Edinburgh is a beautiful City and Grand Lodge is situated in its heart. The bus I took to get to the George Street address let me down at the stop named Freemasons' Hall; festive decorations around the Street had one of the Christmas trees highlighted Grand Lodge of Scotland. This overt approach to freemasonry symbolised the distinct differences between our Grand Lodges.
    The Grand Lodge building on four floors has the ground floor dedicated to the Grand Temple. On the third floor are the Museum and Library and Robert Cooper's impressive office. Robert, curator and effective librarian (a Grand Librarian as a Grand Lodge Officer is appointed annually), is an affable and jovial man, with vast knowledge and who takes great pride in the Masonic heritage of Scotland. He was at pains to explain his view of the striking difference between Scottish and English Freemasonry: stone masons (inadequately, according to Robert, referred to as operatives) met in their lodges, after a hard days work, to relax and enjoy the festive board in the comfort of informal surroundings. To these convivial evenings non-masons or Freemasons (inadequately, speculative) were welcomed and joined the stonemasons in their Lodges. Thus in Scotland available evidence points to a natural progression of stone mason to Freemason whereas in England the Freemason, Robert emphasises, was probably an 'invented' concept.
    Whilst the Grand Lodge of Scotland was consecrated in 1736, Freemasonry was in evidence in the country a century before. The very title of the ruler of the Craft, Grand Master Mason was a direct manifestation of the link to stone masons and the impressive collection of mauls a further reminder.
    Unlike England, the gavel is a nonexistent implement in Scottish Lodges who use the maul, the working mason's tool, exclusively. On display is the large decorative symbolic maul especially made for use at the consecration of the Grand Lodge in 1736. It was also used by King George VI, Grand Master Mason, at the 200th anniversary celebrations in 1936.
    Amongst the dozen or more mauls in the collection, one is of wood from a ship of the Spanish Armada; another is that used by Robert Burns. It belonged to the St Andrews Lodge, No. 179, Dumfries, where Burns was Senior Warden at the time of his death in 1796. His signature approving the bylaws of the Lodge appears in the Lodge minute book. The mauls are also replicated in an impressive collection of whisky flasks made of pottery with elaborate Masonic designs embedded into the surface.
    Robert Burns, rightly honoured as a great poet and Freemason, was born in 1759 and initiated in 1781 into St David's Lodge. The Museum is in possession of the original painting of his inauguration as Poet Laureate of Canongate Kilwinning Lodge, No. 2, Edinburgh, in 1787. It was painted by Stewart Watson in 1787 and presented to the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1863 by James Burnes, a distant relative.
    The painting has been the subject of controversy on two counts: firstly it is dated as an event that took place on 1st March, whereas the minutes of Canongate Kilwinning Lodge do not show Burns to have been present in the Lodge on that date. Secondly many of the individuals depicted in the painting, all of whom have been definitely identified, were already dead by 1787. Both these apparent errors are attributed to artistic licence.
    At the end of the spacious Long Gallery are two Scottish long case clocks. The first of these is made by G & W MacGill in Paisley and is decorated to order, as was the custom. Clocks were sold with blank faces and the customer's designs were then drawn onto the façade. In this instance two masons in regalia stand arm in arm under a Royal Archway representing brotherly love and the four corners below depict Scotland with the thistle and St Andrew, England with the Union Jack, Ireland with a harp and Wales with a goat and leek. Several other masonic emblems are dispersed in the design. This beautifully restored clock dates to c.1840.
    On the other side is an earlier clock of c.1820 by the Scottish makers Thomas Brydon of Brechin. The design includes, appropriately, a stone mason at work. Unusually the face has a half-minute panel. The third clock in the Hall was made in Linlithgo by Alex Nimmo and has an intricate brass and silver plate face. A more unusual and slightly smaller clock in the annex room completes the impressive collection. These were presented to Grand Lodge by private masons in whose homes the clocks would have seen practical use over the centuries.
    Many of the differences between Scotland and England are to be found in the furnishings and dress of the Lodge and its members. There are several Scottish Lodge Officers not identifiable in England. A good instance is the Lodge Treasurer who was substituted by a Box Master in charge of a large and heavy wooden box in which the Lodge funds and other treasures were kept. An outstanding example dated 1737 on display belonged to the Haughfoot Lodge (independent of Grand Lodge and so unnumbered) and the three keyholes indicate that no single member of the Lodge could have access to the contents. Another office is that of Substitute Master of the Lodge. He will substitute for any absent Lodge office-bearer. The jewel by which this office is identified is identical to that of the Master but for the symbol of the sun in the centre of the Master's jewel. Excellent examples of this and many other officers' collar jewels dating back to the start of the eighteenth century are on display in the Long Gallery. The sun symbol in the centre of the various Master's jewels is often made of a range of precious stones and radiate in the sunlight that comes through the large windows. All the jewels have Scottish hallmarks. There is evidence of a square used as a Master's jewel in a stonemasons' lodge in 1707. The same display case has a range of Prisoner of War jewels handcrafted and mounted in watchcases dating to the Seven-Year War of 1756 and the later Napoleonic Wars. The Museum also boasts one of the most comprehensive collections of Scottish Mark Masons' Tokens - in excess of four thousand different examples ranging from the early nineteenth century.
    To the side are two contrasting collars, one is an elaborate heavy silver chain collar, hand decorated on each of the plates, which was worn by the Grand Master Mason until 1936. The present collar, first worn by King George VI at the 200th anniversary of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, replaced it. The other is a simple green cloth collar with a gold border and central emblem which was last worn in 1839.
    The panel above the jewels displays Masonic glass. It includes decanters, a peace glass made in 1918, all kind of drinking vessels ranging from long fluted 18th century pieces to a good collection of the heavy based firing glasses (which, incidentally, are rarely used in Scotland). The majority of these are not of Scottish manufacture. One set of sherry glasses is of Scottish make: a complete set of twelve glasses was presented by Grand Lodge to Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) in December 1924. He, in turn, gave six of the glasses to Baron Kilmarnock who had hosted him during his visit and these were later presented to the Museum.
    A single day's visit was not sufficient to cover the Museum's treasures. We will cover further aspects in the next article in this series.
    The Museum at 96 George Street is open to the general public on weekdays from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm; on Saturday by special arrangement. Contact Robert Cooper through the Grand Lodge offices at 0131 225 5304.

THE FREE GARDENERS

The Regalia of the Free Gardeners includes a velvet apron with four letters representing the four rivers that flow through the Garden of Eden: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates. The symbols and letters of the password of the order are also embroidered within an interlaced triangle referring to Adam, Solomon, Noah and the Olive symbol in the centre. The All Seeing Eye radiates from the rounded flap. Very recently documentation has come to light showing that the Free Gardeners practised Orders beyond their simple Craft degrees, similar in essence to the Royal Arch and other Orders within Freemasonry.

WORKING MEN'S ORDERS

Displayed next to each other are the aprons of four Working-Men's Orders, not exclusively Scottish in origin, from the first half of the nineteenth century. The first is of The Order of Freewrights, the Carpenters, with a white background and gold montage of the square overlapping the compasses. The apron of The Freepotters depicts what appear to be either kilns or brick works and have added masonic symbols. The third is of The Freeshipwrights, depicting an anchor and the all Seeing Eye with two squares in a mirror image. The last, The Independent United Order of Mechanics, is most overtly Scottish depicting St Andrew with tartan colours and a Pascal lamb on the left of the ark of covenant. That of The Hammermen shows a large hand holding a hammer above an anvil. These several societies arose in imitation of Freemasonry, as the social and mutual aid clubs of actual working trade organisations.