STB-FE23

WILLIAM PRESTON

WHEN we hear the name of William Preston we are at once reminded of
the Preston lectures in Freemasonry. It is to Preston that we are
indebted for what was the basis of our Monitors of the present day.
The story of his literary labors in the interest of the Craft, and
how they aided in making Freemasonry one of the leading educational
influences during the closing decades of the eighteenth century, is
one of absorbing interest to every member of the Fraternity.

William Preston was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, August 7th (old
style calendar July 28th), 1742. His father was a "writer to the
signet," a law agent peculiar to Scotland and formerly eligible to
the bench, therefore a man of much educational standing. He
naturally desired to give his son all the advantages which the
schools of that day afforded, and young Preston's education was
begun at an early age. He entered high school before he was six
years old.

After the death of his father Preston withdrew from college and
took employment as secretary to Thomas Ruddiman, the celebrated
linguist, whose failing eyesight made it necessary for Preston to
do much research work required by Ruddiman in his classical and
linguistic studies. At the demise of Thomas Ruddiman, Preston
became a printer in the establishment of Walter Ruddiman, a brother
of Thomas, to whom he had been formerly apprenticed.

Evidence of Preston's literary ability was first shown when he
compiled a catalog of Thomas Ruddiman's books. After working in the
printing office for about a year, a desire to follow his literary
inclinations prevailed and, well supplied with letters of
introduction, he set out for London in 1760. One of these letters
was addressed to William Strahan, the king's printer, with whom
Preston secured a position, remaining with Strahan and his son for
many years.

Preston possessed an unquenchable desire for knowledge. As was
common to the times in which he lived, "man worked from sun to
sun." The eight-hour day, if known at all, was a rarity, and
Preston supplemented his earlier education by study after his
twelve-hour working day was over. The critical skill exercised in
his daily vocation caused literary men of the period to call upon
him for assistance and advice. His close association with the
intellectual men of his time was attested by the discovery after
his death of autographed presentation copies of the works of
Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Blair and others.

The exact date of Preston's initiation is not known, but it
occurred in London in 1762 or 1763. It has been satisfactorily
ascertained that his Mother Lodge was the one meeting at the White
Hart Tavern in the Strand. This lodge was formed by a number of
Edinburgh Masons sojourning in London, who, after being refused an
application for a charter by the Grand Lodge of Scotland, accepted
a suggestion of the Scottish Grand Body that they apply to the
Ancient Grand Lodge of London. The Ancients granted a dispensation
to these brethren on March 2nd, 1763, and it is claimed by one
eighteenth century biographer that Preston was the second person
initiated under that dispensation. The minutes of the Athol
(Ancient) Grand Lodge show that Lodge No. 111 was constituted on or
about April 20th, 1763, William Leslie, Charles Halden and John
Irwin being the first Master and Wardens, and Preston's name was
listed as the twelfth among the twenty-two on the roll of
membership. 
It was not uncommon in those times (and the custom still prevails
in England, Canada and other countries, and among several Grand
Jurisdictions in the United States) for Masons to belong to more
than one lodge, and Preston and some other members of his Mother
Lodge also became members of a lodge chartered by the Moderns,
which met at the Talbot Tavern in the Strand. These brethren
prevailed upon the membership of Lodge No. 111, which in the
meantime had moved its meeting place to the Half Moon Tavern, to
apply to the Modern Grand Lodge for a charter. Lord Blayney, then
Grand Master, granted a charter to the members of Lodge No. 111,
which was constituted a second time, on November 15th, 1764, taking
the name Caledonian Lodge No. 325. This lodge is still in
existence, being No. 134 on the present registry of the United
Grand Lodge of England.

The constitution of the new Caledonian Lodge was a noteworthy event
because of the presence of many prominent Masons of the day. The
ceremonies and addresses on this occasion made a deep impression
upon Preston, being among the factors which induced him to make a
serious study of Freemasonry. The desire to know more of the
Fraternity, its origin and its teachings, was intensified when he
was elected Worshipful Master, for, as he said, "When I first had
the honor to be elected Master of a lodge, I thought it proper to
inform myself fully of the general rules of the Society, that I
might be able to fulfill my own duty and officially enforce
obedience in others. The methods which I adopted, with this view,
excited in some of superficial knowledge an absolute dislike of
what they considered innovations; and in others who were better
informed, a jealousy of preeminence, which the principles of
Masonry ought to have checked."

Preston entered into an extensive correspondence with Masons at
home and abroad, extending his knowledge of Craft affairs and
gathering the material which later found expression in his best
known book, "Illustrations of Masonry." He delved into the most out
of the way places in search of Masonic lore and wisdom, by which
the Craft was greatly benefitted.

Preston was a frequent visitor to other lodges. He was asked to
visit the Lodge of Antiquity No. 1, one of the Four Old Lodges
which formed the Grand Lodge of England in 1717. On that occasion,
June 15th, 1774, he was elected a member of the lodge and also
Worshipful Master at the same meeting. This unusual action is
additional evidence of the regard in which he was held by the
brethren of his day. While he had been Master of several other
lodges, he gave of his best in time and energy to the Lodge of
Antiquity, which thrived greatly under his leadership.

He became an active member of the Grand Lodge, serving on its Hall
Committee, a committee appointed in 1773 for the purpose of
superintending the erection of the Masonic Hall which had been
projected, and was later appointed Deputy Grand Secretary under
James Heseltine. In this capacity he revived the foreign and
country correspondence of the Grand Lodge, an easy matter for him
because of his extensive personal correspondence with brethren
outside of London.

In 1777 occurred an event which was momentous in the Masonic
affairs of the period. On account of the mock and satirical
processions formed by rival societies the Modern Grand Lodge of
England had forbidden its lodges and members to appear in public
processions in regalia. The Lodge of Antiquity, on December 17th,
1777, resolved to attend church services in a body on St. John's
Day, the following 27th, selecting St. Dunstan's Church, only a
short distance across the street from where the lodge met. Some of
the members protested, saying it was contrary to Grand Lodge
regulations, with the result that only ten attended, these donning
gloves and aprons in the church vestry, and then entering to hear
the sermon. At the conclusion of the services they returned to the
lodge without first removing their Masonic clothing. This action
was cause for debate at the next meeting of the lodge in which
Preston expresse'd the opinion that the Lodge of Antiquity had
never surrendered its privileges and prerogatives when it
participated in the formation of the Grand Lodge in 1717, and held
that it could parade as it did in 1694. The Grand Lodge, however,
could not afford to overlook such an opinion, especially when
expressed by the leading Masonic scholar of the day, and
consequently Preston was expelled.

Because of this action of the Grand Lodge of Moderns, the Lodge of
Antiquity severed its connection with that body, after dismissing
from its membership three brethren who had made the original
complaint against Preston, entered into relations with the revived
Grand Lodge of All England at York, and formed what was known as
the "Grand Lodge of England South of the River Trent." The
controversy with the Grand Lodge of Moderns was settled in 1787,
and Preston was reinstated, all his honors and dignities being
restored, whereupon he resumed his Masonic activities. He organized
the Order of Harodim, a society of Masonic scholars, in which he
taught his lectures and through this medium the lectures came to
America and became the foundation for our Monitors.

To fully grasp the significance of Preston's labors we must
understand the conditions in England at the time he lived. The
seventeenth century had been one of marked differences of opinion
on the subjects of government, religion and economic conditions.
The eighteenth century, following the accession of Prince George of
Hanover to the throne of England as King George I, witnessed an era
of peace and prosperity in that country. With the exception of the
wars against the French, and later the Revolution in America,
England met no obstacles in her conquests of trade. The strife of
the opening years of the century calmed down, and the people became
adjusted to their new conditions. It became a period of formalism.
Literature, which thrived under the patronage of the wealthy,
partook of an ancient classical nature, spirit being subordinated
to form and style. Detailed perfection of form was insisted upon in
every activity, and undoubtedly the insistence for a letter-perfect
ritualism, still so apparent in Freemasonry, had its origin in the
closing years of the eighteenth century. 

While the well-to-do classes lived in comfort and
ease, the laboring and farming classes had not yet entirely emerged
from the adverse conditions confronting them for so many decades.
True, the cessation of wars, and the development of domestic and
foreign trade also had an influence in the circles not actively
participating in the new development. A spirit of freedom and
independence continued to express itself. Public education as we
know it today, however, did not then exist. The schools were for
the children of the wealthy only, being conducted by private
interests and requiring the payment of tuition beyond the purse of
the common people. Yet education was eagerly sought. Knowledge was
looked upon as the key which would unlock the door to intellectual
and spiritual independence. 

While Preston began his schooling at an early age, even with this
excellent start he extended his education only by diligent work and
the burning of much midnight oil. Imbued with the spirit of the
day, he was anxious to place the available knowledge of the times
before his fellow men. Therefore, when he discovered a vast body of
traditional and historical lore in the old documents of the Craft,
he naturally seized upon the opportunity of modernizing the ritual
in such a way as to make accessible a rudimentary knowledge of the
arts and sciences to the members of the Fraternity.

From 1765 to 1772 Preston engaged in personal research and
correspondence with Freemasons at home and abroad, endeavoring to
learn all he could about Freemasonry and the arts it encouraged.
These efforts bore fruit in the form of his first book, entitled
"Illustrations of Masonry," published in 1772. He had taken the old
lectures and work of Freemasonry, revised them and placed them in
such form as to receive the approval of the leading members of the
Craft. Encouraged by their favorable reception, and sanctioned by
the Grand Lodge, Preston employed at his own expense lecturers to
travel throughout the kingdom and place the lectures before the
lodges. New editions of his book were demanded, and up to the
present time it has gone through twenty editions in England, six in
America, and several more in various European languages.

After his death, on April 1st, 1818, it was found that Preston had
provided a fund of three hundred pounds sterling in British Consols
(British government securities, the word being abbreviated from
"consolidated annuities"), the interest from this fund to be set
aside for the delivery of the Preston lectures once each year. The
appointment of a lecturer was left to the Grand Master. These
lectures were abandoned about 1860, chiefly for the reason that
they had been superseded by the lectures of Hemming, in the
approved work of the United Grand Lodge of England, when that body
was formed by the reunion of the Ancient and Moderns in 1513. The
Preston work still survives, however, in the United States,
although greatly modified by such American ritualists as Webb,
Cross, Barney and others.

Had Preston not attained Masonic eminence through his efforts in
other fields, his work in revising the lectures alone would entitle
him to the plaudits and gratitude of the Craft. Considering these
old lectures in the light of our present day knowledge, and
granting that they might be corrected and revised, it must be
remembered that Preston's work was a tremendous step forward when
we consider the spirit and conditions of his day. He was one of the
first men to influence a change from the social and convivial
standards which prevailed in the old lodges, and to make them
centers for more practical and enduring efforts. His own progress
in the Craft is an illustration of its democracy, and an
illustration of the equality of opportunity existing for those who
will apply themselves to the problems confronting the Fraternity in
our own times. From a position as the youngest Entered Apprentice
standing in the northeast corner of his lodge, he progressed step
by step until he reached a place where he was recognized as the
foremost Masonic scholar of his generation. While he did not wear
the purple of the Modern Grand Lodge in its highest stations, his
contemporaries who had that honor have been forgotten, while the
name of William Preston is still preeminent in the annals of
Freemasonry.

Equality of opportunity, as Freemasonry stands for it, means
equality of opportunity for service. The honors of office are not
the Masonic test of service. He who contributes to the Mason's
search for light, light that will enable the Craftsman to more
intelligently and efficiently serve his God, his country and his
neighbor, is rendering the highest and most enduring quality of
service. This was true in Preston's time. It is equally true in
ours. Fortunate is the lodge that has a modern Preston in its
membership, who seeks to lead the Craft into a clearer
understanding of the symbolism and teachings of Freemasonry to the
end that Freemasons of today may sustain the high standard of
effective and unselfish service to mankind which has characterized
and distinguished the Fraternity in the generations and ages gone. 