Brothers Past

MENTOR AND MASON

Freemason and one of London’s leading educators, Martin Clare was a proponent of Masonic enlightenment, as Dr Ric Berman explains

Described as ‘one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, and the Master of the Academy in Soho Square’ in his obituary in the General Evening Post (18 May 1751), Martin Clare (c1689-1751) sat on the Middlesex Bench until just a few months before his death. But it was his role as an educator and as a Freemason that would defi ne him.

Clare was one of London’s most infl uential Freemasons in the 1730s to 40s, appointed a Grand Steward in 1734, Junior Grand Warden in 1735, and Deputy Grand Master in 1741. He was also a leading member of the King’s Arms Lodge in the Strand, now known as the Old King’s Arms or ‘OKA’. There he was Senior Warden and deputised for the often-absent Sir Cecil Wray, the Master. Clare was also Master of the Lodge at the Shakespeare’s Head in St James’s, where 14 members hailed from the OKA, and attended the Lodge at the British Coff ee House in Cockspur Street near Charing Cross.

However, Clare is known best as the author of A Defence of Masonry, published in 1730 in response to Samuel Prichard’s ‘exposure’, Masonry Dissected (1730). Clare’s retort was so admired that it was reprinted in Read’s Weekly Journal on 24 October that year.

Clare was also a prolifi c and popular Masonic lecturer. The few surviving Lodge minute books dating back to the early 18th century suggest that it was customary in at least some Lodges for members with skills or hobbies to share their knowledge through talks and lectures. The fi rst surviving OKA minute book underlines this, recording 36 lectures given by a variety of members in the decade to 1743. They cover everything

Left: one of the Lodges Clare attended was at the British Coffee House in Cockspur Street, near Charing Cross from human physiology to architecture, art and mathematics.

Clare was the driving force behind the OKA’s lectures and had been one of London’s foremost educators for almost two decades. Since 1717, he had been proprietor and head of The Soho Academy, one of London’s leading boarding schools, and his textbook, Youth’s Introduction to Trade and Business (1720), ran to 12 editions. He summed up his approach to education as being centred on ‘practicality’, making sure his charges were ‘fi tted for business’ by combining sciences with social graces.

The Soho Academy syllabus was an amalgamation of mathematics, geography, French, drawing, dancing and fencing, combined with lectures on morality, religion, and natural and experimental philosophy. The school was viewed as one of England’s most celebrated and successful of private boarding schools and attracted students from affl uent, well-connected families.

Clare’s approach to Masonic education was in the same vein. He noted in his discourse given to the Grand Stewards’ Lodge and then to the Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge on 11 December 1735 that ‘the chief pleasure of society – viz, good conversation and the consequent improvements – are rightly presumed... to be the principal motive of our fi rst entering into then propagating the Craft... We are intimately related to those great and worthy spirits who have ever made it their business and aim to improve themselves and inform mankind. Let us then copy their example that we may also hope to attain a share in their praise.’

The Discourse was reprinted widely and incorporated into various editions of A Pocket Companion for Free-masons and in translations overseas. Clare based it in large part on John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693). He invokes the idea of an ‘inward civility of the mind’, arguing that a Freemason should have an enlightenment perspective that is guided by respect and concern for others both in and out of Lodge: ‘Men, whatever they are guilty of, would not chuse to have their Blemishes displayed and set in open View. Failings always carry some Degree of Shame with them; and the Discovery, or even Imputation of any Defect, is not borne by them without Uneasiness.’

Whether because of its lectures, the scientifi c eminence and status of its members – many of whom, including Clare, were Fellows of the Royal Society – applications for membership of the OKA became numerous. In 1734, joining members included: Viscount Weymouth, who became Grand Master the following year; Viscount Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl; Lord Vere Bertie, eldest son of the Duke of Ancaster; and William Todd, Keeper of the King’s Wine Cellar at St James’s Palace. In an attempt to lessen the fl ow, the annual members’ fee was increased to fi ve guineas for gentlemen, albeit remaining at three guineas for others. Nonetheless, this was high and would have excluded most.

The OKA’s minute book outlines the structure of Lodge meetings. The Lodge would open around 6pm and an extract read from the by-laws or constitutions and proposed new members announced. The principal activity of the evening, the lecture or talk, would follow and be followed in turn by an initiation or the Masonic examination of Lodge offi cers to demonstrate their command of ritual. After toasts and songs, the evening would conclude around 10 or 11pm and the Lodge would then close.

As Clare noted, ‘We are, let it be considered, the Successors of those who reared a Structure to the Honour of Almighty God, the Grand Architect of the World, which for Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, hath never yet had any Parallel. We are intimately related to those great and worthy Spirits, who have ever made it their Business and their Aim to improve themselves, and to inform Mankind. Let us then copy their Example, that we may also hope to obtain a Share in their Praise. This cannot possibly be done in a Scene of Disorder: Pearls are never found but when the Sea is calm; and silent Water is generally deepest.’