Andrew Summerville MacBride One of the most influential Masons in Scottish History

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Andrew Summerville MacBrideOne of the most
influential Masons in Scottish History
Lodge Mt Faber No.1825 23rd August 2004

• By Bro Colin Macdonald
• RWM Lodge Ailsa 1172 SC

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Acknowledgements

• Bro. Angus N. MacInnes P.P.G.M. Dunbartonshire
  P.M. Lodge St Patrick No.1309 Master Lodge
  Century No. 1492 - A Fascinating Ideal
• Bro. Andrew Pryde P.M. Lodge Leven St John No.170
  - Letters to Lodge Ailsa
• Bro Hugh Bryson - Past Dist. G.M of the FE -
  Collaboration on various documents for the
  MacBride Installation Ritual (Chair Degree)
• Bro. J. Agnew P Secty Lodge Leven St John -
  Brief Story of the Life Work of Andrew S.
  MacBride
• Bro Andy Cromwell PM Lodge Progress Glasgow No.
  873 - Letters to Lodge Ailsa
• Bro Jim Campbell (RWM) and Bro. Andrew Hosie
  Lodge Burnside 1361 SC - various eMails
• Bro Joseph Fort Newton - The Builder January 1917
  - A Great Masonic Teacher - A.S.MacBride

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W Bro. Andrew Sommerville MacBride J.P.

• Past Depute Prov. G.M. Dumbarton
• PM Lodge Leven St John No. 170 (1867-1898)
• PM Lodge Progress Glasgow No. 873 (1900-1901)
• Renton Scotland 1843 - 1923

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Orientation
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Dunbartonshire Scotland
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The Vale of Leven
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Loch Lomond to the Clyde
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Renton 1864
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Renton 1864
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Renton at the Turn of Last Century
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North British Railway Company
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MacBride worked in the Local Dyeing Industry
Govan Weavers Apron
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The Bawbee Brig
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Thirsty Work
Prepare my dear Brethren to the tavern lets
fly Robbie Burns song - 1782
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Masonic Processions
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Old Black Bull Inn
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Burns Inauguration 1787
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Bonhill-Alexandria Lodge No 321 Office Bearers -
1867
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A.S. MacBride - President of the Scottish
Football Association 1875-76
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Various Documents
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The Lodge Building at Renton
1915
1892
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The MacBride Ritual (1947 Reprint)
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The Standard Scottish vs The MacBride Ritual
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The Standard Scottish vs The MacBride Ritual
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MacBrides Speculative Masonry

• First of all its style is the native speech of
  Masonry--simple lucid and aglow with poetic
  light and beauty. There are passages that haunt
  you like noble music when the book has been laid
  aside.
• Second it is a book of vision in which Masonry
  is shown to be a wise clear-seeing practical
  Moral Idealism touched with spiritual meanings
  and taught in symbols parables emblems and
  dramas.
• Third it is a book of careful painstaking
  reliable scholarship--three things which make it
  one of the real classics of the Order
• Bro Rev Joseph Fort Newton

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MacBrides Speculative Masonry

• Part I THE MISSION OF SPECULATIVE MASONRY
• The Mission Generally Considered
• The Law of the Square
• The Quarries or Selection of the Material
• The Lodge or the Preparation of the Material
• The Temple or the Consummation of The Mission
• Part II THE EVOLUTION OF SPECULATIVE MASONRY
• Origins Ascribed to Masonry
• Ancient Symbolism and Mysteries
• The Roman Collegia and Medieval Guilds
• The French Compnionage
• The German Stein-Metzen
• The Old British Lodges
• Summary
• Part III THE LANDMARKS OF SPECULATIVE MASONRY
• The Nature and Division of the Landmarks
• Misconceptions Regarding the Landmarks
• The Landmarks and Progress
• APPENDIX

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MacBride Landmarks

• 1ST DIVISION
• (Usages that mark the Masonic from the Outer
  World)
• Section A A mode of recognition by its members.
• Section B The Tyling of its Lodge Meetings.
• Section C The qualifications of its candidates.

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MacBride Landmarks

• 2ND DIVISION
• (Usages that mark the Degrees of Masonry)
• Section A A mode of recognising the members of
  one Degree from those of another.
• Section B The Tyling of the Meetings of each
  Degree separately.
• Section C The conditions of advancement from one
  Degree to another.

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MacBride Landmarks

• 3RD DIVISION
• (Usages that mark the various ceremonies)
• Section A The principal points in opening and
  closing a Lodge.
• Section B The principal points in Entering
  Passing and Raising.
• Section C The principal points in Consecration
  Installation Foundation and Funeral Ceremonies.

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MacBride Landmarks

• 4TH DIVISION
• (Usages that mark Official Powers and Duties and
  Private Rights and Duties)
• Section A The Powers and Duties of the Grand
  Master Grand Officers and of Grand Lodge.
• Section B The Powers and Duties of the Master
  and Officers of the Lodge.
• Section C The Rights and Duties of Private
  Members.

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The Lodge - Its Chief End

• The true mason lodge provides an environment for
  the development of the nobler nature of man for
  the formation or building up of high character.
  Character is built of the thoughts which we allow
  to grow and multiply within our minds. It is the
  souls habitation built of thoughts and by
  thought just as the crustacean builds his shell.
  
• To provide a suitable environment wherein this
  work may be carried on the Lodge is isolated
  from all the ordinary conditions of life. The
  influences in human society that make for war and
  strife are excluded. Sect and party creed and
  politics are forbidden. The lodge is not
  antagonistic to the world outside but it must be
  kept separate and distinct from it-it must be
  close tyled so that a suitable sphere for the
  work of true building may be formed.
• This is the true Lodge of human brotherhood and
  it exists for the building of the Temple. It is
  the workshop wherein the souls of men may be
  shaped moulded and made fit for the Great Ideal
  Temple.

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The Lodge - Its Chief End

• This is the Chief End-the Alpha and the Omega of
  a lodge. This and not the petty prosperity of a
  Pounds-shillings-and-pence-balance the tinsel
  eclat of a crowd of intrants or the beggarly
  boast of a rank-and title membership-this
  mighty wide embracing lodge of ennobled humanity
  is alone worthy of our devotion and of our
  labours. We can scarcely desire a more exalted
  ideal we should never be content with a lesser
  one.
• Everywhere around us to-day we hear the sound of
  discord and strife Abroad blind passion and mad
  ambition soak the earth with human blood and
  fill the air with cries of agony. At our doors
  labour unrest vice crime poverty and disease
  are working havoc quite as great and all the
  while politicians quibble and quarrel over petty
  policies scientists spend their time in fierce
  debate as to the constitution of an atom and
  clerics waste their energies in bitter strife
  over the loaves and fishes.

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The Lodge - Its Chief End

• Where we cry is there neutral ground where all
  these conflicting elements may be hushed to
  peace and where good men of all conditions
  creeds and colour may meet in the bonds of
  Brotherhood
• There is only one spot on earth we know of that
  fulfils this condition and that is here in the
  mason lodge.
• Here all may meet together on a common level as
  children of the One Great Father members of the
  same human family and brethren of the same
  mystic tie.

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MacBrides Installation Ceremony
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The Installation Ceremony

• Murray Lyon in his work remarks Previous to
  the introduction into Scotland of Symbolical
  Masonry advancement to the chief office in
  Lodges was unmarked by any ceremonial further
  than the exaction of an oath of fealty from the
  newly-elected brother.
• With the introduction of high Masonry came the
  dogma that no brother could legally preside in a
  Lodge until his reception of the Chair degree.
  This step originally bore some resemblance to the
  chairing which is clandestinely practiced in many
  Scottish Lodges of the present day (1873) - a
  ceremony in which order and misrule are made
  alternately to predominate in order the more
  impressively to inspire the novitiate with a
  sense of the dignity and responsibility that
  pertains to the president of a Lodge of
  Freemasons. This mock installation will now
  disappear before the Installed Masters ritual
  recently adopted by Grand Lodge.

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The Installation Ceremony

• It was in 1872 at the February communication
  that the Grand Lodge of Scotland first recognised
  the Past Masters ceremonial of Installation.
  Previous to that date it was generally conducted
  in Scotland in the manner I have here tried to
  describe as my experience in 1867.
• It should be noted that the whole ceremony of
  Installation in 1867 was conducted while the
  Lodge was in the first degree in accordance with
  the Grand Lodge law then existing. In a copy of
  the Laws and Constitutions of the Grand Lodge
  dated 1852 this law is stated thus The
  installation of the whole of the office-bearers
  of a Lodge including the Master shall be held
  in it just and perfect Lodge opened in the
  Apprentice Degree.

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The Installation Ceremony

• To-day in Scotland the Lodge must be opened in
  the first degree in which the Charges are read
  and the oath is administered. The new Master and
  the installed Masters then retire to another
  room where the Chair Rite is performed.
• It is therein stated An account of the early
  Irish practice in Caementaria Hibernica
  disclosed why in Andersons time it was not
  necessary to exclude those who were not Installed
  Masters In Ireland they retired behind the chair
  of the S.W. and faced the West.
• In Scotland it is not recognised as a degree. It
  is sometimes called a ceremony and sometimes a
  rite for the Grand Lodge has always maintained
  that there are only three degrees in Masonry -
  Apprentice Fellow-Craft and Master - and it
  holds that the Mark Ceremony forms a part of
  the Fellow-Craft degree and that the Installed
  Masters Rite is a part of the Installation
  Ceremony.

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Andrew MacBride The YoungerPM Lodge Progress
No.873
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The Lodge Master

• His Qualifications
• His Nomination Election and Installation
• Powers and Privileges
• Hints to Masters
• Powers and Privileges of the Master
• Limitations of the Masters Powers
• Duties of a Master
• Lodge Business and Work
• His Installation

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The Lodge Master

• His Qualifications
• 1. Upright Character
• 2. Sound judgment
• 3. Knowledge of Masonry
• 4. Mental Ability

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The Lodge Master

• His Nomination Election and Installation
• Nomination and election at the same meeting gives
  the opportunity for a coup detat. Such rash
  action is rare in the Mason Lodge yet it is not
  wise to tempt human nature with the opportunity
• 1-That the candidates nominated are in good
  standing.
• 2-That the proposers and seconders are also in
  good standing.
• 3-That the election is in the 3rd Degree.
• 4-That the book of the Laws and Constitution of
  the Grand Lodge is laid in front of the Chair.

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The Lodge Master

• Powers and Privileges
• Administrative Work
• Legislative Work
• Educative Work

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The Lodge Master

• Hints to Masters
• 1. THE MASTER should not be labourer builder
  and everything. His function is to superintend
  and direct the work.
• 2. Allocate various parts to your Depute and
  substitute Master so that they may assist and
  relieve you.
• 3. Have a meeting of office-bearers as soon after
  the election as possible to arrange your work
  and to enter your duties enthusiastically.
• 4. Remember it is the Masters work to plan and
  to draw out the plan.
• 5. Give encouragement to anyone who wishes to
  work and bear in mind that your own Members have
  the first claim on your assistance and
  encouragement.
• 6. Dont parade your authority but prove
  yourself worthy of the power placed in your hands
  by using it as seldom as possible
• 7. Remember the best Master is he who best serves
  the Craft.

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The Lodge Master

• Powers and Privileges of the Master
• 1. The Lodge cannot sit in judgment on him
• 2. Any charge against him by any members of the
  Lodge or the Craf tmust be formulated by petition
  to the Grand Lodge.
• 3. Grand Lodge cannot suspend or censure him
  without a regular process.
• 4. He can summon special meetings of the Lodge.
• 5. He is Ex-Officio member of all committees and
  unless he has agreed to another Convener being
  appointed he is Convener of all committees.
• 6. He plans the order of Lodge Business and of
  Lodge Labour
• 7. In all points of order his decision is final
  and all must work according to his Plan and
  Instructions.
• 8. He can call on any Brother to work for him
  but unless the Brother is an Installed Master he
  cannot occupy the Chair.
• 9. He can refuse to put to the Lodge any motion
  which he considers contrary to the Laws of the
  land the landmarks of the Order or the Grand
  Lodge Laws.
• 10. He can order any Brother to retire from the
  Lodge.
• 11. He can personally bring any dispute between
  him and the Lodge under the consideration of the
  Grand Lodge..
• 12. To the Lodge he is the Interpreter of the
  Laws of the Grand Lodgewhich he is bound to
  interpret to the best of his ability.
• 13. For the due execution and administration of
  the Grand Lodge Laws and the Lodge Byelaws he is
  responsible to Grand Lodge

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The Lodge Master

• Limitations of the Masters Powers
• 1. AT THE end of twelve months the Lodge may
  elect another Master.
• 2. He is responsible to the Grand Lodge both for
  his own acts and those of his Lodge.
• 3. Without petition from his Lodge the Grand
  Lodge may call him to accountand by regular
  process proceed to try him.
• 4. He is bound to observe strict morality of
  personal life and conduct to conform to the Laws
  of the realm to respect the Landmarks of the
  Order.
• 5. For Lodge business he cannot hand over the
  mallet unless to the officers of the Lodge
  according to precedence.and to an Installed
  Master.
• 7. In his absence from the Lodge the Chair is
  filled according to precedence.
• 8. If a Master wants to do some work or to do
  some business which in the circular calling the
  meeting the members do not wish to consider or to
  do they can adopt legal means of obstruction.
• 9. If a Master wants to stop a certain business
  or work refuses to allow a motion or to do the
  work the members can constitutionally proceed by
  various methods
• 10. He cannot shift the date and hour of the
  regular Lodge Meetings.
• 11. He cannot refuse permission to a Brother to
  retire when the Brother pleads
• (a) the necessities of nature (b) public or
  family duty (c) dissatisfaction with and protest
  against the proceedings (d) his disagreement
  with some Brother or Brethren
• 12. The interpretation of its own Bye-Laws lie
  with the Lodge and not with the Master.
• 13. His decisions and conduct are subject to
  appeal to Grand Lodge

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The Lodge Master

• Duties of a Master
• The first and all-important duty for a Master is
  to enlighten himself.
• The profit and pleasure of the brethren depend on
  the Master doing his duties well.
• Get the aid and assistance of experienced Past
  Masters.
• The young Master should study the best Masonic
  Authors

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The Lodge Master

• Lodge Business and Work
• It will be useful for the Master clearly to
  distinguish between Lodge Business and Work.
• Business refers to matters of Minutes Records
  ReportsFinance Laws and Bye-Laws.
• Work refers to the various ceremonies
  instruction lectures all that matters for the
  building and enlightenment of its members in
  Masonry.
• The first appertains to the organisation of the
  Lodge the second to the teaching of Masonry

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The Lodge Master

• His Installation
• In 1872 Grand Lodge of Scotland recognised the
  Installed Masters Rite or Ceremony
• Done to impress the dignity of office on the
  members of the Craft generally.
• Should be carried out carefullyseriously and
  deliberatley so as to produce an atmosphere of
  dignity discipline and diligence
• Master has full authority until successor
  completely installed and if he chooses install
  the Master-Elect himself.

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Lodges known to work the MacBride Ritual

• Lodge Leven St John No. 170 Scotland
• Lodge Progress No. 873 Scotland
• Lodge St Patrick No. 1309 Scotland
• Lodge Burnside No. 1361 Scotland
• Lodge Govanhill (In Darkness) Scotland
• Lodge Ailsa No. 1172 Singapore

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Establishment of Lodge Ailsa in Singapore - 1918
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The Lodge Ailsa MacBride Ritual Mystery
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Extract from a letter from Bro. Andrew Pryde PM
Lodge Progress No. 873 to Bro Joe Fernandez PM
Lodge Ailsa No. 1172

• 8th April 2002
• As to how the situation in Lodge Ailsa came to
  be is as follows-
• In 1972 brother David Liddell Grainger was the
  Grand Master Mason and he requested through the
  Grand Secretary permission from me as the Right
  Worshipful Master of Lodge Progress No. 873
  that as we worked the McBride ritual and that
  brother Andrew McBride was a founder member of
  our Lodge and that his son young Andrew
  McBride had also been a Right Worshipful Master
  of the Lodge would I since it was a restricted
  ritual send him a copy to be sent to your Lodge.
• I discussed the request with young Andrew and
  the old PMs and it was agreed that since it
  was personal from the GMM they would endorse my
  decision to submit a copy to him. I sent my own
  copies to the Grand Secretary who had it copied
  and sent me back my own copies (they are very
  scarce) and thats was the last I heard of it. (I
  did not even know until I saw your yearbook last
  year) that it was your Lodge to whom the ritual
  and permission to use it had been given. Since
  you obviously work the four degrees I wonder if
  you use the McBride Installation Ceremony
  because I never gave Grand Secretary copy of it.

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However

• Lodge Ailsas records were destroyed during the
  Japanese Occupation
• The first working after the Occupation in April
  1946 mentions confirming the Duties and Minutes
  of the last meeting on the 10th February 1942
  four days prior to the Occupation.
• These Duties refer to the MacBride Ritual
• Bro Andrew Prydes letter may refer to a simple
  replacement copy
• Did Lodge Ailsa work the MacBride Ritual from
  its Inauguration
• Could there be American Lodges working the
  MacBride Ritual through the influence of Bro
  Joseph Fort Newton

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Minor Differences but Landmarks Remain
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Lodge Ailsa Web Page

• http//www.LodgeAilsa.org

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The Sound of Masonry

• The Ritual is the Sound of Masonry
• But you must find the Soul in the Sound
• So that you are able to discern between good and
  bad practices
• By studying the meanings of the Ceremonies and
  Symbols

Bro Andrew MacBride PM Lodge Progress Glasgow
No.873 The Lodge Master
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In Conclusion

• Andrew Sommerville MacBride came from a small
  town and humble beginnings
• Through serious effort he managed to revise some
  of the negative practices which had crept into
  the rituals.
• He analysed and re-wrote the ritual based on a
  love and understanding of the symbolism and
  meaning of the Craft
• He made a substantial change to Freemasonry in
  Scotland and eventually some of the US Lodges and
  mentoring systems
• We are still talking about and trying to
  understand the magnitude of his efforts today
• He was one of the most influential Masons in
  recent Scottish History because of what he did
  inside Masonry not who he was on the outside.