John Wilkes is primarily remembered today as a notorious wit and rascal, and as the prime mover in a popular radical movement that emerged in England during the early reign of King George III. Yet few people know that Wilkes was also a Freemason. And even fewer are aware he was actually initiated in prison at a time of great social and political unrest.
    Born in London, well educated and married to a rich Buckinghamshire heiress, Wilkes fraternised with many associations during his somewhat turbulent career, and he was a more than willing participant in the bawdy revelries that took place in Buckinghamshire’s West Wycombe Park (popularly known as the Hell-Fire Club). But aside from all the tomfoolery, Wilkes had a serious side and he was also politically ambitious.
    In 1757 he was elected MP for Aylesbury, but after failing to win the political advancement he so craved, he began to pen anti-government polemics in the Whig journal, The Monitor, accusing the authorities of curtailing traditional British freedoms. It did not take long for the government to react, and in November 1762 a warrant was issued for all those involved in the production of the journal, including the city attorney Arthur Beardmore and the Rev. John Entick. Undeterred, Wilkes continued to lambaste the government in The North Briton, and for a time his risqué polemics were tolerated, but when he published a vitriolic attack in issue number 45 of the journal, they pounced.
    Branded a ‘seditious libel’, the authorities promptly arrested forty-nine people associated with the journal’s publication, including Wilkes himself.
    However, the government was soon forced into an embarrassing climb-down, as a sympathetic Whig judge ruled their detention ‘illegal’ and invoked Habeas Corpus.

FREEMASONRY

Interestingly, not only were Beardmore and Entick both Freemasons, but they were also Grand Officers of the Premier Grand Lodge. Indeed, the Rev. John Entick published several masonic tomes, including three revised editions of Anderson’s masonic constitutions (1756, 1767, and 1776). Furthermore, in 1765, when Arthur Beardmore gave the conventional City address, a print went on sale which depicted him patriotically showing his son the Magna Carta, alongside several prominent masonic symbols.
    Eventually the authorities got the upper hand when a cache of ‘obscene’ and ‘seditious’ writings were discovered at Wilkes’ home, and he was obliged to decamp to France. Wilkes returned to England in the autumn of 1767 and immediately sought election as MP for the City of London. Although he failed in this attempt, he was soon thereafter returned for the seat of Middlesex. News of his victory was greeted with a good deal of riotous behaviour and for two days the city was left to the mercy of a drunken rabble. At first the authorities tried to ignore the situation, but eventually the chaos had become intolerable and Wilkes was sentenced to twenty-two months in the King’s Bench prison.

IMPRISONMENT

However, his incarceration only seemed to inflame the situation, and on 10 March 1768 huge crowds chanting ‘Wilkes and Liberty’ gathered south of the Thames on St. George’s Fields in the environs of the gaol.
    By mid-afternoon the crowd had swelled to an estimated twenty thousand, and as the temperature of the throng reached boiling point, the guards opened fire, killing six and wounding fifteen.
    The event, which became known as the St. George’s Fields massacre, did little to quell the unrest and it only seemed to stir the sentiments of the crowd, and, as a result, the government attempted to diffuse the situation by reversing Wilkes’s outlawry.
    Yet, despite the concession, events surrounding Wilkes’ struggle now seemed to have gained a momentum all their own, and the mantra of the disaffected was heard far beyond England’s shores. In July 1768 the Boston based ‘Sons of Liberty’ sent Wilkes congratulations on the result of his election and encouraged him in his brave struggle in the cause of freedom; interestingly, the letter was co-signed by Joseph Warren, a prominent American Freemason.
    Wilkes replied that he would make the interests of America ‘the study of his life’ and he commiserated with them on the dispatch of British troops to Boston. He then published a letter in the St. James’ Chronicle which virtually accused the government of premeditating ‘the St. George’s Fields massacre’. The government’s reaction was swift, and on 3 February 1769 Wilkes was expelled from Parliament. News of his expulsion was met with riots across the capital and whole houses were pulled down in Drury Lane before angry crowds were dispersed by the guards.

RE-ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT

Wilkes, meanwhile, remained steadfast and sought re-election at Brentford. On the morning of 16 February a large crowd defied a torrential downpour and gathered in front of the toll booth. As no-one stood against him the ballot proved in his favour and he was once again returned to Parliament.
    That night, vast torch-carrying crowds accompanied by men on horseback, beating drums and playing French horns, marched past the King’s Bench prison.
    While inside, Wilkes threw a dinner party for his supporters and the company feasted on a swan brought in by an admirer.
    But despite the strength of feeling, on 17 February Wilkes was expelled from Parliament once more. His supporters were outraged and they defiantly resolved to return him to Parliament as often as the Commons expelled him.
    Violent disturbances took place all over London and according to several contemporary accounts the country appeared to be ‘on the verge of revolution’.
    Intriguingly, the very next day, the Jerusalem Lodge, No. 44 met in a specially held meeting and agreed to make John Wilkes and his attorney, George Bellas, members ‘of this lodge’.
    And Jerusalem was not the only lodge to support the popular candidate, as the Brethren of the Strong Man Lodge, No. 45 had, two days earlier, ‘unanimously’ agreed to send Wilkes the sum of ten pounds – a resolution that was duly reported in The Lloyd’s Evening Post.
    In fact, Wilkes was in dire need of financial support, and within a week The Society for the Support of the Bill of Rights had been formed in order to settle his debts, although its remit soon widened to ‘maintain and defend the legal Constitutional Liberty of the subject’.
    Donations began to flood in from all over the country and even from overseas. His Bostonian supporters sent sizeable gifts and the Assembly of South Carolina gifted him the magnificent sum of £1500. Indeed, the day after the Society’s formation, Wilkes received another letter from the American ‘Sons of Liberty’, this time written by one William Palfrey who, once again, firmly pledged their support, declaring, ‘The fate of Wilkes and America must stand or fall together.’ Significantly, historians have overlooked the fact that Palfrey was not only the Secretary of the Sons of Liberty at the time, but he was also the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and later became Paymaster General of the American forces during the War of Independence, as well as aide to George Washington – another dedicated Freemason.

A PRISON INITIATION

On 3 March 1769, the Brethren of Jerusalem Lodge assembled at their usual meeting place – the Jerusalem Tavern in St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell.
    From there a deputation of the lodge proceeded to the King’s Bench prison where, according to the minutes, they made John Wilkes and two other key members of the Society for the Support of the Bill of Rights, George Bellas and John Churchill, ‘master masons’.
    The minutes also recorded that ‘this lodge was regularly opened in due form by virtue of a dispensation under the hand and seal of Charles Dillon, Deputy Grand Master, bearing the date 3rd February 1769, by virtue whereof and in the name of Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, G...M... of Masons’.
    Controversially, 3 February was the very same day that Wilkes had first been expelled from Parliament; therefore when news of his initiation appeared in the press, it must have greatly embarrassed Grand Lodge.
    Consequently, on 10 March they issued a press statement refuting the story and vehemently denied that a dispensation had been granted. However, their denial merely elicited an indignant response from Thomas Dobsen, the Master of Jerusalem Lodge, which was carried in The Lloyd’s Evening Post. In his statement, Dobsen not only affirmed that the initiation had taken place, but, he stressed, the ‘Dispensation may be seen by any mason at Jerusalem Lodge, No. 44, on a lodge night’.
    If Thomas Dobsen was telling the truth, the nomenclature of the Premier Grand Lodge clearly had a reason to support the popular candidate. Indeed, evidence contained in one of Wilkes’s surviving address books, suggests that Wilkes knew the Deputy Grand Master, as it reads: ‘Hon. Mr Dillon’, of ‘Hertford Street, Mayfair’; the book also contains several addresses of the members of the Jerusalem Lodge.
    Furthermore, in a letter written soon after his alleged initiation, George Bellas began by addressing Wilkes as ‘Dear Brother’.
    Whatever lay behind these claims and counter-claims, there appears to be little evidence of Wilkes’s connection with Freemasonry after this time, even though he continued his parliamentary struggle.
    Nevertheless, for historians this whole episode does provide a fascinating insight into the relationship between Freemasonry and the wider society during the eighteenth century.