{"id":940,"date":"2016-09-24T04:28:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T04:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freemasonrywatch.org\/blog\/?p=940"},"modified":"2016-09-24T04:28:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T04:28:43","slug":"mirror-how-secret-group-freemasons-has-kept-grip-on-britain-for-200-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freemasonrywatch.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/24\/mirror-how-secret-group-freemasons-has-kept-grip-on-britain-for-200-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Mirror: How secret group Freemasons has kept grip on Britain for 200 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/uk-news\/how-secret-group-freemasons-kept-6886802<\/a><\/p>\n

How secret group Freemasons has kept grip on Britain for 200 years<\/p>\n

23 NOV 2015<\/p>\n

By Richard Smith<\/p>\n

8432 Shares 14 Comments<\/p>\n

The names of royalty, statesmen, judges, military top brass, bishops and police have been found in a secret archive<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:
Freemason: Winston Churchill making his famous V for Victory sign, 1942<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The huge influence Freemasons had in ruling British society for almost 200 years has finally been revealed.<\/p>\n

The names of royalty, statesmen, judges, military top brass, bishops and police have been found in a secret archive which lists two million Freemasons.<\/p>\n

The masonic records – from 1733 to 1923 – are set to be made available to the public for the first time.<\/p>\n

They show Kings Edward VII, Edward VIII and George VI were all Freemasons.<\/p>\n

Military leaders the Duke of Wellington and Lord Kitchener were also members of the clandestine group founded by a group of men in a London coffee house in 1717.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:<\/a>
Oscar WiIde<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Britain\u2019s wartime Premier Sir Winston Churchill was also a Freemason along with literary greats Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason<\/a>
Freemason legend: Captain Robert Falcon Scott<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Freemason:<\/a>
Freemason: Douglas Jardine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Others include music legends Gilbert and Sullivan, explorers Ernest Shackleton and Captain Robert Scott, England cricket captain Douglas Jardine and scientist Sir Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:<\/a>
Rudyard Joseph Kipling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 5,500 police officers, thousands of military figures, 170 judges, 169 MPs, 16 bishops and an Indian prince are listed in the Freemasons archive to be made public by family history website Ancestry.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:<\/a>
A member: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Freemason:<\/a>
Also a member: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Businessman Harry Selfridge is named in the archive along with social reformer Thomas Barnardo, famous bridge builder Thomas Telford and thousands of engineers who made Britain a world industrial power.<\/p>\n

\"Pocket<\/a>
Pocket watch with Mason symbol<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Freemason:<\/a>
Key member: Alexander Fleming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The extent to which Freemasons wielded power over the British Empire may lead to a re-examination of two centuries of our history.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:<\/a>
Big role: William Schwenck Gilbert<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The all-male group was originally formed to enable \u201cmen of integrity\u201d to get together while avoiding issues of religion and politics.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:<\/a>
Freemason: Arthur Sullivan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They adopted the compass, square and apron used in stonemasonry as symbols for the group.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:<\/a>
Key member: Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State at the start of World War One<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Publication of the archive comes after initiatives by the Freemasons in recent decades to make the organisation more open.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason:<\/a>
Also a member: Edward VIII in 1935<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are believed to be six million Freemasons in the world today – including two million in the United States.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A freemason: King George VI of Great Britain in 1939<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ancestry\u2019s senior UK content manager Miriam Silverman said: \u201cWe\u2019re delighted to be able to offer people an online window into a relatively unknown organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Titanic<\/strong><\/p>\n

The loss of SS Titanic, 14 April 1912: The lifeboats. All that was left of the greatest ship in the world – the lifeboats that carried most of the 705 survivors<\/p>\n

\"Huge<\/a>
Huge influence: The Freemasons were key in the inquiry of SS Titanic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Freemasons had a huge influence over a controversial inquiry into the Titanic disaster in which more than 1,500 passengers and crew died.<\/p>\n

The secret archive shows the judge who presided over the British Wreck Commissioner\u2019s inquiry was a Freemason along with leading investigators and some who escaped censure.<\/p>\n

A US investigation blamed the British Board of Trade for lax rules which allowed the Titanic to set off on its maiden voyage in 1912 with just 20 lifeboats for 2,208 people on board.<\/p>\n

But the Board of Trade was exonerated by the British inquiry led by Lord Mersey.<\/p>\n

Records show the judge was initiated as a Freemason in 1881 at the Northern Bar Lodge in London.<\/p>\n

\"Freemason<\/a>
Tragedy: Photograph purporting to be of the iceberg that sank the Titanic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President of the Board of Trade Sydney Buxton was also a long-standing Mason after being initiated in 1888 at Limehouse in East London, where he was local MP.<\/p>\n

Two of the inquiry\u2019s five expert assessors were also listed as Masons – naval architecture specialist John Harvard Biles and senior engineer assessor Edward Chaston.<\/p>\n

Another key figure in the inquiry listed as a Freemason was Lord Pirrie.<\/p>\n

He was chairman of the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast which built the Titanic and a directors of shipping line White Star\u2019s parent company.<\/p>\n

Nic Compton, author of Titanic on Trial, told History.com: \u201cThe Titanic inquiry in Britain was branded a \u2018whitewash\u2019 because it exonerated most of those involved.<\/p>\n