An historic event took place recently with the public launch of the University of Sheffield's Centre for Research into Freemasonry, the first such centre to be opened by a British university.
    Although freemasonry began in Britain, and is one of the cultural phenomena of British life that has had the biggest international impact, it has been largely neglected by professional scholars.
    This contrasts with the position in Europe and America, where the historical, literary and artistic heritage of freemasonry has for a long time been subject to close scholarly scrutiny, and is very much part of the academic mainstream.
    The curious distortions produced by the neglect in Britain of freemasonry as an academic subject can be seen by looking at the poor coverage of freemasonry in one major historical reference work, the Victoria History of the Counties of England (VCH).
    The VCH, as it is popularly known, has been in progress since 1900. Its aim is to produce an authoritative, fully referenced history of every city, town and village in England. So far, it has published more than 220 volumes, and covers a large part of England.
    The VCH lovingly lists the establishment of local friendly societies, branches of the Women's Institute, and even tennis clubs. However, its coverage of the establishment of masonic lodges in particular places is extremely patchy. Freemasonry has always been an important component of local social life; but for the VCH, the great encyclopaedia of English local history, it is as if freemasonry barely existed.
    John Lane's wonderful compendium, Masonic Records, which lists all lodges warranted up to 1894, and which would have enabled VCH researchers readily to establish the early history of freemasonry in a particular town, is not cited anywhere in the VCH.
    The aim of the new Centre for Research into Freemasonry at Sheffield is to change this situation, and make professional scholars more aware of the masonic dimension to our shared heritage. The new Centre will undertake and promote objective scholarly research into all areas of the historical, social and cultural impact of freemasonry.
    It will provide a focus for masonic research, and a bridge between masonic and non-masonic scholars. The Centre will seek to develop scholarly tools and resource guides to enable scholars more easily to investigate issues associated with freemasonry. Universities are currently stressing the importance of collaboration between scholars in different fields, and freemasonry, with its rich connections with history, literature and the arts, provides a wonderful focus for such interdisciplinary work.
    One of the reasons why the history of freemasonry in Britain tends to be neglected is the lack of good critical bibliographies and guides to research resources that are easily accessible to non-masonic scholars. The Centre will develop such bibliographies and guides to research materials, and will make them freely available through its web site.
    The Centre will provide a lecture and seminar programme at Sheffield, with one public lecture or half-day seminar a month. An example is a recent seminar to preview the new British Library CD-ROM of Randle Holme's 1688 book Academy of Armoury, which contains a famous early reference to freemasonry. The Centre plans a major international conference on the history of freemasonry during 2002.
    The Centre will actively contribute to academic conferences and seminars elsewhere. I have already spoken on the history of freemasonry at the major Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative conference at the British Library last July, and at the Local History On-line conference at the University of London back in December.
    The Centre hopes to start, in collaboration with a major academic press during either late 2001 or early 2002, a series of monograph publications on the historical and cultural impact of freemasonry.
    The Centre is based in the University of Sheffield's Humanities Research Institute (HRI), one of the leading centres in Britain for humanities computing. The Centre, together with the HRI, will produce a series of CDs making available key documents and books on the history of freemasonry. The first CD planned is an electronic facsimile of various manuscripts of the Old Charges.
    The Centre is organising a small exhibition on Freemasonry and its Connections in the University of Sheffield library during early 2001, and is hoping to organise further scholarly exhibitions elsewhere.
    Above all, the Centre will seek to develop major academic research projects on the history of freemasonry, for which the Centre will seek funding from major academic research bodies such as the Arts and Humanities Research Board and the Economic and Social Science Research Council.
    The Centre welcomes and encourages applications from suitably qualified candidates for postgraduate study leading to M.Phil or Ph.D. in areas connected with the historical, social and cultural impact of freemasonry. Such applications will need to be made by completing the University's normal application forms and will then be assessed by the relevant academic department, where successful students will then be based.
    Funding for this exciting new initiative has been provided for three years by the United Grand Lodge of England and the Province of Yorkshire (West Riding). The funding is administered by a trust that includes representatives of both freemasons and the University of Sheffield, as well as independent members.
    While United Grand Lodge and West Riding Province have provided funding for the new Centre, they will have, at their own insistence, no involvement in appointment to the Chair or in the research agenda of the Centre.

Andrew Prescott was for 20 years a curator in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library, and has been seconded from the British Library for three years to set up the new Centre. He is well known as a medieval historian and as an expert in the application of digital technologies to humanities research. For latest information on the Centre, look at its web site (www.shef.ac.uk/~hri), e-mail Andrew Prescott: a.prescott@shef.ac.uk or write to him at the Centre for Research into Freemasonry, Humanities Research Institute, Floor 14, Arts Tower, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN.