Presentation to Grand Lodge on 13 September 2006 by Diane Clements, Director of the Library & Museum of Freemasonry

When I last spoke in this forum just over two years ago, I mentioned the current popularity of history. A survey commissioned by all the major English and Welsh heritage organisations in June this year, just before the football World Cup, showed that 73% of the UK population are interested in history with more than 80% believing that history matters in today’s society. By way of comparison only 48% expressed an interest in football. I should say that this comparison is, unfortunately, not reflected in the relative earnings of Museum directors and footballers – at least as far as I am aware- but then neither have I had any problems with the bones in my feet!

This continuing popular interest is reflected by the recent experience of the Library and Museum. Visitor numbers this year have risen by nearly 17% compared with 2005. Last year the Library and Museum website which includes the online catalogue received over 35,000 hits, more than 6% higher than in the previous year. Our current exhibition, The Hall in the Garden, about the history of this site in Great Queen Street, has been visited by over 1000 people a month since it opened. Family history enquiries have increased by 75% in the last two years, an interest which was brought home to us when the Library and Museum organised a study day for family historians earlier this year which was oversubscribed.

At least some of this additional interest has, I believe, been brought about through the greater access to our collections now available via the website and especially the catalogue. For many this will be where they obtain their initial information. We already receive a large number of enquiries which are triggered by an initial search of the online catalogue.  This is a long term strategic project which is at the centre of our work in the library and Museum. We continue to make progress and are currently cataloguing the music collection and preparing the photograph and print collection for cataloguing but it will be some time before the online catalogue truly reflects the richness of the collections.

One of the most encouraging developments in the last two years has been the increase in opportunities to work with other museums, archives and libraries. Both the British Museum and the British Library lent material to our exhibition on the artist and engraver John Pine in 2004. We have worked with the National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) on both our archives cataloguing projects for the Access to Archives scheme. Earlier this year we arranged a study day for archivists working in Historic Houses, many of whom have Masonic material in their collections. Firepower, the Museum of the Royal Artillery, based at Woolwich, made a temporary loan of three Victoria Crosses to help us launch our very popular exhibition Most Glorious of Them All about Masonic holders of the Victoria Cross earlier this year. Sadly for reasons of security and insurance this loan only lasted for one evening and had to come complete with its own dedicated guards.

The most visible example of partnership is the Masonic Hall at the Beamish Open Air Museum, opened in April this year, where we have been pleased to support both the Museum and the Province of Durham by lending a number of items from the collection here to support the excellent displays.

For an exhibition currently at Norwich Castle Museum which moves to the Millennium Galleries at Sheffield later this month, we were approached by the highly regarded Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service to lend a marble tracing board and two ashlars for their exhibition called Art at the Rockface. Our pieces are displayed alongside an ancient Egyptian statue, Chinese jade, a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci,  paintings by Turner and Zoffany and sculpture by Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore. We have also lent an important silver commemorative jug to Guernsey Museums Service as part of an exhibition marking the 250th Anniversary of the birth of Sir John Doyle. These two latter loans illustrate how Masonic pieces can be used in displays on subjects other than freemasonry.

I make no apologies for restating the point I made two years ago - properly maintaining this large and important collection and providing access to it involves considerable costs. The Library and Museum is supported by annual grants from Grand Lodge and Grand Chapter which cover our core costs, mainly staff. In the four years since 2003 these core costs have risen by a total of only 8%, an average of 2% a year. Staff undertake over 1,000 tours of the Grand Temple a year, welcome an increasing number of visitors, many of whom are making their first visit to this or any other Masonic building, catalogue several thousands of jewels, books and archive documents, arrange three to four exhibitions a year and answer several thousands of enquiries.

Despite the assistance of Grand Lodge,  the support of individual members and lodges is still very important. Joining the Friends group is a significant way of supporting the Library and Museum financially. You can also help the Library and Museum by supporting the Shop at Freemasons’ Hall in person or by using the Shop’s ecommerce and mail order facilities.

Reports of major acquisitions are made in MQ from time to time. I would particularly like to highlight the purchase last year of  the 1765 Bible used by the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter, the governing body for the Royal Arch Degree formed by members of the Premier Grand Lodge. The binding is inscribed with atriple tau and an arch. There was no specific reference to a Bible in the early history of this organisation and its existence had not been known before it was brought in to us by a member of the public. It may be the oldest surviving artefact associated with the Royal Arch.

Earlier this year the Library and Museum purchased the inscribed silver gilt and ivory trowel used by the Grand Master, the Earl of Zetland, to lay the foundation stone of the Victorian Freemasons’ Hall on this site in Great Queen Street, in 1864. It is currently on display in our exhibition downstairs. On this occasion the purchase has been generously supported by the London Grand Rank Association to mark their forthcoming centenary.

In the first half of this year alone over £60,000 has been spent on conservation of the existing collections including a major conservation project on the series of portraits of Grand Masters. Funds for this work are provided by the profits from sales of the Craft tie and, since last year, from investment income. Over the last four years we have made good progress in upgrading the display cases in the Library and Museum so as to provide a better standard of care for the displays. The cases are now much more accessible to those in wheelchairs and enable more material to be displayed.

In the first few months of this year we also completed a major re-storage project involving the design and commissioning of a dedicated area on the lower ground floor to store the archives of the United Grand Lodge and Supreme Grand Chapter. This has enabled us to bring together archive material previously held in different locations and improve the conditions in which that material is kept. We are now working with lodges and chapters which have material stored in this building to find cost effective ways of improving the storage conditions.

The Library and Museum also benefits from the generosity of members and their families who continue to donate a large number of objects and books and I take this opportunity to thank them. Without their donations over many years the collections would be much the poorer. 

Looking forward, the Library and Museum has plans to make available a largely unknown archive of material relating to the slavery and abolition movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Documents relating to masonic lodges in the West Indies and American colonies (later the United States) are currently being catalogued with the support of a grant from the Pilgrim Trust/Esmee Fairbairn Foundation Cataloguing Grants programme. The catalogue will be made available early in 2007 on the Library and Museum’s web site as part of a national series of events to mark the 200th Anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. The period covered by the material includes the establishment of African Lodge which was governed from London. Inspired by the Master of that lodge, Prince Hall, a freed New England slave, Prince Hall Masonry, as it is now known, has become one of the  major Masonic organisation in the world.

Supreme Grand Chapter has, over a number of years, supported projects to raise awareness of our collection of friendly and fraternal society material. In 2003 Library and Museum staff initiated and participated in an event at the Museums Association conference to introduce curators from museums across the country to the importance and diversity of fraternal material.  In 2005 we organised a ground-breaking exhibition which drew on our extensive collections of friendly and fraternal society material. Alongside the exhibition, we worked with Shire Publications to produce the first book to provide a comprehensive guide to the identification of fraternal and friendly society regalia and objects. The exhibition was reviewed by the professional publication, the museums journal where it was described as being “of the scale and standard exemplified by [exhibitions] offered by national museums”. The achievement of the exhibition, according to the review, was “to draw attention to the abysmal ignorance …of the social history of fraternity”. I am pleased to be able to report that our leading role in this sector has just been recognised by the recent award of a small grant to explore the establishment of a Subject Specialist Network on Fraternal and Friendly Societies and Association where we will be working with major museums across the country including Beamish, the British Museum and the Museum of English Rural Life at Reading.

One of the challenges of working in this Library and Museum is to maintain the high standards we have set ourselves and to meet the ever-increasing expectations of an increasing number of users who, rightly, compare us with the very best in other library, museum and archives collections both in this country and internationally.

 With the support of you, its members, Grand Lodge and the staff of the Grand Lodge, I and all the staff in the Library and Museum are confident that we can do so.

Thank you.