THE BUILDER October, 1927

Could a Freemason Forget His Initiation?

By BRO. ROBERT I. CLEGG, Associate Editor, Illinois

IS it possible that a man could forget? There is a remarkable
instance on record which at least suggests something of the sort.
My old friend, Bro. A. M. Mackay, a Past Master of Lodge St. David
of Edinburgh, No. 36, sends me some notes on the subject which he
prepared for the annual festival of St. John in December. He had
during my sojourn in his beautiful city exhibited with very
pardonable pride the several interesting treasures in the archives
of his lodge. Among them were the items prompting the inquiry at
the head of this article.

Arthur, son of viscount Wellesley, and afterwards famous as the
Duke of Wellington, was born in Ireland some time in 1769, the
exact date and place now being undetermined. He is believed to have
been initiated in Lodge No. 494, at Trim, County Meath, Ireland, in
1790, where his brother Richard, in 1781, and his father, in 1775,
had preceded him in Masonic membership. Of these and other details
there are references of interest and value in the History of the
Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ireland by Bros. John
Heron Lepper and Philip Crossle, which may be supplemented to
advantage by the particulars to be found in the Ars Quatuor
Coronati, xv, 100; Miscellanea Latomorum, volume ii, pages 28, 47,
75; Robert F. Gould's History of Freemasonry, original edition,
volume ii, page 254. These several allusions also contain
references to other sources of information but the foregoing are
ample as guides to the readers of this summary of the situation.

Bro. Mackay reminds us that there is in possession of Lodge St.
David, Edinburgh, No. 36, a holograph letter of the great Duke of
Wellington written four months prior to his death, which occurred
on Sept. 14, 1852. This letter has been framed with its
accompanying envelope, addressed in the same hand to "James Shand
Esq. N24 Royal Circus Edinburgh NB." Attached to the back of the
envelope is a fine impression, in red sealing wax, of the crest of
the Duke. The letter reads:

London, June 14, 1852.

F. M., The Duke of Wellington, presents his compliments to Mr.
Shand. He has received his Note and begs leave to inform him that
he does not belong to the Society of Freemasons.
James Shand Esq.

In the holograph of the recipient, Bro. James J. Harvey Shand, an
Edinburgh lawyer and Right Worshipful Master of St. David during
the years 1852 and 1853, there is inscribed at the foot of the
letter:
Presented to Lodge Edinburgh St. Davids as a memorial of the
inauguration of the Wellington statue by their affectionate brother
James J. H. Shand, R. W. M.

The lodge minutes of the period make no reference to this letter,
or to the circumstances under which it was penned by the
distinguished Field Marshal, but the probability is that it was in
reply to a communication addressed to him by Bro. Shand in view of
the projected Masonic inauguration of the equestrian statue erected
in his honor at Edinburgh. This took place on the anniversary of
the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1852, four days subsequent to the
date of the Duke's reply.

It is interesting to note that the letter quoted was not the only
one written by Wellington disclaiming any knowledge of "the Society
of Freemasons." In the previous year a Bro. J. Walsh had approached
the Duke for particulars of his initiation and was favored with the
following reply:

London, October 13, 1851.

F. M., The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr.
Walsh. He has received his letter of the 7th ult. The Duke has no
recollection of having been admitted a Freemason. He has no
knowledge of that association.

Notwithstanding these disclaimers, sufficient evidence exists to
show that, at an early age, the future Field Marshal was initiated
into the Craft in a lodge working at Trim, County Meath, Ireland.
Tradition has it that the locale of the initiation was the family
residence at Dangan Castle, but it would appear that his strenuous
career as a soldier precluded the Duke from taking any active part
in Freemasonry. This, in conjunction with the fact that at the time
he penned the foregoing letters he was in his eighty-third year,
suggests that after a period of sixty years the ceremony of his
initiation had escaped his memory.

The Lodge of Trim, of which the Duke and other members of his
family were members, received its charter on May 7, 1772, and was
placed No. 494 on the roll of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. Its
existing records, of the eighteenth century, consist of two
manuscript books, denominated respectively the Rule Book and the
Roll Book, the former containing the various by-laws adopted from
time to time and the latter a list of members.

The first of the Wesley family to sign the Rule Book was the Duke's
father, the Right Hon. Garrett Wesley, first Earl of Mornington and
viscount Wellesley. He was proposed for initiation on July 4, 1775,
and on the 29th of the same month was raised to the degree of
Master Mason. On St. John the Baptist's Day in June, 1776, Lord
Mornington was installed and proclaimed Grand Master of Ireland. He
held that position for one year. His heir, the Hon. Richard Colley
Wesley, second Earl, afterwards Marquess Wellesley, brother of the
Duke, was also initiated in the lodge, probably on July 31, 1781,
when his fees were paid. He also--in the year following his
initiation--was installed and proclaimed head of the Craft in
Ireland.

The third of the family to sign the Rule Book was "A. Wesley"--the
Hon. Arthur Wesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, then serving as
a Lieutenant in the 12th Light Dragoons, and attached to the
Viceregal Court at Dublin as A.D.C. to the Lord Lieutenant. He was
born in April, 1769, and did not use the surname of Wellesley until
about twenty-nine years of age, when his eldest brother, Lord
Mornington, adopted that spelling of the family name. As in the
case of his father and brother, no date is appended to his
signature in the Rule Book, but the corresponding entry in the
Treasurer's book shows that the admittance fee was paid on Dec. 7,
1790, and it may be presumed this was of his initiation. As already
stated, the tradition of the lodge at Trim, which usually met in
the Grand Jury Room there, places the ceremony of initiation at
Dangan Castle, the residency of his brother, Lord Mornington, where
the meetings were held as often as the convenience of the Grand
Master or the well being of the lodge demanded. No. 494 at this
period might almost be considered the family lodge of the Wesleys
of Dangan, just as the town of Trim was their pocket borough.
During the month in which he joined the Craft young Wesley was
seeking the suffrages of the electors there, and in this he was
successful. There is no record of his having gone further than the
Entered Apprentice Degree, but he can be traced as a subscribing
member of the lodge until 1795, when he embarked for service in
India.

The lodge at Trim continued to prosper until the union of Great
Britain with Ireland, in 1800, when the times changed, consequent
upon the exodus of the county magnates and gentry residents in the
district from among whom the candidates for initiation had been
principally derived. In 1838 there were only three surviving
members resident in the town, and in that year Grand Lodge was
petitioned in their name to entrust the charter to several brethren
resident in Dublin, well-known members of Lodge No. 2 there, who
had affiliated with No. 494 for the purpose indicated. The Grand
Lodge sanctioned the transfer, and the Dublin Lodge has continued
to work to the present day under the Warrant originally granted to
Trim. Following the transference, the new Secretary, Bro. Edward
Carlton, an eminent Dublin attorney, wrote to the Duke of
Wellington asking permission to call the lodge by his Grace's name,
but this was declined.

London, August 13, 1838.

The Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr. Carlton. He
perfectly recollects that he was admitted to the lower grade of
Freemasonry in a Lodge which was fixed at Trim, in the County of
Meath.

He has never since attended a Lodge of Free Masons. He cannot say
that he knows anything of the Art.

His consent to give this Lodge his Name would be a ridiculous
assumption of the reputation of being attached to Free Masonry; in
addition to being a misrepresentation.

The Duke of Wellington hopes, therefore, that Mr. Carlton will
excuse the Duke for declining to comply with his suggestion.

E. Carlton, Esq., No. 14, Dame street, Dublin.

This letter is interesting from the fact that the Duke admits
having been admitted into the Craft. Shortly after his death,
further light was thrown upon his attitude to Freemasonry by his
old Peninsular comrade, Field Marshal Viscount Combermere. The
latter, as Provincial Grand Master of Chesire, presiding at a
meeting of that Province at Macclesfield on Oct. 27, 1852, referred
to his old chief's connection with the Order in the following
words:

Another year had rolled over and many changes had taken place.
Amongst the foremost to be regretted was the death to the nation of
his Commander, the great Wellington. He had been associated with
him since 1793. Perhaps it was not generally known that he was a
Mason; he was made in Ireland and often when in Spain, where
Masonry was prohibited, in conversation with his Lordship, he
regretted repeatedly how sorry he was his military duties had
prevented him taking the active part his feelings dictated; for it
was his (the Duke's) opinion that Masonry was a great and royal
art, beneficial to the individual and to the community.

Bro. W. J. Chetwode Crawley, who wrote the article on "The Hon. A.
Wesley and the Lodge at Trim," Ars Quatuor Coronati, xv, in 1902,
refers to the above paragraph quoted by Bro. Mackay. This
information, by the way, appeared in the Freemason's Quarterly
Review on Dec. 31, 1852. Dr. Chetwode Crawley's opinion was that
Lord Combermere's recollection of the sentiments he had in 1852
credited the Duke had become faulty after the lapse of nearly fifty
years.

But there seems good reason to believe that the Duke was initiated
and that in course of time, a great gap of the period from 1790 to
1851, over sixty busy warring years from the far East in Asia to
the near West in Europe, the Iron Duke forgot the occasion when in
a country lodge of his native land the initiatory ceremony was
performed upon him.

At Edinburgh, on the far-famed Princes street, there is a bronze
equestrian statue of Wellington. St. David Lodge, with other
brethren comprising some twelve hundred, took part in the unveiling
of that monument with Masonic ceremonies under the auspices of the
Grand Lodge of Scotland. At that time Bro. Shand was Right
Worshipful Master of Lodge St. David and probably it was because of
this enthusiastic occasion that he communicated with the Duke and
this led to the receipt by him of the highly interesting document
now in possession of the brethren of his lodge.

Out of the evidence pertaining to the membership of the Duke of
Wellington, and it is somewhat contradictory, there emerges a
suggestion that may with many reach the force and weight of a
moral. Fathers find pleasure in sons becoming members of the Craft.
Our happiness is then all the more substantial when the son
petitions beoause it is the outcome of a conscientious conviction
and not just a habit in the family. Sons and fathers surely
fraternize all the closer when the search for Masonic light was
prompted by the strengthening revelation of an affectionate living
manly model, not just the bare example of relationship and nothing
more.

Somehow there lingers the impression that the Duke in early life
joined the lodge because it was expected of him, the urge being
mechanically of the head rather than the warm impulse of the
congenial heart. So, entering casually he escaped Masonic
initiation. Upon the roster might appear his name. But he doubtless
stopped all progress with the payment of his dues. In the work he
had no part. Neither for himself, nor from him to others did
initiation blossom unto education. From him Craft influence failed.
Memory waned. Freemasonry stagnant, became barren. In that
direction one may find a cause for the strange case of the Duke. We
fathers have here a lesson. May our sons indeed become real
brothers in the faith Masonic.
