Tobias Churton

 

Freemasonry. The Reality. Hersham, Surrey: Lewis Masonic 2007, 402-404.

 

 

Women's Freemasonry

 

You do not have to be a man to be a Freemason, though most women Freemasons call each other ‚Brothers', which might make things interesting for the Seven Brides.

 

It is perhaps fitting that the main masonic bodies that admit women in Britain today stem from the tireless work of Annie Besant. Her stirring speeches, made at the turn of the 20th century, now seem prescient of the heyday of feminist protest and outrage of the 1970s and 80s.

 

In 1879, the First 'Co-Masonic Order' (admitting men and women), the Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossais Mixte de France, was founded. Its first lodge was called Le Droit Humain (Human Right), a name that now covers Co-Masonry's contemporary descendant. It worked only craft Masonry to begin with, but in 1902, a 'Supreme Council' of thirty-three degrees was established. Mademoiselle Marie Deraismes was elected first Grande Maitresse and president of the Supreme Council.

 

A Co-Masonic lodge was consecrated an 26 September 1902 in London. Uncompromising light of the Theosophical Society and political freethinker Annie Besant took the helm of lodge Human Duty No 6, giving the movement in England an esoteric outlook and emphasis from the start.

 

The contemporary Droit Humain Federation in England is administered from Hexagon House, Surbiton, near London. In 2000, Helen Boutall was ‚Most Puissant Grand Commander' of the order in England. There are consecrated lodges throughout England, as well as in Australia, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.

 

As Annie Besant was initiated into all of the craft and ‚higher' degrees (in irregular lodges), there is no Separation between these aspects of Freemasonry in the federation structure. The grand commander is responsible for a 'Grand Council' of the 33rd degree, a 'Consistory Council', twenty-three craft lodges, four Mark lodges, three Holy Royal Arch chapters, seven Rose Croix chapters, one 'Knights Kadosh' of the 30th degree, one Knights Templar preceptory and priory, as well as the 31st, 32nd and 33rd degrees.

 

The International Federation Le Droit Humain adopts the System of Masonry of the country in which it finds itself. In France, it has adopted the Grand Orient constitution - irregular in the eyes of the United Grand Lodge of England. Of course, from the point-of-view of England's grand lodge, all female or mixed Masonry is irregular, though attitudes, at least, have softened considerably in the last twenty years: softened, but not melted.

 

The conception of Freemasonry in the (sexually) mixed order of Co-Masonry is essentially focused an the individual, providing access to a set of ideals that are intended to support the inner growth of the adept; self-knowledge is the essential purpose of participation.

 

 

Two other women's orders flourish in England stemming from the first arrival from France at the turn of the 20th century of Co-Masonry. Both have chosen to take an all-women's road to masonic practice. In 1908, three lodges established by the Co-Masons called themselves the ‚Free Masonic Association of Men and Women'. On 6 March 1908, the ‚Ancient Masonic Union' split off from this association. In 1913 members from lodge Stability No 5 seceded and became the 'Honourable Fraternity of Antient Masonry' (they wanted to work the Royal Arch).

 

Since 1958, the order has been known as the Order of Women Freemasons. Its temple is based in Penkridge Gardens, Notting Hill, London, and its grand master in 2000 was ‚Most Worshipful Brother' Brenda I. Fleming-Taylor, who in that year presided over 349 lodges.

 

Another splinter group from the Co-Masonry crisis of 1908 was the 'Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons', a women's order now based at 68 Great Cumberland Place, Marble Arch, London. They had three lodges. In 1935, they took the title The Order of Women Freemasons, but have since returned to their old name (HFAF).

The order now has more than 350 women's lodges in the UK, Canada, Gibraltar, and Australia (see Enid L. Scott's Women and Freemasonry, 1992).

In 1999, the order's grand master was Eileen Grey CBE who stated quite plainly in that year that ‚Freemasonry is a way of life as applicable to a woman as it is to a man!'

If more people knew of the opportunity for women's Freemasonry, I dare say it should prove even more popular than it is already. But then, the Women's orders do not aim at popularity; they aim at Freemasonry.