The closing years of the eighteenth century were enveloped in a climate of fear, with the Tory government of William Pitt the younger suffering the anxiety of revolution, rebellion and riot. The French Revolution in 1789, the subsequent Bloody Terror and the rise of Napoleon had cast a shadow of dread over Great Britain. This had been compounded by rebellion in Ireland in 1798 and frequent riots and protests by the working classes, with groups of factory workers combining to form seemingly ever more aggressive ‘trade unions’. Radical societies such as the ‘United Irishmen’ and the ‘London Corresponding Society’ were singled out as extremist and treasonous.
     The alarm of secret gatherings of men swearing oaths to solidify their united cause created a powerful image of the haunting spectre of Jacobinism, and Freemasonry, both ‘Antient’ and ‘Modern’, was to be associated with these societies in the over fretful minds of the government.
     When the Unlawful Societies Act was passed in July 1799, Freemasonry was unavoidably affected, the Craft having to adapt to what many saw as an oppressive legislation. The original proposal of the Bill would have completely banned Freemasonry along with other secret societies, but the Earl of Moira and other leading Freemasons from both the ‘Moderns’, the ‘Antients’ and the Scottish Grand Lodge encouraged Pitt to amend it by exempting Masonic lodges ‘sitting by the precise authorization of a Grand Lodge and under its direct superintendence’.
     This however would have destroyed the unattached Scottish lodges like Lodge Kilwinning and so the latter, aided by their Scottish MP William Fullerton who knew Pitt, obtained a further alteration on behalf of the lodge. The Bill in its final form stated that exempt from its provisions were ‘all Lodges declaring upon oath before a Justice of the Peace that they were Freemasons’.
     Freemasonry therefore managed to escape the Act by agreeing to submit annual returns of lists of members and lodge meetings which could be inspected by the authorities.
     Masonry would have an element of transparency, but did Freemasons in general feel comfortable with this new declaration? And how did the general public feel about Freemasonry during this atmosphere of political anxiety?
     Answers to these questions can be found at local level, where the individual lodges showed signs of change and transition, especially in the industrial heartland of England.

The Local Level

For example, the ‘Modern’ Lodge of Lights, based in the industrial town of Warrington in the north-west of England, mentioned in its minutes of August 1799, that, in accordance with the recent Act, it would hereafter submit a list of its members every March. The lodge underwent a further transition, reflected in the occupations of the new members.
     It became filled with more working class members, its membership lists filled with a healthy mix of weavers, tin plate workers, painters, plasterers and fustian cutters, occupations which were few and far between before 1799.
     These working men appeared to fill the gap left by a high percentage of gentlemen and professional classes who seemed to distance themselves from the lodge during this sensitive period.
     The lodge minutes also reflect this concern during the first few decades of the nineteenth century and efforts were made to regain the membership of the local gentry. For example, in January of 1800, the Secretary of the lodge wrote, ‘I think there is a prospect of the Lodge being once more respectable as several Gentlemen have expressed their desire to become members.’
     Two prominent gentlemen, James and Charles Turner, did join in the October of that year, James being a Lieutenant in the Lancashire Militia, Charles being a cotton manufacturer, bringing hopes that suspicions about the nature of the lodge could be dispelled.

Suspicions About Freemasonry

These suspicions were very real in Warrington at this time, for example, in 1802, during the funeral of Brother John Johnson, the minutes record ‘It was asserted that the spectacle removed from the greater part of the onlookers and the public those prejudices which have so much prevailed against the Order especially in this place.’ Despite this attempt at winning local hearts and minds, the local people were suspicious of the lodge, and a notable low attendance rate is evident at this time.
     In 1806, the average attendance was only six to nine members, and by 1808, the membership was reduced to seven.
     In January and February of 1809, only four members were present, and by March, there was a desperately low turnout of three. The Lodge of Lights had entered a rocky period after the Unlawful Society Act, and it took a number of decades to recover.
     Another lodge which suffered from low attendance during this period was the Oldham based Lodge of Friendship, which, like the Lodge of Lights, was a ‘Modern’ lodge, and had a notable influx of working men joining, again replacing gentlemen who had distanced themselves.
     Further evidence of working men joining Freemasonry also appears in a lodge in Nantwich, which had the rather loyal name of the King’s Friends Lodge. The lodge was constituted in Chester in 1793, and in 1808, it was noted in the minutes that a large number of the brethren of the lodge were of a more working class standing, with members having occupations such as locksmith, haymaker, ropemaker and skinner.

Re-using Existing Lodge Numbers

Certainly in some industrial towns during the sensitive years after the Unlawful Societies Act, the local gentlemen distanced themselves, and in their absence working men filled the lodges. Indeed, the immediate years following the Act saw fewer ‘Modern’ lodges being founded and the ‘Antient’ lodges re-using existing numbers of lodges which had become defunct rather than issue new warrants.
     This was a result of the ‘Antients’ having imposed emergency measures on themselves after their meeting with Pitt, stating that they would ‘suppress and suspend all masonic meetings, except upon the regular stated lodge meetings’, a declaration which ensured that only lodges current at the time of the Bill would continue to operate, the Grand Lodge refusing to issue new warrants.
     The ‘Antients’ may have done this because of their close relationship with Irish Freemasonry, or perhaps because of the large number of lodges under their jurisdiction within the industrial northwest of England.
     Because Freemasonry adapted in response to the threat of the Unlawful Societies Act, it survived and eventually became stronger. The political radical, Richard Carlile, writing in his Manual of Freemasonry, said of the Act that ‘the legislature being about to deal with other secret societies, would do well now not again to make an exception of Masonry’; Carlile realised that the Craft had escaped a possible period of persecution.
     Freemasonry’s survival testifies that the knee-jerk reaction of politicians can be misjudged and flawed. The revolutionary Freemason, the Marquis de La Fayette, when commemorating the fall of the Bastille, once said: ‘May this great monument, raised to Liberty, serve as a lesson to the oppressor, and an example to the oppressed’, a quote which could as easily refer to Freemasonry which, if not for vigorous political negotiation and adaptability, may not have survived the repressive political action of 1799.