When he was 23 years of age he was installed a Knight Templar in the
Jerusalem Conclave on the 11th of July, 1856.
In 1861 he was elected Commander of the Love and Friendship Precep-
tory, Stockport, and in 1863, succeeding Brother William Romaine Callendar,
M.P., D.L., he became the Commander of the Jerusalem Conclave.
Further
honours fell to his share, and he was elected Grand Vice-Chancellor of the
Province under Brother William Courtenay Cruttenden, P.G.C., and in 1864
was appointed Grand Constable of England.
In the same year he was called
abroad on commercial business and travelled extensively in America, the West
Indies and Cuba.
Before he left England he revived the old York degrees of
Heredom-Kadosh, formerly worked under the Duke of Sussex, being helped in
this important work by old members who had been admitted in 1823 and 1833.
In 1869 he was admitted into L’Ordre du Temple, the continuation of the
Knights Templars in Paris.
This body claims an uninterrupted succession of
Grand Masters from the time of Jacques de Molay, who, it is said, invested as
Grand Master Marc Larmenius in 1307, when the Order was first impugned,
before he himself perished at the stake.
Later, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, and
several scions of the French Royal Family, were Grand Masters.
It was a time of much activity, a Masonic Renaissance, in which the Very
Illustrious Brother John Yarker played an important röle, and many other old
Rites were rescued from the oblivion into which they had fallen—such were the
Rite of Mizraim, the degree of Ark Mariners, the Red Cross of Constantine,
Babylon, Palestine, Philippi, etc., and, the most notable of all, the Ancient and
Primitive Rite which was established by him in Manchester in 1871.
Very properly, therefore, we find that in 1870 the Royal Grand Council of
Ancient Rites appointed him Royal Grand Superintendent of Lancashire of
these and other old Orders.
For his Masonic scholarship and literary work, he
was elected a member of the Masonic Archaeological Institute at its establish-
ment in 1862.
The same year he was created a Sovereign Prince Rose Croix of
the Palatine Chapter of the A. and A. Rite by Brother Cruttenden, M.W., but
as their claims conflicted with the old Templar grades he ceased attending.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the offices he held and all the honours
that were bestowed upon him; here,
however,
is a short list of the more
important:
Royal Grand Commander of the Rose Croix and Kadosh, 1868 to 1874.
Scottish Rite of 33° (and received certificate dating from
1811), January
27th, 1871.
Admitted 33° of Cerneau Rite and honorary member in New York, August
21st, 1871.
Installed Grand Master 96° of Ancient and Primitive Rite at Freemasons’
Hall, London, October 8th, 1872.
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