Museum of…
Louise Gray uncovers some of the surprising secrets of masonic history, from Churchill’s apron to a silver-plated bread roll
Where The Library and Museum of Freemasonry is in Freemasons’ Hall, near Covent Garden, central London.
What The museum is in a purpose-designed space within the art deco headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England, the governing body of freemasonry in England and Wales.
Opened The Grand Lodge has had a library and museum since the 1830s, but in the mid-1990s it set up a separate charitable trust to look after the collections on loan from the Grand Lodge. Last year the lodge opened a new gallery and exhibition to mark English freemasonry’s 300th anniversary.
Collection A huge amount of metalwork, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver and portraits. “All the items in our collection have been produced either for use in masonic ceremonies or to commemorate masonic membership,” says Diane Clements, the library and museum’s director. “With the benefit of membership information and masonic lodge records, we can often enrich an object’s story with details of who it was made for or the occasion it marked.” This means that a silver-plated bread roll – an odd item, she acknowledges – comes with a full provenance. The museum also has a representative collection of items and costume relating to non-masonic fraternities such as the Oddfellows or the Free Gardeners. “Their symbolism often gets confused with freemasonry and, because many of these societies no longer exist, we use our collection to help identify this material for other museums and individuals,” Clements says. “Not everyone who wears an apron is a freemason,” she adds, hinting at the regalia the orders wear.
Highlights “One of the items that all visitors seem to relate to is Sir Winston Churchill’s masonic apron,” Clements says. “We also have a suite of three gilded chairs made for George IV when he was Prince of Wales; he became the first Royal Grand Master in 1791. The scale of these chairs is jaw-dropping – the largest of them stands over three metres high. At the other end of the scale is a collection of badges that were made from pieces of an old bus by a mason named John Skipper when he was a prisoner of war in the notorious Changi camp in Singapore in the 1940s.”
Help at hand Approximately 20 staff members manage the running of the museum, library, archive, shop and tours at Freemasons’ Hall.
Budget £1m a year. Admission is free. Additional income comes from shop sales, donations, reproduction fees and money from genealogical enquiries. Some revenue comes from the hall’s reserves, and the Grand Lodge also provides funding.
Sticky moment “Working in a Grade II listed building inevitably means that there are occasional leaks when the old pipes suddenly fail,” Clements says. “That is always a good test for our emergency plan.”
Survival tips The museum tries to take up all opportunities to provide information and lend assistance with loans. “It’s important in a small museum to encourage staff to use discoveries they make about the collections by adding to displays and contributing conference papers,” Clements says. The venue is a member of Museum Mile, which promotes 13 museums in central London to tourists and others who might be interested in visiting.
Visitors Freemasonry is a worldwide organisation – the museum has had visitors from more than 100 countries. Last year it received 23,000 visitors.
Current and future plans “Our 300th birthday has generated lots of opportunities to work with freemasons across the country on exhibitions in their local museums, and we are looking forward to learning more about the local links in those areas,” Clements says. “The exhibition Three Centuries of English Freemasonry has been one of our major contributions to the anniversary.”
Louise Gray is a freelance journalist.
www.freemasonry.london.museum
www.museum-mile.org.uk
What The museum is in a purpose-designed space within the art deco headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England, the governing body of freemasonry in England and Wales.
Opened The Grand Lodge has had a library and museum since the 1830s, but in the mid-1990s it set up a separate charitable trust to look after the collections on loan from the Grand Lodge. Last year the lodge opened a new gallery and exhibition to mark English freemasonry’s 300th anniversary.
Collection A huge amount of metalwork, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver and portraits. “All the items in our collection have been produced either for use in masonic ceremonies or to commemorate masonic membership,” says Diane Clements, the library and museum’s director. “With the benefit of membership information and masonic lodge records, we can often enrich an object’s story with details of who it was made for or the occasion it marked.” This means that a silver-plated bread roll – an odd item, she acknowledges – comes with a full provenance. The museum also has a representative collection of items and costume relating to non-masonic fraternities such as the Oddfellows or the Free Gardeners. “Their symbolism often gets confused with freemasonry and, because many of these societies no longer exist, we use our collection to help identify this material for other museums and individuals,” Clements says. “Not everyone who wears an apron is a freemason,” she adds, hinting at the regalia the orders wear.
Highlights “One of the items that all visitors seem to relate to is Sir Winston Churchill’s masonic apron,” Clements says. “We also have a suite of three gilded chairs made for George IV when he was Prince of Wales; he became the first Royal Grand Master in 1791. The scale of these chairs is jaw-dropping – the largest of them stands over three metres high. At the other end of the scale is a collection of badges that were made from pieces of an old bus by a mason named John Skipper when he was a prisoner of war in the notorious Changi camp in Singapore in the 1940s.”
Help at hand Approximately 20 staff members manage the running of the museum, library, archive, shop and tours at Freemasons’ Hall.
Budget £1m a year. Admission is free. Additional income comes from shop sales, donations, reproduction fees and money from genealogical enquiries. Some revenue comes from the hall’s reserves, and the Grand Lodge also provides funding.
Sticky moment “Working in a Grade II listed building inevitably means that there are occasional leaks when the old pipes suddenly fail,” Clements says. “That is always a good test for our emergency plan.”
Survival tips The museum tries to take up all opportunities to provide information and lend assistance with loans. “It’s important in a small museum to encourage staff to use discoveries they make about the collections by adding to displays and contributing conference papers,” Clements says. The venue is a member of Museum Mile, which promotes 13 museums in central London to tourists and others who might be interested in visiting.
Visitors Freemasonry is a worldwide organisation – the museum has had visitors from more than 100 countries. Last year it received 23,000 visitors.
Current and future plans “Our 300th birthday has generated lots of opportunities to work with freemasons across the country on exhibitions in their local museums, and we are looking forward to learning more about the local links in those areas,” Clements says. “The exhibition Three Centuries of English Freemasonry has been one of our major contributions to the anniversary.”
Louise Gray is a freelance journalist.
www.freemasonry.london.museum
www.museum-mile.org.uk