CI Donald Swanson

Many interested in the Jack the Ripper will have heard of Inspector Fred Abberline (played in various films by Michael Caine and Johnny Depp). Abberline was to join Zetland Lodge No. 511 in Londonin 1889, the year after the murders. However, his superior and the Senior Investigating Officer was Chief Inspector Bro. Donald Sutherland Swanson.

He was born in Thurso, in the very north of Scotland and joined St Peter’s Lodge No. 284 in Caithness. He joined the Metropolitan Police in 1868, then the CID and became a very successful detective. After the murder of Annie Chapman (at the time believed to be the third Ripper murder), the case was taken away from the Whitechapel CID office so that it could be handled by the central CID at Scotland Yard. [For fans of 'Ripper Street', the original investigating officer was Inspector Edmund Reid. Another future Mason, he would later join Ixion Lodge No. 2501 in Essex].

In the 1800s there were two lodges in Caithness – St John's Lodge No 141 in Thurso and Lodge St Fergus No 252 in Wick. St John's was the preserve of lairds, landowners, lawyers and merchants, and although artisans were admitted they had little say in the manner in which the business of the lodge was conducted.

It was thought that a new lodge was mooted with the possible failure of a trades benevolent group. When the artisans were unable to persuade St John's Lodge to fill the gap, they decided to form a breakaway association, to be called St Peter's Lodge.

The private collection of Bro. Donald Swanson has been entrusted to the National Emergency Services Museum (NESM) in Sheffield by the former detective’s family. The treasure trove lay undiscovered for decades until Swanson’s descendants discovered an enormous collection of over 150 individual objects; paperwork, photographs, letters, drawings and personal belongings.

On display in St Peter's Operative Lodge is the regalia worn by Bro. Donald Swanson