Page 54 - MML - Journal - Centenary Edition - Vol. 01 / 2023

At the time of the first appearance of the third degree, most of the brethren were more than satisfied with just the two degrees. Being a Fellow Craft was a very respectable status indeed, and allowed all the privileges that could be expected, including nomination to Grand Lodge office.
Most lodges did not and could not; confer the third degree simply because they had no practical knowledge of its working. The number of members who may have taken the third degree was minimal and certainly not sufficient to enable a lodge to confer it on others. Thus, maybe, special Masters’ Lodges composed of experienced Master Masons came into being, within the framework of the existing Lodge, for the sole function of conferring the third degree on qualified brethren.
As I had already mentioned, the first written evidence of the existence of Masters’ Lodges dates to the year 1733. Every year thereafter, they continued to figure in the engraved lists of Lodges. They are also briefly mentioned, without comment, in the 1738 edition of Anderson’s Constitutions. Then, suddenly, from 1739 there appears to be an end to them.
A logical explanation to their disappearance would be that by then, a decade having elapsed since the adoption of a separate third degree, most lodges had learnt to perform their own third-degree ceremonies within the Lodge. This dispensed with the need of a separate Masters’ Lodge.
We can be reasonably confident that the sole purpose of the Masters’ Lodges had been to raise Fellow Craft Masons to the third degree. But we have no evidence whatsoever, to prove this hypothesis.
Renewed Need for Masters’ Lodges after 1750: That is not the end of the story, however. In the year 1750, the Masters’
Lodges suddenly start re-appearing in the engraved lists. And then they continue in rising numbers, right up to 1813, the year of the union of the two rival Grand Lodges. Why this renewed need for Masters’ Lodges after 1750? One of the possible answers is the Royal Arch.
When the Antients Grand Lodge was formed, they incorporated the Royal Arch as a formal fourth degree in Freemasonry. This placed the brethren of the Moderns grand lodge in a quandary. They very much wanted to practice the Royal Arch like their rival Antients brethren, but their own Grand Lodge refused to acknowledge anything beyond the three degrees of Freemasonry!
This then, could have been the purpose of the re-establishment of the Masters’ Lodges after 1750. They provided the opportunity for the Modern Masons to practice the Royal Arch beyond the view and control of their own Grand Lodge!
However, in the year 1766, the Moderns formed their Supreme Grand Chapter, and Masons of the Modern Grand Lodge could now practice the Royal Arch openly in their own individual Royal Arch Chapters. One would therefore expect the Masters’ Lodges to disappear; but they did not! What was the continued need for Masters’ Lodges?
One possible answer is that those Masters’ Lodges were practicing other additional degrees beyond the Craft and the Royal Arch. This theory can be faulted on many counts. If that were the case, why did all Masters’ Lodges suddenly cease totally just before the Union took place in December 1813. There is also the fact that many additional degrees beyond the craft were being practiced without impediment, and without the need for any such subterfuge. There certainly did not appear to be a need for Masters’ Lodges.
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A Publication of Madras Masters Lodge No. 103, GLI
Madras Masonic Journal Vol. 01 / 2023 - Centenary Year Edition