Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

206 DEPUTE
DERWENTWATER
Depute Grand Master. Depute is a
Scotticism used in the "Laws and Regulations
of the Grand Lodge of Scotland" to
designate the officer known in England and
America as Deputy Grand Master .
Deputy. In French Masonry, the officers
who represent a Lodge in the Grand Orient
are called its deputies . The word is also
used in another sense . When two Lodges
are affiliated, that is, have adopted a compact
of union, each appoints a deputy to represent
it at the meetings of the other . He is also
called garant d'amitik, and is entitled to a seat
in the East .
Deputy Grand Chapter . In the Constitution
adopted in January, 1798, by the
"Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the Northern
States of America," which afterward became
the "General Grand Chapter," it was provided
that Grand Bodies of the system should
be established in the different States, which
should be known as "Deputy Grand Royal
Arch Chapters ." But in the succeeding
year, on the adoption of a new Constitution,
the title was changed to "State Grand Chapters
." Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
New York are the only States in which Deputy
Grand Chapters were organized .
Deputy Grand Master. The assistant
and, in his absence, the representative of the
Grand Master. The office originated in the
year 1720, when it was agreed that the Grand
Master might appoint both his Grand Wardens
and a Deputy Grand Master . (Constitutions,
1738, p . 111 .) The object evidently
was to relieve a nobleman, who was Grand
Master, from troublesome details of office .
The Constitutions give a Deputy Grand Master
no other prerogatives than those which he
claims in the Grand Master's right . He presides
over the Craft in the absence of the
Grand Master, and, on the death of that officer,
succeeds to his position until a new election.
In England, and in a few States of
America, he is appointed by the Grand Master
; but the general usage in America is to
elect him.
Deputy Lodge . In Germany, a Deputations-Loge,
or Deputy Lodge, was formed by
certain members of a Lodge who lived at a
remote distance from it, and who met under
the name and by the authority of the mother
Lodge, through whom alone it was known to
the Grand Lodge, or the other Lodges. Such
bodies are not known in England or America,
and are not now so common in Germany as
formerly .
Deputy Master . In England, when a
Prince of the Blood Royal is Master of a private
Lodge, his functions are performed by an
officer appointed by him, and called a Deputy
Master, who exercises all the prerogatives and
enjo s all the privileges of a regular Master .
In Germany, the Master of every Lodge is
assisted by a Deputy Master, who is either
appointed by the Master, or elected by the
members, and who exercises the powers of the
Master in the absence of that officer .
Dermott, Laurence . He was at first the
Grand Secretary, and afterward the Deputy
Grand Master, of that body of Masons who
in 1751 formed the Grand Lodge of the
"Ancients" (q . v .), stigmatizing the regular
Masons as "Moderns." In 1756, Dermott
published the Book of Constitutions of his
Grand Lodge, under the title of Ahiman
Rezon ; or a help to all that are or would be
Free and Accepted Masons, containing the
quintessence of all that has been published on
the subject of Freemasonry . This work passed
through several editions, the last of which
was edited, in 1813, by Thomas Harper, the
Deputy Grand Master of the Ancient Masons,
under the title of The Constitutions of Freemasonry,
or Ahiman Rezon .
Dermott was undoubtedly the moving and
sustaining spirit of the great schism which,
from the middle of the eighteenth to the beginning
of the nineteenth century, divided
the Masons of England ; and his character has
not been spared by the adherents of the constitutional
Grand Lodge . Lawrie (Hilt ., p.
117) says of him : "The unfairness with which
he has stated the proceedings of the moderns
the bitterness with which he treats them, and
the quackery and vainglory with which he displays
his own pretensions to superior knowledge,
deserve to be reprobated by every
class of Masons who are anxious for the
purity of their Order and the preservation of
that charity and mildness which ought to
characterize all their proceedings." There
is perhaps much truth in this estimate of
Dermott's character. As a polemic, he was
sarcastic, bitter, uncompromising, and not altogether
sincere or veracious. But in intellectual
attainments he was inferior to none of his
adversaries, and in a philosophical appreciation
of the character of the Masonic institution
he was in advance of the spirit of his age .
It has often been asserted that he invented
the Royal Arch Degree by dismembering the
Third Degree, but that this is entirely unfounded
is proved by the fact that he was
exalted to the Royal Arch Degree in 1746,
while the degree was being conferred in
London before 1744. (See Royal Arch Degree .)
[He died in 1791 .-E . L . H .1
Derwentwater. Charles Radcliffe, titular
Earl of Derwentwater, which title he assumed
on the death of the unmarried son of his
brother, James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater,
who was executed for rebellion in 1716,
in London, was the first Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of France, to which office he was
elected on the organization of the Grand
Lodge in 1725. Charles Radcliffe was arrested
with his brother, Lord Derwentwater,
in 1715, for having taken part in the rebellion
of that year to restore the house of Stuart to
the throne . Both were convicted of treason,
and the Earl suffered death, but his brother
Charles made his escape to France, and thence
to Rome, where he received a trifling pension
from the Pretender . After a residence of
some years, he went to Paris, where, with
the Chevalier Maskelyne, Mr. Heguetty,
and some other Englishmen, he established a