Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

The Bureaucratic Reformation
Clark correctly asserts that, in addition to members, conviviality, and
elite patronage, a “key factor influencing the social clientele of a lodge (as with
other voluntary associations) was the admission charge…Charges varied
considerably between lodges, mirroring different markets and lodge
aspirations.” 163 Certainly, the constant increases in lodge dues and fees reflect
such attitudes. Aberdeen Lodge No. 1(3) raised admission fees for operative
and non-operative masons no less than four times between 1 November 1725
and 28 December 1749. In 1725, dues for admission fees for operative entered
apprentices were twelve shillings Scots annually. 164 Speculative masons were
required to pay six guineas over and above the twelve shillings, reinforcing not
only the operative status of the lodge, but also the division present among
members during the first half of the eighteenth century. 165
Lodge admission fees clearly fluctuated, and often decreased, as
speculative mason admission fees had fallen to one guinea by 1776. 166
Occasionally, lodges would offer special dispensations to certain groups. For
example, in December of 1800 the members of No. 49 Ancient Dundee resolved
that “all Military Gentlemen should be pass’d and raised for half the Lodge dues
but not intitled to any benefit from the Funds.” 167
Other lodges also showed a marked increase in admission fees. St
Andrews charged only one shilling in 1737, but by 1797 – as the funds of the
163 Clark, British Clubs, 325.
164 No. 1(3) Aberdeen Lodge Minutes, 1 November 1725.
165 Ibid, 27 December 1735.
166 Ibid, 27 January 1776.
167 Ibid, 5 December 1800.
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