History of Masonic regalia

Apron, collar and key jewel for Secret Master (4°), illustrated in Charles T. McClenachan’s 1885 book. This historical design is one example of Scottish Rite regalia; practice varies by jurisdiction.

Masonic regalia includes aprons, collars, sashes and badges known as jewels. Surviving examples record changes in materials, workmanship and the organisation of Masonic bodies. Their forms vary between countries, jurisdictions, offices and periods. This article uses examples from British and American museum collections and nineteenth-century Scottish Rite illustrations.

From working apron to ceremonial dress

The Masonic apron derives from the protective leather apron worn by working stonemasons. A large apron protected clothing and the body from stone chips and the abrasion of work. In speculative Freemasonry it became ceremonial dress. Early examples could be individually decorated with painted, printed or embroidered designs; later regulations increasingly specified their appearance.

Materials changed as the apron acquired this different purpose. Museum collections contain silk examples as well as leather ones. An unfinished silk apron attributed to the engraver Thomas Kensett and dated about 1812 preserves evidence of its manufacture: the printed decoration was applied before the edges were hemmed. The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library associates it with Kensett's work in Cheshire, Connecticut.

Makers and commercial supply

By the middle of the nineteenth century, American fraternal suppliers offered matching sets of aprons for lodge officers. Such sets could remain with the lodge and pass to successive office-holders. An officer's emblem helped identify the office: a treasurer's apron of about 1850–1860 in the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library bears crossed keys.

Women also worked in the regalia trade. Rose Lipp operated a Masonic supply business in Boston for at least thirty years. Objects bearing her label include aprons, collars, sashes and other clothing. In 1924 her firm supplied a set of officers' aprons for Russell Lodge in Arlington, Massachusetts. The surviving set documents a named maker and a particular lodge commission.

Jewels and personal objects

In Masonic usage a jewel is a badge; the word does not necessarily imply a precious stone. Material and purpose could vary considerably. During the wars with France from the 1790s to 1815, French prisoners of war in Britain made Masonic badges for sale to English Freemasons. Examples in the Museum of Freemasonry incorporate bone, wood, straw, paper and hair. Some later pieces used purchased gold thread and sequins.

These objects also had lives beyond lodge meetings. The museum records examples adapted as cravat pins, placed in lockets or framed for display. They preserve evidence of prisoners' craftwork and the market for Masonic objects during wartime.

Scottish Rite illustrations of 1885

Charles T. McClenachan's The Book of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry illustrates aprons, collars and jewels associated with particular degrees. The illustrations below are extracts from its revised 1885 edition. They show historical American designs, rather than a single standard applicable to every Supreme Council today.

McClenachan himself records a jurisdictional difference: his note on the Ineffable Degrees describes triangular aprons in the Northern Jurisdiction and square aprons in the Southern Jurisdiction. This is a statement about the practice presented in that edition, not a current clothing regulation.

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  Secret Master, 4°, illustrated on p. 36.

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  Grand Master Architect, 12°, illustrated on p. 128.

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  Prince of Jerusalem, 16°, illustrated on p. 200.

The source illustrations are in the public domain. Each image's file page records its source and the printed page from which it was extracted. Further examples appear in the individual articles linked from Scottish Rite degrees 4 to 17.

Identifying historical regalia

Dating and attribution require more than recognising a symbol. Maker's labels, inscriptions, documented gifts and the history of the owning lodge can connect an object with a person, place or period. The labelled Rose Lipp pieces and the museum's dated officers' aprons provide examples of this evidence. Colours and shapes should be interpreted within that context: an illustration in one jurisdiction's publication is not by itself evidence of another jurisdiction's practice.

See also

• Masonic charity jewels
• The Masonic Million Memorial Fund
• Masonic museums and libraries
• History of the Scottish Rite
• Charles T. McClenachan
• Scottish Rite degrees 4 to 17
• The Officers in a Craft Lodge
• How to Clean a Lambskin Apron