Lane List: Masonic Records 1717-1894

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www.ancestry.co.uk (Ireland, Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland Membership Registers, 1733-1923. This collection includes membership registers for Masonic Lodges across the 32 counties of Ireland, for Irish Lodges abroad and for those that were attached to militia and British Army regiments. The original data is held by The Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland) Lane's Masonic Records". John Lane's Masonic Records. Published by The Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield. www.dhi.ac.uk/lane (University of Sheffield: Lane’s Masonic Records, 1717-1894. Listing of all the lodges established by the English Grand Lodges from the foundation of the first Grand Lodge in 1717 up until 1894. Since 2008 the Library and Museum of Freemasonry has been adding lodges that came into existence after 1894 to the database)

Born in 1843, John Lane had an eye for detail. As a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, he worked as an accountant but was also secretary to a cemetery company and a collector of insurance. However, we know him as a freemason and author. Prescott, Andrew. A History of British Freemasonry 1425-2000: University of Sheffield Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, 2008

Where Found

https://museumfreemasonry.org.uk/lodge-family-tree (Museum of Freemasonry: Lodge Family Tree Charts: Search the histories of individual lodges of England and Wales up to 2019) The Cooke Manuscript continues to strongly support the religious views of the period but unlike the Halliwell Manuscript which could be said to be a Roman Catholic inspired document, the Cook and indeed others that followed could be said to be Protestant. This document details the origins of the craft of masonry linking it to the seven liberal arts along with a number of biblical persons and events including Nimrod the architect of the Tower of Babel , and the construction of the Temple of Solomon. John Lane was born in 1843 and was based in Torquay, Devon, in the south west of England. He was an accountant by profession, though he had also worked as an Insurance collector and a secretary to a cemetery company. Lane had been initiated into the Torquay based Jordon Lodge No. 1402 in 1878, and went on to join the London based research lodge Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1887, being awarded the rank of Past Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies by United Grand Lodge in 1895. Lane had also been awarded the rank of Past Senior Grand Warden in 1888 by the Grand Lodge of Iowa in the US, which at the time had just begun to build one of the largest Masonic libraries in the world. His work was well respected; he had written a number of papers for the Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge and had a number of other books published including A handy book to the study of the engraved, printed and manuscript lists of lodges from 1723 to 1814, published in 1889 and Centenary warrants and jewels…which was published in 1891. It was his Masonic Records that he is best remembered for, and is still regularly used by Masonic researchers and family historians due to the updated online version. He died at the age of 56 in 1899. Lodge of instruction; Their relationship to the mother lodge" (PDF). Masonic Periodicals, The Freemasons Chronicle, 28th April 1888. In 2017 the museum opened Three Centuries of English Freemasonry in its North Gallery to mark the tercentenary of the formation of the first Grand Lodge of England. Recent exhibitions include:

The Palatine Lodge of Instruction is one of a handful of warranted Instruction Lodges in the World and although the warrant suffered serious damage, during a fire on 13 November 1914, it remains in the possession of the Lodge. With the dawning of the Reformation Period the masons craft in England consolidated with a number of additional manuscripts being produced to govern the trade of masonry. Of particular note is that known as the Cook Manuscript of about 1450. VW Bro Sir Hedworth Williamson, 8th Baronet (1827-1900), British MP, Diplomat and Provincial Grand Master of Durham [39] Like the Halliwell Manuscript, the Cook document further reinforces the masons struggle to determine their own pay, particularly following the statutes of 1425 banning the assembles of masons. In 2003, The Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism under the Directorship of Professor Andrew Prescott in collaboration with Museum of Freemasonry, London produced an electronic version of Lane’s book. Since 2008, Museum of Freemasonry has been adding lodges that came into existence after 1894 to the database and eventually hope to edit the records of pre-1894 lodges to include meeting places after that date.British Freemasonry, 1717-1813 by Robert Peters (Volume 1: Institutionsed.). Routledge. 2016. ISBN 9781317275305. The resource is rich in place name information and will be of interest to local historians among others as well as historians of freemasonry. Locations can be viewed on interactive maps. Local Intelligence – The Installation of Bro S.P. Austin". British Newspaper Archive. Newcastle Journal, Saturday 13 December 1873. Since the 1980s the Museum of Freemasonry has presented temporary thematic exhibitions to the general public.