Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

philosopher Dugald Stewart joined St David’s Tarbolton, the primary lodge of
Robert Burns.
In addition to the multiple memberships, organizations frequently shared
meeting premises; it is quite possible that freemasons were members of other
societies which met in their home lodges. The Grand Lodge of Scotland, too,
used other lodges, which included Mary’s Chapel, St Giles’, and Thistle.
Indeed, for most of the eighteenth century, the Grand Lodge of Scotland had no
formal building in which to hold its meetings. During the early 1770s, the
Thistle Lodge also served as the meeting place for the Robinhood Society – a
debating association – and sometime in the late 1770s it moved to Mary’s
Chapel. 71 Two of the capital’s most elite and influential organizations – the
Edinburgh and Select Societies – assembled in St Giles’ masonic lodge. 72
Reflecting the common practice of holding meetings in coffeehouses, the Grand
Lodge of Scotland frequently met in one of three locations in the city: The
Exchange Coffeehouse, Forrest’s Coffeehouse, and High School House. The
Juridicial Society also met in both Forrest’s and The Exchange Coffeehouses. 73
Clearly, overlapping membership among lodges and clubs and societies
was common. As Clark notes, by the end of the eighteenth century multiple
membership was common, 74 and in general, “three or four clubs or societies
were probably close to the maximum for most people, given the constraints of
71
McElroy, Age of Improvement, 87-92.
72
Ibid, 53.
73
Ibid, 128.
74
Clark, British Clubs, 218.
101