History of Worcestershire KT - The Early Years of the Order

History of the Knights Templar of Worcestershire

Part One: The Early Years of the Order

The Legacy of the Crusading Orders

The opening sentence of Brethren in Chivalry, the bicentenary history of the Great Priory of the United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta of England and Wales and Provinces Overseas, 1791–1991, by Frederick Smyth runs:

“Our United Masonic orders of today can claim to have inherited little more than the names of the two knightly fraternities which were formed and developed in the Holy Land during the first and second crusades.”

In fact, they have also inherited their dress (prescribed in 1873): the older black Augustinian habit of the Hospitallers with its white eight-pointed star of Amalfi current by 1113, and the newer white mantle of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon—the Templars—ordained by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1128 when he wrote his Rule for the Order some ten years after its foundation, and to which a red cross was added in 1147.

Origins Shrouded in Mystery

The origins of the Masonic order of the Temple are obscure—as, indeed, are those of Freemasonry itself—but it is thought that it originated on the continent, most probably in France in 1740 or soon after, as an attempt to found a specifically Christian order and thus circumvent the interdict of Pope Clement XII. His 1738 Bull In Eminenti threatened excommunication on all Catholic Freemasons who supported the increasingly deist Craft. From thence it ultimately crossed the Channel.

A Worcestershire Connection: Lodge Glittering Star

From a Worcestershire point of view, one of the earliest associations with the order relates to Lodge Glittering Star, the lodge of the 29th Regiment of Foot (subsequently the Worcestershire Regiment), founded with a travelling warrant under the Irish Constitution as No. 322 in 1759. Phillip Crossle, the Masonic historian and writer from Dublin, maintained that brethren from Glittering Star were responsible for the introduction of Templar Masonry into Halifax, Nova Scotia, when they were stationed there in 1765—just prior to their transfer to Boston, Massachusetts—where there is a further mention of the degree in a Royal Arch context in 1769. Three members of Lodge Glittering Star again played a prominent role.

Early English Records and Royal Arch Influence

Similarly, in England, the earliest record is in a Royal Arch context—that of the Chapter of Friendship in Portsmouth in 1778. It is also known that the Grand Lodge of the Antients, formed from Irish influence in London in 1751, held that the Craft warrant conveyed powers to confer other degrees including that of the Knights Templar.

The Pivotal Role of Thomas Dunckerley

The name most associated with the development of the Order is that of Thomas Dunckerley, the illegitimate son of King George II, born in 1724. He was initiated in 1754 while in the Royal Navy and was exalted as a Royal Arch Mason the same year. When posted to Canada, he became the first Provincial Grand Master at Quebec in 1760 and, following his retirement from the navy, subsequently held eight Provincial Grand Masterships and was Grand Superintendent of no less than eighteen Provinces concurrently.

One of his Provinces was Bristol, where he had ruled the Royal Arch since 1782 and, although there are conflicting versions of the exact sequence of events, it is clear that it was here that he was first asked to be Grand Master of the Knights Templar in the city in January 1791, followed by other knights in Portsmouth and York. On 24th June 1791, being the Feast of St John the Baptist, the first Grand Conclave of the Order was held at the Unicorn Tavern in London at which Dunckerley was installed as Grand Master.

Fire and the Lost Records of Grand Conclave

Unfortunately, once again, very little is known of the first three decades of the Grand Conclave, since almost all of the early records were destroyed in a fire at the home of the then Grand Vice-Chancellor in 1820. But we do know that by the time of the union of the two Craft Grand Lodges in 1813, some 55 Encampments—as Preceptories were called until 1872—had been established, of which twenty-three still survive.

We also know that the two royal brothers who played the major role in that Craft union were both Grand Masters of the Order: H.R.H. the Duke of Kent from 1805 to 1807 and H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex from 1812 until his death in 1843. But during the thirty years from 1813 to 1843, only ten more Encampments were established—and the Duke of Sussex has been unfairly blamed as being responsible for this dearth.

The Impact of the 1813 Union

The Union of 1813 had placed him in a very difficult position. The famous Article II of that Act of Union states, as we all know, that “pure Ancient Masonry consists of three degrees and no more… including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.” Less well known is the fact that it then went on to state that “this Article is not intended to prevent any Lodge or Chapter from holding a meeting in any of the degrees of the Orders of Chivalry, according to the constitutions of the said Orders.”

However, there was a strong faction in the Craft who believed in the first part of the Article but not in the second; the Duke of Sussex, who was now at the head of both Craft and Templars, had to be very careful to offend neither.