Museum of Freemasonry

It ’s no secret, and certainly no surprise, that Museum of Freemasonry has had to implement its digital strategy at a much greater speed than initially anticipated due to the pandemic. Like many small cultural organisations up and down the country, we found ourselves burdened with a higher degree of pressure to deliver digital content in order to continue under unusual circumstances. If there was a positive to come from the lockdowns, it would be that we are now better equipped for a digital future.

A huge amount of work was carried out by the museum to recognise and account for the changes that would be necessary in delivering a museum fit for the 21st century. With the groundwork prepared and a clear path approved, we have started the digital integration needed to ensure both the collection and you are well served.

Some steps had already been taken, so we certainly weren’t starting from scratch. With wonderful resources such as Masonic Periodicals Online, Lane’s Masonic Records, Art UK and others that you can find through our website for free, we have a good pool of digital tools to refer back to. As our exhibitions and projects sourced

DIGITISING THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE

Museum of Freemasonry has partnered with Google to put its exhibits on a global stage. Marketing and communications manager Barry Hughes tells us more

City Centre Lodge Past Master jewel, Vaughtons Ltd, W H Darby, 1939. Portrait of James Willing by Elite Lundoil, 1870

from the museum, library or archival collections continue to grow, we will no doubt add more bespoke online resources over the coming years too.

As a registered charity, the museum relies on the generosity of friends and supporters, from individuals to Grand Lodge. Even charity has become digital now. Not only can donations be made via the website or in the museum itself using contactless payments, another new development is the museum enrolling in Google for Nonprofits. This initiative opens doors for the museum in terms of having access to powerful online tools and software, as well as providing a crucial digital advertising bursary.

By enrolling with Google for Nonprofits, we have also become an official partner of the Google Cultural Institute, which means we have a presence on the Google Arts & Culture platform. This provides an online space for museums and galleries to showcase their collections for free, while taking advantage of the search engine giant’s reach. It means we can create a virtual museum that can be easily found and visited by a global audience, creating a road back to our home in Freemasons’ Hall, London.

The museum’s first exhibition on Arts & Culture is a re-presentation of 2018’s exhibition Bejewelled. If you remember, Bejewelled: Badges, Brotherhood and Identity focused on jewels and was received with great interest from press as far away as Mexico and Singapore.

While I worked with our curator Mark Dennis and collections manager Emma Roberts to retain and return as much of the original content as possible for the new digital offer, there were clearly some different approaches needed given the limitations and capabilities of the web space. Once we agreed to the new format, I photographed everything in high resolution so visitors to the online exhibition can zoom in with incredible detail. This meant photographing and cataloguing more than 100 items before editing them for upload to the platform.

Once the items were uploaded, there was the process of creating what Google calls ‘stories’, or mini exhibits in their own right. For example, the first is called Striking Design, and explores the process of a lodge deciding on a badge design, creating the artwork and having the piece made. Toye, Kenning and Spencer has loaned examples of each step of the process – from the sheet metal to the ‘blank’, created by using a steel die to strike the metal plate, to the various stages of polishing and enamelling before the final jewel appears. The following four stories then represent the many other aspects of jewels from significance to utility, with items from around the world.

Having begun the process to join the Google Cultural Institute in April 2020, we finally had our launch in June 2021. The end result is an exhibition we can be proud of for its rich visual content, detail and the clarity in describing an important tradition of Freemasonry.

It has been a fascinating process and a valuable experience. Not only do we now have another online space for the museum to show off its unique collection and its stories, but this digital space comes with the backing of the internet’s largest search engine. The value is immeasurable. It builds upon the museum’s digital future and shares the history of Freemasonry with a global audience through engaging stories.

Look for Museum of Freemasonry on Google Arts & Culture.

www.artsandculture.google.com

Die used to strike the Freemasons’ Hall inauguration jewel, 1869. Grand Lodge of Iran, Grand Officer jewel, 1969