1935: the Case of the Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
1 Women Freemasons and Feminist causes 1908 - 1935: The Case of the Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry Ann Jessica Pilcher-Dayton, B.A. Thesis submitted to the Department of History, University of Sheffield for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2011 2 Abstract An important but hitherto unstudied aspect of the women's movement in Britain between 1900 and 1935 was the appearance of organisations of Freemasons which admitted women. This thesis is a case study of one such body, the Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry (HFAM). The roots of women's Freemasonry reach back to the eighteenth-century French Lodges of Adoption. In 1902, the social reformer and Theosophist Annie Besant established a lodge of the French-based International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain, in London. In 1908, the clergyman William Cobb led a secession from Besant's Order and created the HFAM, which under the charismatic leadership of Cobb and his successor Marion Halsey, became the largest British Masonic Order admitting women. An analysis of HFAM's social composition shows the dominance of aristocratic women during the period before 1914 and illustrates the functioning of social networks in support of the women's movement. HFAM mobilised these networks to support the campaign for women's suffrage. An innovative social experiment by the HFAM was the establishment in 1916 of the Halsey Training College to train secondary school teachers. With the expansion of the social basis of HFAM's membership after the First World War, HFAM's organisation of its philanthropic activities changed with the establishment of its Bureau of Service. This smaller-scale but more diverse social programme undertook effective work at a local level but ultimately proved unsustainable. The HFAM illustrates many structural issues of the women's movement: the importance of quasi-religions such as Theosophy; the leadership of aristocratic women; the importance of male support; and the effect of a shift to more local activities and a wider middle class membership after the First World War. In particular, the HFAM provides new perspectives on interpretations of the idea of the complementarity of the sexes within the women's movement to 1935. 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my Supervisor, Professor Andrew Prescott, for his advice and for his consideration over such a long period, on a journey which has involved as many difficulties as delights. I should also like to thank the staff of the Additional Support Service in the University Library for their help in posting material to me; Brian Roberts of The International Order of Co-Freemasonry Le Droit Humain at Surbiton; and the many people with whom I could only corresponded electronically and who have been unstinting in giving of their time and assistance and advice. A.J.P.D. 4 Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Contents 4 Abbreviations 5 Introduction 7 Chapter One The Origins and Development 0/ the 17 Honourable Fraternity 0/ Antient Masonry Chapter Two Analysis 0/ Membership 0/ the Honourable 70 Fraternity of Antient Masonry Chapter Three Service and SuI/rage 130 Chapter Four Education as National Service 173 Chapter Five The Bureau 0/ Service 232 Chapter Six The Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry 273 and the Women's Movement: Re/lections Bibliography 283 5 Abbreviations AASR Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite AFAMMW Order of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masonry for Men and Women AFMM&W Order of Ancient Free Masonry for Men and Women AQC Ars Quatuor Coronatorum CBE Commander of the Order of the British Empire EC English Constitution GLSE La Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossaise de France HFAM Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry HMI His Majesty's Inspector [for Education] HTC Halsey Training College JP Justice of the Peace LEA Local Education Authority MW Most Worshipful [Grand Master] NCO Non-commissioned Officer NUSEC National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship NUWSS National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies OBE Order of the British Empire OWF Order of Women Freemasons [from 1958] QMAAC Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps RW Bro. Right Worshipful Brother TES Times Educational Supplement TET Theosophical Educational Trust TS Theosophical Society 6 TUC Trades Union Congress UGLE United Grand Lodge of England US United Suffragists WAAC Women's Army Auxiliary Corps WEA Workers' Educationi! Association WFL Women's Freedom League WM Worshipful Master WRAF Women's Royal Air Force WRNS Women's Royal Naval Service WSPU Women's Social and Political Union WVR Women's Volunteer Reserve WWl World War One 7 Introduction In understanding the character and significance of the women's movement for political, legal and social emancipation in the early twentieth century, it is essential to analyse the forms of interaction between women and the associations and networks by which they gave support to each other. One of the institutions which underpinned the women's movement at this time was Freemasonry, since the first two of the three great Masonic principles, namely Brotherly love and Relief, were readily applicable to feminist causes. This thesis begins with a historical overview of the significance of Freemasonry within the women's movement. This is followed by a statistical analysis of the membership of one particular Masonic order in order to see what their social and economic background can tell us about the nature of the women's movement and its encounter with Freemasonry. Finally, three case studies are presented which both illustrate the supportive interaction which underpinned the women's movement and aim to examine how women (and men) Masons contributed to feminism and feminist activities through this period. The case studies all relate to the Masonic order called the Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry, generally known since 1958 as The Order of Women Freemasons. The concept of service was important within the Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry and provided a major element of the rationale for its engagement with the women's movement. Chronologically, the following phases can be discerned in the involvement of the Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry with the women's movement: firstly before and during World War I in the support of 8 women's suffrage and the formation of relief organisations; secondly, between 1916 and 1922 by the establishment of a pioneering educational initiative - the Halsey Training College for teachers of secondary education and social workers; and thirdly in the late 1920s and early 1930s by the foundation of a charitable organisation called the Bureau of Service, through which women Masons interacted with various state and voluntary philanthropic agencies. The Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry at its foundation in 1908 was a mixed Order but within ten years was predominantly a female organisation. It was a hierarchical and autocratic society but in the period under consideration not a reactionary one. It will be shown that these women were able to make genuine advances in improving both their own lives and space and in the lives of other women. The period covered by the thesis - 1908 to 1935 - was chosen because the former marks the year in which the HFAM was founded as a break-away movement from the Co-Masons; the latter date is a watershed when the Order formally announced that it was to be a single-sex organisation, although in reality (with the exception of two high-ranking male officers) this had been the case since 1920. By 1935 the Order was also beginning to expand outside London to distant parts of the country, which rapidly increased its membership. To extend this study chronologically would have been logistically very difficult because of the quantity and location of the records. 9 Women have traditionally been closely associated with philanthropy and a line of descent can be traced from the Evangelical practice of visiting in the nineteenth century which continued well into the twentieth century, even after the state began to assume responsibility for welfare relief. One of the major themes to emerge from a study of the role of Freemasonry in the women's movement is the significance of this practice of maternalistic charity. A second, and closely related theme, of this study is the nature and impact of the service ethic of the aristocracy and it is concluded that the disproportionate number of aristocratic ladies shown to be members of the HFAM looked upon that organisation as a vehicle for the extension of their philanthropy and that they used their friendship networks for its development. A third, and final, overarching theme is that of complementarity. Complementarity is taken usually as a term to describe the 'new feminism' of the interwar period, and defined as an equivalence which acknowledges and accepts male and female differences. However, in the broader sense of men and women working together and complementing each other, it was also present in mixed Freemasonry, in the social and political role of aristocratic women, in the approach of the constitutional suffragists, and in women's war relief work, as well as in the lives of the majority of middle class women between the wars. 1 1 compact OED: 'a situation in which two or more different things enhance each other or form a balanced whole'. http://www.askoxford.com/concise oed/complementarity?view=uk (accessed 2719/09). For 'new', 'difference' or 'welfare' feminism, see for example Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power: The Women's Movement, 1918-1928 (London, 2000), pp. 165-6; Harold L. Smith, 'British Feminism in the 1920s', in British Feminism in the Twentieth Century, ed. H.L. Smith (Amhurst, Mass., 1990), p. 48; S.K. Kent, 'Gender reconstruction after the First World War', in ibid., p. 71; Tammy M. Proctor, 'On My Honour: Guides and Scouts in Interwar Britain', Trans.