of publicly available registers that discriminate against, or single out, Freemasonry, in the best ways that we know. We have taken professional advice, but our gut feeling is that a total confrontation is unlikely to achieve what we would like, and we have had a number of successes.
    The Planning Inspectorate, which said that masons could not even apply to become planning officers, has had to withdraw that statement. The Deputy Prime Minister has had to say that that is not in line with government policy. However, I think that there is a great danger still that individual Freemasons could be discriminated against, and it is going to be very difficult for them to prove that they have been discriminated against just because they are Freemasons. It is unfair, but what we have to do is to prove in our personal lives that we are essentially good people, trying to be useful members of society. But I clearly have a job to do, and I am not afraid of it.
    When a newspaper makes a quite unwarranted statement, I try to get a retraction and an apology. Early on we were able to take one of the national newspapers to the Press Complaints Commission and win. As far as the Armed Forces are concerned, this recent statement was clearly made by someone fairly low down in the order of batting in the Ministry of Defence, essentially suggesting that Freemasonry is not compatible with being a member of the Armed Forces.
    I would urge all the thousands of our members currently, and formerly, in the services who feel insulted by this to bring this to the attention of their commanding officers and former superior officers, to their MPs and to the Ministry, and say how insulting and how unjustified this slur is. We must demand of the Ministry what proof it has for making these assumptions so that gradually here, as elsewhere, those criticisms will be blunted.
    Yes, we have been caught on the back foot in the past, but I am afraid that is the nature of the beast. There are certain people out there who, through ignorance and, I’m afraid, wilful ignorance, are determined to shake organisations like Freemasonry off the tree. But I know that we have to be ready for when they attack us. And we are going to be.”

Should we go on the streets? Should we march, become more aggressive in our campaigning?

“There are days when I would love to lead representatives of all the lodges down Pall Mall in full regalia and show them. It might briefly make those who marched feel good, but I don’t think that that is the best way to improve our public image! What we have to do is to rebut unfair criticisms, and we have to behave in a way so that those people who know us see that Freemasons are, generally speaking, good people. I think that is the best way to win through.
    I am often asked why we don’t mount a legal challenge. The law is changing with the gradual incorporation of the European Human Rights legislation, and there may be a potential, in the future, for what is called a class action, but until then we have to rely on individuals who can make a case that they have been discriminated against as Freemasons. If they are able to do so, we have people who are able to assess their evidence and decide whether this is a case which Grand Lodge can support. We are ready and would help to see it all the way through to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary, once we were advised by our legal advisers that we had a good chance of winning.
    We also have two professional PR advisers - perhaps people don’t know that. We have a PR steering group now and a PR strategy which has been outlined in Grand Lodge. We have to go for the long-term campaign and try and change people’s perceptions. I know how frustrating it is for people. They say, ‘why are we being criticised? Why can’t we stop them having a go at us?’ One of the reasons is that we live in a democratic country and we don’t control the media, and in a sense we are lucky that we live in a country where we can be criticised! However, I just wish that we were in a country where the media were just as interested in the good as they are in the bad.”

Rank

“I have to say that if we could start the Craft again, I would not have a multiplicity of provincial and grand ranks. I fear that at times we are too obsessed by all this. Personally, I think it is getting in the way of Freemasonry. On the other hand, it is quite right that an organisation should seek to reward those who work hard on its behalf. But there are days when I feel that this is ridiculous: spending hours and hours and hours deciding whether someone should be a Past Grand This or a Past Grand That...
    One feels that with certain individuals, all they want is the frequent promotion and the change of regalia. I suspect that that is the sort of person who is probably not getting as much out of Freemasonry as he could. The money could also go somewhere else. I was most impressed by the university lodge in Madras, which I visited, where the brethren did not own their own regalia, and when we all came to the lodge meeting, we picked up exactly the same apron with the lodge’s emblem on the apron, and it was light blue all the way though the lodge - the only distinction being the jewel on the officer’s collar. And I thought, there is uniformity. That does remove the rather petty differences which sometimes people are too keen to point out.”

Your message would be that the ranks are not that important?

“No, they are not important. Not when there is so much else in Freemasonry which really is important. Why get side-tracked?”

Openness

We talked about openness. Jim Daniel made clear his support for open days, non-ceremonial meetings that take place with ladies and non-masons and the importance of discussion by members about the Craft. He welcomed the new Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, of which he was delighted to be a trustee, as a vehicle for such discussion, but also pointed out that it is up to each private lodge to talk about matters of interest.

“There doesn’t need to be a directive from HQ to do that. We are not a minutely organised, Napoleonic organisation - we mustn’t be! - dependent on the centre. Each lodge can take the initiative here. It doesn’t have to be in a formal lodge meeting either. You can have discussion groups. You can say ‘I know so and so, he or she would come and talk to us about such and such’. ‘We have no meeting next month, why not have a dinner party? Get people together over a few drinks and invite some other friends! It doesn’t have to be done in the formal lodge context. Indeed, I sometimes feel that doing it within the formal lodge context can stultify these sorts of discussions, because ranks and the layout of the lodge make discussion difficult. The important thing is that as masons we take our Masonry seriously, and that means thinking about what it all means.”

The Challenge we face

On being asked what he considered was to be the biggest challenge facing the Craft, Jim Daniel responded without hesitation.

“Apathy. Failure to think. Unwillingness to see the logic of an argument.”

By our members?

“Yes. The main danger is in the Craft itself. What can annoy me is when people criticise headquarters for not doing enough, while they, the critics, haven’t done anything at all. The other day in Grand Lodge, I asked how many people had written to their MP or to the local paper, and very, very few hands went up. I want more of our members to become active members and not to pass the buck.

So masons are the problem of Masonry?

“Essentially we are our own problem. We need to think about our Masonry and talk about our Masonry. Show people why you are a mason and what you enjoy. That mustn’t be a secret if we are to flourish.

What about their jobs and the fear it will get back: ‘oh, so and so is a mason’?

“If it is a real problem, then a mason must be careful. But I hope that a mason will never deny his membership. But if it is a real problem, back off; drop out for the time being. Freemasonry is terribly important, but it is not worth your family life or your career. It is up to you to take that decision.”

You must yourself often be asked what it is you do.

I say straight up. The immediate reaction is, ‘what, do they have a chief executive? Oh really? How are you coping with the press these days?’ ‘Oh, my father was a mason.’ ‘Oh, I may not be able to ask you this question...’ And I say, ‘Of course you can. Ask it of me and I will tell you!’ And it happens on planes, on railway stations, all the time. I have had to become more used to it than most members have, but if I can do it - and I am normally a reticent person - then more masons can do it as well.”

The Future

We finished by considering the future. I asked the Grand Secretary for his message for the new century.

“I want masons to be encouraged to enjoy their Freemasonry, to be proud of their Freemasonry, to talk about their Freemasonry; to make sure they are themselves active, do their offices well, select good candidates to come in; protect, defend and educate new members. And we will have a wonderful Craft for hundreds of years to come.
    I hope that we will have a fitter, more visible, better appreciated Craft in the very foreseeable future. That, after all, is partly my job. But I cannot do it in isolation.”