In response to a number of recent enquiries we have received, colleagues may
be interested to receive up to date information about the Historical Records
Survey Project of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry being undertaken
by Masonic Lodges and Chapters operating under the United Grand Lodge of
England.

Broadly, the Survey aims to do two things:
• To compile lists of records created by all active and closed
Lodges/Chapters in England and Wales, including the Channel Islands and the
Isle of Man.
• To create a finding aid for annual lodge membership returns among
Quarter Sessions records, lodged with Clerks of the Peace between 1799 and
1967.

Lodge and Chapter records
The Survey will capture details of Lodge/Chapter records currently held by
members, or in Masonic meeting places, Provincial offices, or held on deposit
with the Library and Museum. It will also include details of records deposited
by Lodges/Chapters with local record offices, Masonic records held by the
archives of private institutions and stray items located among family, estate
or other collections.

Each Masonic Province has appointed a local, volunteer co-ordinator who will
liaise with lodge and chapter secretaries and scribes - the people who will be
completing the returns - and with our part-time Project Manager, Len Reilly,
who is based at Freemasons’ Hall for two years from May 2008. Survey
questionnaires were distributed last year and volunteers and lodge secretaries
are now tackling the task. We have asked that returns be completed by
summer 2009.

As well as capturing details about which records have survived and where
they are located, the Survey includes a preservation assessment of each
item, based on National Preservation Office methodology. This is the first time
that the NPO preservation assessment has been applied on this scale to
records created by a private organisation.

Our volunteer co-ordinators have been alerted to the possibility that lodge
and chapter records may be in the custody of local record offices. Therefore,
volunteer co-ordinators would appreciate assistance from local record offices
when they visit or make contact to find or check information about Masonic
records. Some volunteer co-ordinators have never been to a record office
before. At initial briefing sessions, co-ordinators were provided with guidance
on contacting and using local archives: how to make an appointment,
obtaining a reader’s ticket, using pencils etc.

Conveniently, Masonic provinces are generally coterminous with county
boundaries apart from in areas where Metropolitan authorities were introduced
after the 1960’s.

The Library and Museum is not seeking to retrieve Lodge/Chapter records held
by local record offices on deposit. In fact our Archivist and Records Manager
is providing presentations to Masonic Provinces on caring for their records,
often in conjunction with colleagues from the National Advisory Service and/or
local record offices. This advocates Lodges/Chapters depositing older records
with local record offices if they cannot provide reasonable, local storage
facilities.

To assist local record offices, we are also preparing a Toolkit, providing
recommendations on closure periods for lodge/chapter records, an explanation
of Masonic structure, terms and abbreviations, with ISAD(G) cataloguing
templates for typical record types, available towards the end of 2009. It will
also include notes on using the on-line version of Lane’s Masonic Records, a
useful resource that provides information on lodge histories, changes in
numeration and meeting places. This useful resource, being updated currently
to include details for Lodges after 1894, and eventually Chapters, may be
found at: http://freemasonry.dept.shef.ac.uk/lane/

Quarter Sessions Records
We also aim to create a finding aid for annual lodge membership returns among
Quarter Sessions records, lodged with Clerks of the Peace between 1799 and
1967. We are still developing this element of the project and will be in touch
with you at a later date.

The intention is to publish finding aids at least in summary form for Lodge and
Chapter records in England and Wales for use by researchers, family and local
historians, with information about the survival of annual returns from Lodges
held among Quarter Sessions records.

Susan Snell
Archivist and Records Manager

Len Reilly
Project Manager, Historical Records Survey

Library and Museum of Freemasonry