Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

Provisions were also established to prevent intoxicated members from
entering the Lodge, as when the members of Aberdeen No. 1(3) set forth the
following stipulation on 6 December 1739, unanimously agreeing that
if any member of this Lodge shall come into the Same under Liquor or
tho Sober behave themselves indecently or turbulently so as to disturb
the harmony of the Lodge or Stop the business thereof, they shall subject
to what fine the Lodge pleases to impose upon them and be instantly
turned out of the Doors for that night, by the Stewards, or make such
other Satisfaction as to the Lodge shall seem proper. 168
Other lodges, such as Old Inverness St John’s Kilwinning No. 6,
imposed obligatory fines of one shilling if “any Brother [come] into the Lodge
drunk or taken with liquor” and expulsion from the Lodge “until he become
sober.” 169
Rules and regulations, in addition to discouraging the excessive
consumption of alcohol and considering the welfare of all members, were also
established to deter members from engaging in other harmful or disruptive
activities, just as early eighteenth-century interventionist societies attempted to
control the proliferation of “prostitutes [and] disorderly houses.” 170 Journeymen
Lodge in Edinburgh maintained that “if any member lying badly, and his trouble
found to be the consequence of the Venereal disorder, or quarrelling and
fighting, or any other intemperance which tends to the destruction of the human
frame, he shall receive no benefit from the Lodge and shall be excluded
forever.” 171 One lodge even prohibited debating or quarrelling, and ardently
168 No. 1(3) Aberdeen Lodge Minutes, 6 December 1739.
169 No. 6 Inverness Lodge Minutes, 6 December 1739
170 Clark, British Clubs, 64.
171 No. 8 Journeymen Lodge Minutes, 24 October 1783.
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