Masonic museums and libraries

Entrance to Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen Street, London. Photograph by Ethan Doyle White (2016), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Masonic museums and libraries preserve objects, books and records relating to Freemasonry. Their collections support the study of lodges, individual members, publishing, charity and material culture, including regalia. This guide introduces selected collections in Britain, France and the United States, together with online resources for historical research.

Museum of Freemasonry, London

The Museum of Freemasonry at Freemasons' Hall provides a catalogue covering its museum, library and archive collections. Its research service includes family history enquiries and guidance on using the records. Research visits to the library and archives require advance arrangements; the collections are for reference use rather than borrowing.

The museum identifies an important boundary to its membership records: they concern English Freemasonry at home and overseas, rather than every Masonic organisation. Its digitised membership registers cover 1751–1921 and are available through Ancestry, with access also provided to registered readers in the museum library.

The museum's research resources provide several different routes into the evidence:

• Lane's Masonic Records lists lodges established by the English Grand Lodges between 1717 and 1894.
• Masonic Periodicals Online makes selected periodicals from 1790–1900 searchable.
• Chapter Records covers English Royal Arch chapters.
• The online catalogue and Art UK records help locate objects and portraits.

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Lexington

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library in Lexington, Massachusetts, was established in 1975 by the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. Its collections place American Freemasonry alongside other fraternal organisations and wider American history.

The Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives maintains separate routes to books and periodicals, archival descriptions and digitised material. Its archival catalogue represents only part of the holdings; an unsuccessful online search does not establish that the institution has no relevant material. The catalogue also links to the library catalogue and the museum's object database.

Research on the Scottish Rite, regalia manufacturers, fraternal organisations and printed Masonic literature can therefore involve several catalogues. Staff enquiries remain useful where an item or collection has not yet been described online.

Musée de la franc-maçonnerie, Paris

The Musée de la franc-maçonnerie preserves French Masonic material including seals, medals, paintings, ceramics, photographs, manuscripts and regalia. It originated in 1889, suffered losses during the occupation of France in the Second World War, and reopened in 1973. It received the French Ministry of Culture's Musée de France designation in 2003.

Its collections include an original edition of The 1723 Constitutions. The range of objects offers evidence for the social and artistic history of French Freemasonry as well as its institutional history. The Grand Orient de France library and archives website provides a further starting point for printed and archival sources.

Research publications and use of evidence

Quatuor Coronati Lodge provides indexes to Ars Quatuor Coronatorum and links to older research volumes. Its Antigrapha series reproduces early manuscripts and administrative records. These publications can help identify relevant documents before a research visit.

A useful reference records the repository, collection or catalogue number, date and page or object details. Those details allow another reader to distinguish an original document from a later transcription, or a dated piece of regalia from a modern reproduction. The examples in History of Masonic regalia show how maker's labels and documented ownership assist identification.

See also

• Old Theatre Royal, Bath
• Freemasons' Hall, Dublin
• Masonic Temple, Philadelphia
• George Washington Masonic National Memorial
• Masonic buildings and memorials
• Sources for studying early Freemasonry
• The Layout of the Craft Lodge
• Quatuor Coronati Lodge
• The 1723 Constitutions
• History of Masonic regalia
• Charles T. McClenachan