THE BUILDER DECEMBER 1925

The Claims of the Modern Operatives

BY BRO. R. J. MEEKREN

( Concluded)

WE will now take up the third and last of the three previously
mentioned points of view from which it is possible to criticize the
claims of the modern Operatives, and for this purpose we will now
give a brief consideration of the technical secrets supposed to
have been preserved by the gild. The most prominent of these is the
previously mentioned 3-4-5 triangle for obtaining a true right
angle, the "'five-point system" for laying out buildings, the
diamond diagram for designing them and the supposed
method used by the builders for raising large stones.

THE SUPPOSED TECHNICAL SECRETS EXAMINED

In regard to the first one it may be said that the '3-4-5 triangle
is a convenient method for setting out a right angle on a large
scale, though in most cases the method of describing arcs of a
circle would be just as convenient--in drawing a good deal more
convenient and accurate. For the purpose of making a square, a
try-square, it would be useless. The medieval masons generally, one
judges, used wooden squares, and they may actually have used a
carefully squared stone to test and adjust them. But the most
delicate test for a square is to trace a right angle with it on a
flat surface and then reverse its position and draw another from
the same starting point. If the square is true the two lines
coincide, if not the amount of error is shown doubled, for each
line varies in opposite directions from the right angle. That such
a simple test was not known to our Operative predecessors is
impossible to believe.

Perhaps more has been written about the "five-point system" by
advocates of the Operatives than about any other technicality they
are supposed to possess. Briefly this is the idea that ancient
buildings were laid out from a center point. That this point being
chosen, a pair of diagonals were next marked out, and the correct
distances measured from the center along each diagonal in each
direction to determine corner points. This supposed technical
procedure is mixed up with foundation sacrifices, of which,
according to the Operative account, there were supposed to be five,
one in the center and one at each corner.

This procedure appears to assume that all buildings were either
square in plan, or oblong in the proportion of three wide to four
long, one to two, one to three, or varying multiples of these
numbers. Nothing in reality is more absurd. The pyramids, it is
true, were built on a square plan, and the Temple of Solomon is
said to have been 60x20 cubits--we do not know exactly how it was
laid out--but other ancient buildings, like modern ones, are built
on all kinds of different plans to suit the nature of the site and
the purposes of the builders. But first let us dispose of the
sacrifices or foundation deposits. There is little or no evidence
for such being placed in the center of the building, and none at
all when in conjunction with corner deposits. That is, the
excavation of old sites has yielded no examples of such a
combination. In Egypt four deposits were quite common, but no
center ones have been found. They were placed sometimes under the
corners and sometimes under the threshold of the chief entrance. In
the case of foundation sacrifice one was usually regarded as
sufficient, and the place selected seems to have been more
frequently in the wall than at a corner. However this will lead us
too far afield, we are concerned now rather with the practical
utility of the "five point" method. Buildings, as has been
remarked, are usually erected to conform in some way to the site.
Some temples, and most old churches, are oriented, but very seldom
with any great exactitude. Buildings in a town, such as a Gild Hall
for example, would have some reference to the street and
neighboring structures. Suppose it was required to lay out the
foundations of a church due east and west. The natural way would be
to first get the cardinal points marked out, and the obvious method
would be to set out two stakes north and south sighted at night by
the pole star or by observing the point of sunrise and sunset. From
this could be drawn at right angles (by the 3-4-5 method, or by
intersecting arcs, or even by sighting along a large square) the
two lines for the east and west sides of the building as far apart
and as long as has been determined on. To find the appropriate
center of the building in order to lay it out on the five point
method would require most of this procedure to begin with, and when
it had been found no practical advantage would have been gained. In
fact, unless a few set proportions depending on the 3-4-5 ratio
were used, the only way to get the exact length of diagonal
required would be by an arithmetical extraction of the square root
of the sum of the squares of the side and end, a thing that only a
very few mathematicians could do in the Middle Ages. An actual
acquaintance with medieval buildings impresses even the casual
observer with the fact that the last thing the craftsman worried
about was exact measurements. He built churches easterly and
westerly rather than due east and west; they were more or less the
same width throughout, often less rather than more; the span of the
arches is rarely exactly the same; the angles of the corners seem
frequently to have been laid out by eye rather than by measurement;
in short, he was an artist and he knew by instinct that the eye
cannot judge angles in a building and that nothing gives a more
dead and monotonous effect than exact equality of parts. The same
observation of the actual structures disposes of the supposed
"diamond" rule for designing their elevations. Here and there a
building more or less fits some such scheme, but as a whole we can
only come to the conclusion that the architect, or master of the
work, first drew a sketch, and when its proportions pleased him he
made an outline drawing of it without reference to any special
ratios, and that the minor detail was devised by the craftsmen
themselves as they went along.


THE MECHANICAL APPLIANCES USED

Among other things the Operatives profess to have preserved in
their traditions is the methods by which the enormous stones in
some ancient (not medieval) buildings were raised into position.
One hardly knows how to begin to criticise these. Theoretically, in
the diagram given, the counterpoise weights will balance that to be
lifted, but the form of apparatus used is most impractical. Two
defects appear at once, the enormous shear effect on the two pivot
pins that have to support not only the load but the balance weights
as well, and the weakening of the two arms by boring holes through
them at the very point where the greatest strength is required. A
much more practicable method, using exactly the same principle,
would be the very simple one adopted by any gang of workmen today,
of using long levers to pry up each end alternately, blocking it up
as it was raised.

There is one more point of a technical character, though it is not
dwelt on as an Operative trade secret, and that is the curious
division of the craft into two entirely separate classes of masons,
arch and square men. And by the way we have here another of those
disturbing reminiscences. The term "Square-men" was (and perhaps
is) a Scottish technical name including the tradesmen who are also
called "wrights," which are very much the same as those included by
name in the present Operative Society (though not, as we have seen,
members of it in fact) under the head of rough masons, tilers,
slaters, etc., with the addition, however, of carpenters and
joiners and mill-wrights. But the term is also used at the present
day in England, especially in country places and in the North, by
Speculative Masons to describe themselves. In fact it takes
somewhat the same place as the American phrase of being "on the
square." While on the other side the term "Arch-masons" seems
almost, if it might be an attempt to give an explanation of the
question that has been so much discussed by Masonic students, of
the first rise and original use of the term "Arch" as a distinctive
title. One theory being that it had the sense of a superior grade,
as in Arch-bishop or Archduke. Be this as it may, the Operative's
claim is that the trade has always been divided into two, one set
of men learning only how to cut and lay squared stones, and the
other knowing only how to cut stones for arches and vaults and the
methods of erecting them. It is, of course, not impossible that at
the present day, under trades-union influences perhaps, that some
such specialization has grown up. The present writer remembers to
have been told by an elderly bricklayer, who was apprenticed to his
trade in a small English country town, that "there were few men who
knew their trade now-a-days." He said he was taught how to do every
kind of brick work, arch work, ornamental work, cut work and the
rest, but that the ordinary tradesman today can only lay a plain
wall and corners, and that everything out of the usual run has to
be done by special men. Some such development may have come about
among stone masons as well, but it is as certain as anything can be
that such divisions are not old. Take the work of the alleged
"Arch-masons." The stones required are wedge shaped, they will
generally have the narrow end cut to the curve of the arch, while
back and front they have parallel flat surfaces. If a man can lay
out and cut two parallel flat surfaces he can certainly cut a
square wall stone or a "perpend ashlar." If he does not, it is
because he will not, which is not Medieval Masonry but modern
trades-unionism. The Freemason of the Middle Ages was more than a
mere trades- a man, he could not only cut the stones but he made
his own designs and templets--the "mould squares" spoken of in the
Old Charges. As a matter of fact the cutting of square stones and
plain voussoirs was the most elementary part of his work, and in
fact mere child's play to planning and cutting the elaborate
mouldings and tracery which are used so lavishly in medieval
buildings, and in which the builders evidently so delighted. Such
a contention as this seems to show an utter lack of comprehension
of the original mason craft and its essential characteristics.

With this goes the further curious assumption that setting the
stones is more skilled work than cutting them. It would be perhaps
a little dogmatic to say it was exactly the reverse. Still judging
by modern practice, and certain clauses in the MS. Constitutions,
one would judge that then as now there was a tendency to employ
half-trained men--layers--cowans--in building the walls, having
skilled men to set the corners and the more important features. But
as soon as we remember the mouldings and the carving with which
even dwelling houses were adorned, the point becomes comparatively
unimportant. Ashlar work and setting demanded only elementary
manual skill, the real secrets --incommunicable in fact--of the
Freemason was his artistic power, his ability to design and to work
out his designs in the rude stone.

In conclusion we may touch on Bro. Stretton's own story,
remembering that all accounts of this Operative system seem to go
back to him. He tells us that as a youth he was apprenticed in a
large engineering works in the North of England. He was what is
known in that country as a "gentleman" apprentice. In a large plant
of this kind there are skilled men of many different trades--
fitters, machinists, boiler makers, pattern makers, blacksmiths and
foundry men, and apparently also in this particular instance, stone
masons as well. Boys are of course apprenticed to all these
separate trades, but the "gentleman apprentice" who is destined to
be an engineer has to work at each one long enough to get some idea
of that special kind of work. Stretton in due course was put into
the stone yard with another apprentice, but the men would have
nothing to do with them, interfered with their work and refused to
show them anything. He says he found out by inquiry that he would
have to join their own private organization in order to learn
anything, and this he agreed to do; and he asserts that he was
initiated into Operative Masonry and eventually passed through all
its grades. Now this on the face of it is rather curious, for he
was not apprenticed as a stone mason but as an engineer. He could
not therefore have joined them on the Operative status for he was
not free, he was learning other trades as well, and besides that,
no one in the organization was his employer. But on the other hand
he was not strictly an honorary member, for he did actually work in
the stone yard, and learned to some extent the technical processes
of the craft.

The present writer remembers to have been told years ago by an
English engineer that during his apprenticeship he one day during
the noon hour climbed up the scaffolding of some new buildings
being erected in the plant, and that the bricklayers came on to
work again before he went down. The men were very unpleasant and
insisted that he would have to "pay his footing." He found the
situation rather unpleasant, some seventy feet from the ground on
a couple of narrow planks, and his retreat cut off by the hostile
workmen. However a few shillings given them to buy beer changed the
whole atmosphere, and afterwards he was welcome to climb up
whenever he pleased. No doubt Stretton had some such experience. It
is very possible even that some form of ceremony was performed, but
this need not have been ancient and traditional. Many of the
earlier trades unions had initiatory ceremonies such as Bro.
Springett has described for us in his recent article. The question
arises and has to be faced, did Bro. Stretton invent the whole
system, building it on some such foundation in fact as has just
been suggested?

It is the opinion of many of the foremost Masonic scholars in
England that he did, and that conclusion has been reached after
serious investigation. Stretton did his best to win as many
converts as possible. The brother to whom he wrote the letters
above mentioned was prevailed on to apply for admission into the
modern society, and his indentures were even made out and are in
the same file with the letters; but he became convinced of the
baselessness of the claims and they were never completed. It may be
said that Bro. Yarker was converted and apparently joined them, as
have a good many more of the Fraternity. Unfortunately, though
Yarker was a scholar and a very well read and erudite one, yet, in
the words of one who knew him, "he was no judge of evidence."

The question further arises, supposing it was all invention, what
are we to think of the inventor? If he had been a scholar such a
mystification and manufacture of evidence would be of course quite
unpardonable. But Bro. Stretton was not a scholar. He was doubtless
a competent engineer, but from his letters one is forced to the
conclusion that he could not have been, outside of his profession,
a specially well educated man. There is no question here of
unworthy or sordid motives, it was no attempt to make money by
false pretenses, rather he seems more likely to have spent money to
keep the thing going. One may judge he was doing what the founders
of the Mystic Shrine and the Grotto did, and earlier still those
who founded the Scottish Rite, and those who before that invented
the various separate degrees and orders of which the latter is
composed, only he was not content with a legend of antiquity but
went on and tried to make it real, tried doubtless to re-construct
what he thought Operative Masonry originally was, and then to pass
it off as having continuously existed.

In this again he was only following an unfortunate precedent. It is
most probable that the chief difficulties in the way of discovering
where and when and how, for example, the Royal Arch came into
being, is due to like mystification on the part of its founder or
founders. We may suppose in the present case that the intention was
innocent and harmless, and that having once started the inventor
found no place to get off and just had to keep on going.

NOTES
(1) Transactions of the Authors Lodge, p. 191, London 1915.
(2) These lectures were in MS. and belonged to the old Lodge of
Lights. The whereabouts of the original is not now known. In their
particular form these lectures can be dated by a reference, dragged
in quite ridiculously, to Sir Peter Parker, who was Deputy Grand
Master from 1787 to 1802.

