Rough Mason, Mason, Freemason, Accepted Mason - Oscar Patterson III 2017

The London Masons’ Company

Mason’s Mark

Modern Freemasonry, as an organization, is generally dated from 1717 and the creation of the Grand Lodge of England in London. Yet the legends associated with the Masons’ Fraternity in London suggest an existence from at least 1202, but those guilds were not the lineal predecessors of the London Company. English masons were not as well organized as other societies until the middle of the fifteenth century. There were strong local guilds with significant religious and social activity, but it was not until 1481 that the London Company was recognized by the Crown and granted a livery. The Constitution of 1481 notes that the company was chartered to the fellowship of the Freemasons enfranchised in City of London. That charter required members to attend mass officially once every two years and to hold an extravagant dinner with their wives invited. Membership into the company was granted in one of four ways: (1) seven-year apprenticeship; (2) the rule of patrimony which allowed sons and daughters “freedom of the company” even if not engaged in the craft; (3) purchase of freedom of the company for non-operative people; and (4) transfer from one guild to another.^[1] This charter is also listed in The Inventory of Constitutions from the mayoralty of John Brown, City of London, in 1481.

The Reformation during the sixteenth century decreased the power of the companies as the Crown took control of their possessions, but the various guilds continued their social, charitable, and industry/trade regulation functions. The Masons’ Company was among the most affected and by the middle of the seventeenth century had changed its name from ’The Company of Freemasons of London” to “The Company of London Masons.” The first Hall of the Worshipful Company of Masons of the City of London was built about 1463 in the Ward of Bassishaw (prior to receiving a Crown Charter) and destroyed by fire but rebuilt on the same site in 1668. Speculative Masons continued to use the structure until it was sold in 1865.

In seventeenth century London, the rebuilding of the city after the Great Fire was governed primarily by two statutes passed in 1666 and a third in 1670. The purpose of these acts was to prevent in the future the problems that contributed to the conflagration and to insure for the city uniformity and gracefulness in building as well as to provide for properly arranged streets and the use of brick or stone rather and the more common wood and dab. The Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council were given the authority to select surveyors to ensure that the regulations were followed and to require that structures be erected within a stipulated time. The regulations also fixed the prices of materials and set wages for workers. Finally, the various Acts provided a source of revenue for the improvement of the city with a sizeable portion going to the completion of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

In the seventeenth century, the London Masons’ Company was still performing the traditional tasks associated with the old mistery or craft guild to include search for false work and preservation of the trade’s monopoly in the city. The practice of trade monopoly was fourfold: (1) prevent or restrain foreign masons; (2) discourage masons from functioning outside the company (obtaining their freedom); (3) challenge any impostor who appeared to hinder a mason’s work; and (4) stop mason’s work from being done by men from other guilds or trades. The most acute of the problems seems to have been the question of foreign masons. Foreign did not mean of another nationality but rather simply from another town or county—someone outside the jurisdiction. The first ordinance in 1481 essentially forbid foreign masons from working in the city, but by 1521 that stance had softened and foreign masons were allowed but not as masters and only after having paid three pence quarterly to the common box. Foreign masons did work in the city, however, and in searches between 1640 and 1645 money was regularly received from these foreigners and aliens.

The reconstruction of the City that followed the Great Fire in 1666 markedly changed the situation. To facilitate rebuilding, Parliament passed legislation that allowed masons, bricklayers, carpenters, and other construction trades to work in the city “until the rebuilding was completed and further, that if they worked at such rebuilding for seven years, they were to enjoy the same liberty as freemen.”^[2]

THE COMPANY

The London Masons’ Company was the first official unified guild of operative masons in England. Its formation was the result of an original dispute between the Hewers (stone cutters) and the Layers and Setters in 1356. The contenders went before the city’s Council which ruled that the Company would be created to supervise work in the city and to create ordinances —a Code of 10 Rules—to govern the trade. The Company was formally incorporated and chartered by the city in 1481 and remained purely operative in nature until the mid-seventeenth century, but most records for the period prior to 1620 have been lost. The surviving records do indicate that by that timeplas there existed within the guild an inner working or acception which made masons.”

Medieval masonry continued to exist in some forms even after the great age of castle and cathedral building ended. Masons remained in their lodges and in London, the Masons’ Company evolved to meet the demands of changing political, religious, and economic conditions. As noted above, a prime concern of the Company was foreign masons meaning anyone from outside the City, but there is evidence in the Company’s records that prominent foreign masons were readily accepted into the craft. Of equal concern was how to deal with ex-apprentices who had not received their freedom as well as methods for discouraging unqualified masons from obtaining their freedom or, in modern terminology, their license to practice. In addition, the Company was faced with developing clear rules for the inclusion of non-operative masons into the guild. A 1678 list of masons working in London indicates that eight were members of the Haberdashers Company; three were Joiners; two were Clothworkers; and one each were Stationers, Fishmongers, Vinters, Barger/Surgeons, Weavers, and Tallow Chandlers.

It was not uncommon for the Company to clash with other guilds such as Plasterers, Joiners, and Carpenters to preserve its trade monopoly with most of the focus seemingly being on plasterers who were accused of covering rotten or ill-laid stone work with plaster to deceive the public. Other recorded disputes were with carvers and carpenters who often undertook work originally assigned to masons. This led the Company to establish strong rules regarding false work as well as guidelines for proper search. These rules indicate that in the City there were at least six classes of masons: shopkeepers, stone merchants, overseers, contractors, journeymen, and apprentices.

Shopkeepers were yeomen. They kept shop and received money from persons on account as well as made search for irregular goods and work. They were primarily administrators who had little or no operative background though some of these shopkeepers may have previously engaged in carving and tomb making. Stone merchants were exactly as described; they provided the raw material necessary for construction. Among the most popular products were black and white Nicholas Stone, Purbeck marble, Portland Stone, Taynton Stone, and Portland pavers. Based upon existing records, Portland stone was more useful that Purbeck and by 1663 required a special license to quarry. This type of stone was transported into the city in large quantity. Between 1674 and 1700 more than fifty thousand tons of Portland was moved into London along with more than twenty-five thousand tons of other types of stone with the cost of freight or cartage equaling that of the stone itself.

Overseers were responsible under the contractor for the work at the site. This title could refer to a contractor’s partner or to a salaried supervisor at a site such as London Bridge. Some overseers also functioned as stone merchants, or at least as middle-men between the contractor and the quarryman. Contractors were prevalent throughout the period since most stone work was done on a contract basis from the construction of new buildings to the repair of ancient buildings such as Old St. Paul’s. The direct labor system then in favor worked well with the contract system enabling the employer to hire only those workers needed at any given time on the site thus saving costs and improving profits. At St. Paul’s Cathedral, for example, there are at least fourteen different contractors listed on the rolls and at Windsor, Winchester, Whitehall, Hampton Court, and Kensington Palaces at least twelve different contractors are listed. At the parish, municipal, and, even, personal level, contractors were prevalent.

Journeymen dressed and laid the stones, but, because of their place in the hierarchy, we know little about them. They were hired by the day or piece, and there was little or no job security. These were the traveling men of the period. Some are listed on the rolls as masons and seemed to have performed the tasks assigned to that trade, but lack of information about their backgrounds prevent further understanding of their training or expertise. The number of apprentices listed on the rolls in London suggests that the apprenticeship system was strong in the London Company, but the records also show that only about forty-five percent of the apprentices ever “took their freedom” or advanced to journeymen. A review of the records of those apprentices traceable through the rolls at Masons’ Hall indicates that by the middle of the seventeenth century, if not earlier, the practice of utilizing an apprentice only in the presence of his master was no longer enforced.

The various masons’ companies, to include the one in London, provided the rules and history which became indispensable to modern Freemasonry. Through these companies, the traditions of the craft were maintained even though, as Plott notes, men who were not directly association with the operative craft were readily admitted into the Society. And while the evidence is far from conclusive—the very nature of Craft trade secrecy worked against the preservation of records—by the mid-seventeenth century, Masonry was satisfactorily transitioning from operative to speculative, from freemasons to accepted masons. Men who were not operative masons had been made part of the Craft for centuries and by the late 1590s their number appears to have become dominant. By the mid-seventeenth century, accepted masons were outnumbering operative masons with men like Elias Ashmole being made a Mason in 1646 in Staffordshire. The operative mason had learned how to hue, square, mold-stone, lay a level, and raise a perpendicular; the speculative mason assigned symbolic meaning to these operative terms and tools, but secrecy was still directly associated with the Craft. The Fraternity and its excellent tenets would survive to be celebrated and loved by future generations.

NOTES

1.

Edward Condor, Jr. Records of the Hole Crafte and Fellowship of Masons: With a Chronicle of the History of the Worshipful Company of Masons of the City of London; Collected from Official Records in the Possession of the Company, the Manuscripts in the British Museum, the Public Record Office, the Guildhall Library, Etc. Et. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Company, 1894, various pages.

2.

Douglas Knoop & G.P.Jones. The London Masons in the Seventeenth Century. (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1935), p. 10.