53807 Freemason HALL&TAV c2400 6/16/05 11:46 AM Page 1

Power sockets for laptop computers are available and THE SHOP AT FREEMASONS’ HALL a staffed service for photocopying and photography is The shop stocks books, postcards, gifts and souvenirs provided. Both are done at the discretion of the about the history of , the collections and THE Librarian and are subject to copyright and conservation Freemasons’ Hall. Enquiries can be made on 020 7395 restrictions. For details of current charges please 9329. Purchases can be made online at LIBRARY AND MUSEUM contact the Library and Museum on 020 7395 9257. www.letchworthshop.co.uk

The third and present Library staff are always OPENING TIMES OF FREEMASONRY Freemasons’ Hall on Great pleased to help visitors The Library and Museum is open from 10am to 5pm Queen Street, with historical enquiries Monday to Friday except public holidays and the EXPLORING MASONIC RECORDS: or to respond to Christmas and New Year period. FREEMASONS’ HALL AND TAVERN telephone or written FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM enquiries and can If you would like to support the Library and Museum by advise about how to joining the Friends Group please write to the Director at use Library and the address below. Archive resources. Address However staff cannot undertake extensive Freemasons’ Hall research on individual 60 Great Queen Street enquiries. London WC2B 5AZ Telephone Freemasons’ Hall is 020 7395 9257 located on the edge of where Fax there are many cafes and restaurants. There are public 020 7404 7418 car parks nearby. www.freemasonry.london.museum LIBRARY Email The Library is open for reference use. It contains a [email protected] comprehensive collection of printed books and The text of this leaflet is also available on the website manuscripts on Freemasonry in England and Wales as or in large print format from the Library and Museum. well as material on Freemasonry elsewhere in the world and on subjects associated with Freemasonry or with mystical and esoteric traditions. The Library catalogue is available online at www.freemasonry.london.museum MUSEUM A changing series of exhibitions portray the in England and specific aspects of Masonic life. The permanent collections include pottery The Library and porcelain, glassware, silver, furniture and clocks, & Museum of Masonic jewels and regalia, prints, photographs and Freemasonry ephemera. A part of the Museum catalogue is available online at www.freemasonry.london.museum

TOURS OF FREEMASONS’ HALL The illustrations on the front page of this leaflet are The Library and Museum is located in Freemasons’ (clockwise from the right): A meeting probably of the Hall. Guided tours of the building are generally Patriotic Fund in Freemasons Hall, circa 1810, a 1774 available (free of charge) Monday to Friday. There are Title Deed, Proposals for the Freemasons Tontine, circa no tours on certain ceremonial occasions and visitors 1775 and a page from a Hall Committee minute book of are advised to telephone before making a special 1776. journey. On Saturdays guided tours must be pre- The Library and Museum of Freemasonry is a registered booked (and a booking fee is payable). Please charity no. 1058497 telephone for details. May 2005 53807 Freemason HALL&TAV c2400 6/16/05 11:50 AM Page 2

Freemasonry is one of the world’s oldest secular dividend payment throughout the lifetime of that They primarily date from 1768 to1870 and include fraternal societies - a society concerned with moral and person. The total amount of dividend remained the minute books of the various committees involved with spiritual values. Members are taught the rules of same so that individual dividend payments increased the building and rebuilding; papers and Freemasonry by a series of ritual dramas that follow as the amount was divided amongst fewer and fewer correspondence relating to the building, rebuilding, ancient forms and use stonemasons customs and tools survivors. maintenance and use of the first and second Halls; symbolically. volumes and papers relating to the Freemasons’ The architect and mason, Thomas Sandby (bap. 1723 - Tontine; plans of the Freemasons’ Halls and Taverns The Library and Museum of Freemasonry houses one 1798), designed the first Hall and the foundation stone and title deeds and documents concerning the site. of the finest collections of Masonic material in the was laid on 1st May 1775. The completed building was world. It is open to the public, Monday to Friday, free finally dedicated on 23rd May 1776. The Hall was Correspondence Ref: GBR 1991 FMH HC of charge. used by both Masonic and non-Masonic groups and Deeds Ref: GBR 1991 FMH D ARCHIVES organisations for various meetings including balls, Freemasons' Tontine - Ref: GBR 1991 FMH TON The Library and Museum is the repository for the concerts, readings and dinners. The building papers and volumes archives of United of England, the underwent further alterations and extensions in the Minute Books Ref: GBR 1991 FMH MINS governing body of English freemasonry, and Supreme early nineteenth century, most notably by Sir John Plans Ref: GBR 1991 FMH P Soane, but by the middle of the century the Grand Chapter. The United Grand Lodge was formed The catalogue for these records is available on line at construction was deemed unsatisfactory. It was by a union of two rival Grand Lodges (the Moderns, the fully searchable Access to Archives website at formed in 1717, and the Antients, formed in 1751) in increasingly advocated that comprehensive rebuilding www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a 1813. was necessary and that a portion of the building should be devoted solely to Masonic purposes with the Tavern The catalogue, along with additional records, is also THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONS' HALL AND area clearly distinguishable from it. available to search at TAVERN www.freemasonry.london.museum For many years the Moderns Grand Lodge held their After an open competition the design of the architect meetings in various halls, taverns and inns but by 1768 Frederick Pepys Cockerell (1833-1878) was chosen it became apparent that it would be of great benefit to and he was appointed to oversee the building works, the members to have a hall of their own. which began in 1864. The new Freemasons’ Hall now adjoined the Freemasons’ Tavern and had its own A ’Hall Committee’ was appointed in 1773 in order to frontage on Great Queen Street. consider and purchase premises. Two houses were eventually bought at No. 61 Great Queen Street. Although some rooms in the houses were adapted for the use of the Freemasons the ’Front House’ was let to John Brooks and the ’Back House’ to Brother Luke Dinner of the Royal Humane Society Reilly, this became the first Freemasons’ Tavern and held at Freemasons' Hall, 1840s Coffee House. In 1779, Mr Brooks VISITING THE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM vacated the ’Front Admission to the Library and Museum is free of charge. House’ and Luke Reilly It is located on the first floor of Freemasons’ Hall where took over the tenancy there are also toilet facilities (including those for of both houses, The second Freemasons' Hall and Tavern, 1866 wheelchair users). There are lifts available which are extending the size of suitable for most wheelchairs. the Tavern. It was the The building was later extended westwards but the Please note that users are required to complete a garden to the rear of whole building was demolished in the early twentieth Reader Registration Form and to provide proof of the two houses that century to enable the building of what became the third identity and address when they first use the Library or was the proposed site and present Freemasons’ Hall. Archives. This can be completed on the occasion of a for the Hall. HALL AND TAVERN ARCHIVES first visit. Freemasons’ Hall was Much of the history of the building and rebuilding of the Thomas Pownall's Freemasons' To view archive material it is advisable to telephone in partly financed using a first and second Freemasons’ Halls is recorded in the Tontine share certificate, 1776 advance of any visit on 020 7395 9257 so that staff can tontine system. In the archives available for consultation at the Library and have material available for you. 1775 Freemasons Tontine one hundred shares costing Museum of Freemasonry. The papers have been £50 each were available. Subscribers to the scheme catalogued under the reference GBR 1991 FMH. nominated a person, often a child, and they received a