Who are the FREEMASONS

Freemasonry or Masonry consists of
fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local fraternities of
stonemasons , which from the end of the fourteenth century regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients. The degrees of freemasonry retain the three grades of medieval craft guilds, those of Apprentice ,
Journeyman or fellow (now called Fellowcraft), and Master Mason. The candidate of these three degrees is progressively taught the meanings of the symbols of Freemasonry, and entrusted with grips, signs and words to signify to other members that he has been so initiated. The initiations are part allegorical morality play and part lecture. The three degrees are offered by Craft (or Blue Lodge) Freemasonry. Members of these organisations are known as
Freemasons or Masons. There are additional degrees, which vary with locality and jurisdiction, and are usually administered by their own bodies (separate from those who administer the craft degrees).

WHAT HAPPENS INSIDE A MASONIC LODGE

Routine Masonic lodge meetings are broadly similar to a rotary club or parish council - a register is called, minutes are taken, and updates on charitable and social events are shared and discussed.

However, it is the society’s mysterious ceremonies that have captured the public imagination for centuries.

Members are initiated as an “entered apprentice”, eventually passing to “Fellowcraft”, before finally acquiring the experience and knowledge of the society’s dogma and rituals to be named a “Master Mason”.

According to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, a “series of ritual dramas” is used to teach members the precepts of freemasonry, which include an allegorical founding myth linking the order to the biblical Great Temple.

WHO ARE THE FAMOUS FREEMASONS

According to Business Insider, 14 of the 45 US presidents have been Freemasons. These included the country’s first president, George Washington, as well as James Munroe, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Gerald Ford.

Founding father Benjamin Franklin also graduated to grand master and edited and published the first book of American Masonry in 1734.

Britain has also had its fair share of masonic leaders, namely former prime ministers George Canning and Sir Winston Churchill. King Edward VII was also a well known Freemason.

Other famous members include British authors Rudyard Kipling and Oscar Wilde, the Hollywood actor John Wayne and US comedian Richard Pryor. Click on the gallery above for more famous Freemasons.

Can women join?

For nearly 200 years, membership was restricted to men, but this changed in the early 20th century when the UK's first female lodge opened in 1908.

100 years later, and that could be about to change again.

In guidance issued to its 200,000 members setting out its new “gender reassignment policy”, the United Grand Lodge of England has said that anyone wishing to join must be male but once admitted can remain a member if they become a woman.

Anyone who has become a man can also apply, The Times reports.

According to the newspaper, a senior judge looked into the legal implications of their membership policy before they relaxed the rules.

“As a single-sex association, lodges are exempt from sexual discrimination legislation on admissions criteria, but discrimination against members is a different issue,” says The Times.

The change in guidelines “brings the Freemasons into line with current legislation”, says Pink News.

The Daily Mail reports that the strict dress code has also been slightly redefined allowing women who were born men to wear a “smart dark skirt and top”.

Some traditions remain, however. When formally greeting fellow brethren, they must be called “Brother”.

If someone has changed gender to become a woman, they may be called by their female name such as “Brother Lucy”.

Women who have not undergone reassignment surgery will still be exempt from Freemason membership.

Freemasons and jazz

Freemasonry also provided an unlikely home to a generation of jazz greats that emerged in the mid-20th century.

“Throughout history, freemasonry has attracted musicians,” Martin Cherry, librarian at the Museum of Freemasonry in London told The Guardian.

Citing Mozart and JS Bach as the most famous examples, he says that “for musicians and artists who were new to a city, the lodge would have been an opportunity to meet fellow artists and network with people with whom they may be able to find work”.

The same applied two centuries later, across the Atlantic. “Musicians often led an itinerant lifestyle,” says Cherry. “Belonging to an organisation that had lodges all over a country could help ease the slog of life on the road, particularly in such a vast country as the US."

Many white jazz musicians and bandleaders were freemasons, including Glenn Miller, George Gershwin and Irving Berlin.

Yet while lodges were segregated, membership also extended to black musicians. Jazz legend Duke Ellington was joined by the likes of Nat King Cole, WC Handy, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton to be inducted into the mysterious world of freemasonry.

This is all the more remarkable given their position as figures outside mainstream society.

Paul Gudgin, former director of the Edinburgh Fringe and now director of the City of London Festival, said of Ellington’s Masonic ties: “I found it astonishing that such an anti-establishment figure turned out to be at the heart of an establishment organisation.”