Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor
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© F.Coakley , 2026
[from A.M Harrision's Descriptive List of Insular Societies]
'True Masonry is a society of honest people bound by the sentiments ot liberty, equality and fraternity, working individually and collectively to promote social welfare and good fellowship, and exercising charity in its broadest sense. If we were all Masons and modelled our lives on Masonic teaching, then the world would be an Elysium from which all sin, dishonesty, slandering, backbiting, and unchastity would be banished, and in which there would prevail universal freedom and everlasting tranquility. We must regretfully admit that this condition of affairs is beyond human attainment, but if we do our part faithfully, the sum of our labours will be very great , and we shall leave the world fairer than we found tt, richer in faith, greater in justice, wiser in pity - in a word, we should leave the world a place fit, not only for men and heroes to live in, but good enough for the habitation of the angels themselves.'
This is the testament of a Manx Freemason, John Archibald Brown, son of the Liberal, reforming editor of the Isle of Man Times, James Brown, who is a model for Manx Freemasonry in two ways, first as the typical successful man of affairs in a very popular resort, with a professed moral mission in life derived from his Masonic craft, and second as a central figure in its organisation from its modern beginnings in the 1840's to the mid 1920's, when he died.
As 'Justice of the Peace, Editor and Managing Director of the Isle of Man Times , Chairman of the Palace and Derby Castle Co. Ltd., Chairman of the Douglas Steam Ferries Ltd., Vice-Chairman of Nobles Hospital Committee, a member of the Lifeboat Institution Local Committee, and during his lifetime a member of practically every important Committee formed for the welfare of the general public in the Isle of Man', though rather more powerful than most Manx businessmen, even in booming Douglas at the turn of the 20th century, he was greatly and publicly admired as this extract from his Obituary in the Isle of Man Times of 26 September 1925 demonstrates without cynicism.
'Surely there has never been in the history of our Island such a unique example of industry, ability and courage continued to a ripe old age, for not only did his numerous activities manifest themselves in splendid fashion in public, in philanthropic and and unselfish effort, but for 65 years he threw his whole heart and soul into the cause of Freemasonry.'
In the absence of any open record base which might be examined objectively in order to assess the impact of Freemasonry on the Island and its people, the occasional, self-expressed, external view of the Masons, their own perceptions of their aims and achievements as above, are the only, nevertheless important, sources for an examination of their impact on the island and Manx society. John Archibald Brown's position and reputation qualify him as a key man in Freemasonry, a model of efficiency and morality, whose face value might well be basically correct.
His contribution to the establishment of Freemasonry started in 1860 when he was initiated into Irish Lodge 123 by his father James Brown, at a period when the Grand Lodge of Ireland and the Grand Lodge of Scotland vied for control of the Island. Some random records of Freemasonry go back further than this date, the earliest as far as 1773, when Robert Whiteside a Scottish merchant living in Douglas and member of the Douglas Society of Bucks was initiated as a Master Mason into the Scottish lodge of Ayr-Killwinning. In 1804 the Manx Advertiser of 22 December advertised a Masonic Dinner at the House of Mrs. Wilson, to celebrate the Feast of St. John the Evangelist. The Atholl Papers, the Manx archives of the Dukes of Atholl, record the application of J.Finigan, 'a distressed Mason' in a letter on 2 July 1812, C. Waters a mason of the Scottish craft, imprisoned in Castle Rushen, appeals to the Duke, 'a prominent member of the craft' for assistance on 15 March 1814.
Writing from the Isle of Man on 4 May 1819, W. H.Carrington, an officer 'in His Majesty's Service for the last 25 years' now employed by the Barrack department on the Island, submitted to the Duke his intentions to form a lodge on the Island. His qualifications for this task were impressive
'Having had the honor of belonging to the ancient fraternity under your Grace for nearly 20 years, the last 8 of which I have presided over the Royal Veteran Lodge, no. 450, and for three years past been the J.G.M.?[Junior Grand Master] for the County of Essex. Having been present at the installation of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex as Most Worshipful Grand Master and regularly attended the Lodges of Instruction in London since the Union, I consider myself competent to instal a new lodge.'
There is no further information about this proposal in the Athol Papers. Is it possible that the Freemasons' Lodge reported in a regrettably unreferenced card as having opened in Thomas Redfern's Butchers Arms in James Street on 31 March,1825 had some connection with Mr. Carrington's scheme?.
There is some confusion in the chronology of the foundation of the Lodges from this point onward. The 'List of Lodges in the Isle of Man, with days and places of meeting' published in Brown's Directory of 1882 under the general editorship of John Archibald Brown, omits the Irish Lodge no.123 [from Brown's obituary] which 'had prior to its collapse in 1862, existed for years in Douglas,' meeting in 'a dismal room opposite the Customs House in Fort Street' in which he himself had been initiated.
The obituary is a very detailed source for the setting up of all the lodges on the Island since the officers of the Royal Lodge of Freemasons, the first generally acknowledged modern club, under the Grand Lodge of Scotland, led by Governor Ready, were installed on 27 December 1843. The persons involved in the growth of the movement and their connections in the craft and on the Island generally are routinely documented and of great interest. The obituary, written by a fellow mason, Bertram Kelly, the Electrical Engineer for the Borough of Douglas, 'was primarily intended for private circulation, but as we felt that many of our readers would be interested not only in the reference to our late Editor, but to insular Masonic events of a passing generation, we reproduce it here with the permission of the writer'.
The relationship of Freemasonry with the general public was obviously relaxed, easy and respectful. 'Knowing the interest J. A. Brown took in the local hospital, the Committee of Management of which he was for many years a member, it is not surprising to find that the new hospital in Westmoreland Road was designed by a prominent Mason, built by another Freemason, and opened on the 11th September 1912, by Lord Raglan, wearing the insignia of P.G.M. and accompanied by his Deputy John A.Brown, and a large number of members of the craft, clothed with the badges of the Order.'
The connection of Freemasonry with the building of the new Nobles Hospital, built by funds bequeathed by another Freemason, Henry Bloom Noble, one of the most powerful of Manx businessmen, drew little opposition from a society which because of its small size and closeness readily identified the networks and connexions generated by the 'secret' networking masons and had accepted and tolerated the quasi-Masonic Bucks, and replaced them later, almost imperceptibly with the Freemasons. In addition the relationships of Masons with other mens societies was always close in the nineteenth century. Fund-raising for important local projects, like the building of Ramsey Cottage Hospital often resulted in joint participation and a considerable number of men enjoyed membership of a Benefit Club (often Oddfellows, not usually the teetotal Rechabites) in tandem with membership of Freemasonry.
The network of benefit clubs which covered the majority of working men on the Island and which had presented 'a formidable barrier against pauperism and social evils' bred confidence, self-respect, powers of organisation and charitable impulses in their members, all which qualities fitted them to move on socially to Freemasonry as the benefit network shrank for locally-based clubs towards the end of the nineteenth century.
M.N.H.L. J Finigan to Duke of Atholl, 2 July 1812, AP 106(2nd)-29;
C. Waters, Mason, to Duke of Atholl 15 March 1814, AP 107 (2nd)-2e
Isle of Man newspapers,
Brown's Directory of 1882
Masonic Directories, 1929 -
1843 Royal Isle of Man Lodge of Freemasons
1857 The Mona Lodge of Freemasons
1864 Athole Lodge of Freemasons
1865 St Maughold Lodge of Freemasons
1868 Tynwald Lodge of Masons
1884 St Trinians Lodge of Freemasons
1886 Provincial Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Isle of Man
1886 Glenfaba Lodge of Freemasons
1887 Spencer Walpole Temperance Lodge of Freemasons
1890 Mona Lodge of Freemasons
1914 Lord Raglan Lodge of Freemasons
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see also my Freemasons' page | |
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor |
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