GL of All England

"Now if you are going to bandy words with me Mr King, you should know that you have chosen to bandy words with some of the finest academic brains in the United Kingdom. I am not alone here.
You, Mr King, are clearly NOT an academic brain."

Peter Clatworthy, Grand Secretary, "Grand Lodge of All England" (1940-)  (Link HERE)  Does he have other persons inhabiting his head? Perhaps....
Oh, and I was 105% correct in the demise of their grandiose website, wasn't I? So much for Clatworthy and his make-believe academic brains that can't tie their shoes!

The Fairie Tale of Free Masonrie - Gone and Forgotten after only 5 years!

Requiem for the folly of pride:

At first, it seemed like one of those internet glitches: a message saying

Their account had been suspended.

The phrase used was that "Either the domain has been overused, or the account balance has not been paid."

Well, even though we got a hearty chuckle and would have probably commented on their abject lack of  administrative capabilities, we do recognize that this type of thing can happen to even the most assiduous organization/individual. We had at the outset of this 'organization' just a couple of years ago noted that the ownership of their domain name was by that of an individual in the US - a member of a regular/recognized Grand Lodge for which actions, we're surprised he hasn't been expelled. (Go to the very bottom of this page and you'll see what we wrote years ago practically prophesying this event!) But back to the point:

When the site remained inaccessible day after day, the question of 'who's asleep at the stick' became more persistent, particularly when SO much effort had been taken to pump the site and add contrived content to prove their bogus lineage. Checking the obituaries online, there WAS a Peter Clatworthy who'd recently passed but in a different part of England. On one of the forums for miscreants and fake masonry groups, there was a note that Mr. Clatworthy - this group's proud and self-righteous 'Grand Secretary' - was just SO busy as a cricket official of late....

Curious: too busy to pay the bill for the organization that ostensibly pays your salary? I wonder how many people who live in the REAL world could afford to do such a thing. Of course, there were only ever three names associated with this organization so perhaps the 'pay' thing was a fabrication created by someone who was simply too embarrassed to admit he was unemployed? In looking at various places on the internet, it would seem that Mr. Clatworthy in 2010 found employment and apparently decided to abandon this folly despite the obvious pride he had shown in it. Will we see him in his Masonic regalia in some upcoming film about sheep farmers? Who knows.... Perhaps all of this foolishness was just an act by an apparently proficient actor setting himself for his next role? That would seem to fit things perfectly.

And acting is just what's going on: Mr. Clatworthy claims that THEY had to take the site down. Hilarious that they would then put up a notice saying that they hadn't paid their bills, isn't it? And after a couple of years, no replacement....

In any event, time has moved on and the organization whose Grand Secretary proclaimed in many venues that the internet was the one place where they could get their message out has apparently been unable to handle this matter. One wonders how much salary he really got for this bit of bungling. He's now saying that they may just abandon the internet because 'they've been accused of being an internet-only organization'. Then they'll be a NOTHING organization. Is that better?

And if Peter some day is out of work again and resurrects (or perhaps "repones") their website, will he pretend that it made no difference whatsoever? Probably - because in truth, it didn't!

And as seen on the David Icke Forum - the only place, it would seem, that the GRAND Secretary was welcome online before his complete departure from the (quasi-)Masonic scene:

---------------------------------------------

grandsecretary

Senior Member

 

 

Join Date: Nov 2008

Location: York

Posts: 5,440


No it isn't. It was hijacked, twice, probably by friends of the racist bigot Ed King of Masonicinfo infamy, and for security reasons, a new website is being designed and the web address moved to a new provider based in England.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Our hero!!! How long, though, does it take to design and move a website? And look at that post count, will you? Before he vanished completely, he had over 6,000 messages on the David Icke Forum as of October, 2010, seemingly the only place online bizarre enough to tolerate him as he jousts with Martin Nisbett Boyd (a bizarre person who has regularly threatened to kill his father, a Mason), posting as "Lucifer" or "Mars". What does SUSPENSION of a website have to do with "hijacking"??? It's just like the rest of the whole fabrication that he had created. His David Icke forum signature now points to the so-called Grand Lodge of All England blog which was abandoned in October, 2008 and only had three endless blatherings of revisionist history anyway. Why? Well, maybe he's not going to be reappointed - according to him. Hey: I wonder if Mickey Mouse is available?

And now, the domain is nothing but a link farm. So much for reponing, eh?

If you can't use one legend, go grab another - and thus after nearly four years of being "Freemasonry", this group had found yet a different hook on which to hang their claim to legitimacy: Free Masonrie! Now this isn't just a case of poor spelling. It was their belated attempt to restructure the past - once again, we might add! The internet forum gadfly, their "Grand Secretary" wrote "...we, the Holy Order, simply reinstated the Fellowship of the Craft, or Outer Orders of Free Masonrie on the 10th December 2005. This took place in the Crypt of the York Minster and in the sight of God." 1  In NONE of their comments and nowhere on their website did they ever mention this "Free Masonrie" stuff their original announcements about this particular paranomasia. (See here where you can peruse their website for 2006 and 2007.) Mr. Clatworthy then went on to write: "I was baptised in the Holy and Royal Arch (something that you have never had in the Moderns form of freemasonry) on the 23rd June 1948 and ordained on the 24th June 1961 at the age of 21 years."  ...and he elaborates on this a few hours later writing "As a matter of recorded fact, I was baptised under the Holy and Royal Arch, on the 23rd of June 1948 and then ordained a priest on the 24th June 1969. Generations of my family have also been so baptised and so ordained. John Gordon Graves (Grand Master of All Free Masons) and Richard Young (Chancellor) have similar backgrounds." ...as if the group, which he admits they only started in December 2005, was actually around in the 1940s. It is to laugh! But let's go back to the beginning:

The self-created 'Grand Lodge At York also wanting to be known as The Grand Lodge of All England' {Dead Link - See Above} asserts that they are the legacy heir to a supposed meeting of all operative Masons called by King Athelstane in York, England in 926 A.D. - despite the fact that the 'meeting' they hang their hat on is simply a legend, proven as such over a century ago. While their website cites Mackey and others as their source, there are numerous other Masonic writers (particularly those AFTER the 'age of realism' arrived in Freemasonry in the late 1800s, and well after the death of Mackey) who stridently disagree. Even contemporaries of Mackey claimed he was wrong in his statements about the supposed York meeting.

To be fair, when the first Grand Lodge was formed, it too claimed an absurd pedigree - one which reached back to Noah and the Flood, the Building of King Solomon's Temple and more. That, though, was nearly three hundred years ago in 1717 when it was fashionable to use such exaggeration to prove one's own legitimacy. Even the Royal Society did such things. That was then and this is now!

Noting the absurdity of this all, the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), the 'mother' Grand Lodge of Freemasonry in the world, issued a statement about this group: you can view it most easily on a UK Provincial Grand Lodge website here. Their comments are FAR more harsh than ours. This is not just a petty territorial dispute as the UGLE with about a half million members has little to fear from the couple of people involved with their own so-called "Grand Lodge". Nevertheless, all such self-created groups want to 'play the victim', whining about persecution by the 'big, bad group' whose existence belies the bizarre claims of creation they make. Their "Grand Secretary", prancing about in forums irrelevant to Freemasonry but where he has little fear of Masons responding (forums for Catholics, the David Icke forum where he's posted over 6,000 messages - with dozens more daily - places for Holocaust deniers, and the like), haughtily talking down to those who do not accept his claims. In truth, it's very much like the Roman Catholic Sedevacantists who are completely sure that the current Pope is NOT the real Pope - and so have created their own. (That there are a half dozen men claiming to be the 'real' Pope is a minor irritant that's ignored because the person making the claim knows that HIS Pope is the TRUE Pope!) The only difference is that the Sedevacantists number, perhaps, in the thousands while this group doesn't have more than a half-dozen members.

Peter said it's so - so it MUST be so!

It comes down to this: someone 'declares' that - because of the name they've given their group or because they went to the same city in which a legend (in this case, a fairy tale) originated - that somehow makes them into the group that was a thousand years ago (or as recently as just 500 years ago) OR (depending on which tack they take - and they use several), it makes them the 'rightful inheritor' of that story through a 'revival'. (I wonder if the folks in the city of Rome, New York ever tried to claim legitimate historical ancestry from.... Never mind.)

Does this make sense? If so, no need to read any further: join them and be happy - if you can find them now! However, in what to most folks would be the 'real world', simply announcing that you've held a meeting and filed some paperwork with the government claiming a certain name that wasn't in use by anyone else means that now you've 'reestablished' something that hasn't existed for a centuries (or, in fact, quite probably never existed at all) is awfully bizarre. According to a message we received from Mr. Clatworthy, the 'Grand Secretary', threatening us:

"For your information, this original and independent Grand Lodge was legally reponed(2) here in York during December 2005 and legally constituted and registered as such.

It is therefore the original and ancient Grand Lodge of All England at York working under The Old York Constitution of 1705. It is our intention to jealously defend this position by whatever means are at our disposal."

So, according to them, they're original and independent and replaced a legend from centuries ago. Fine. Who are we to argue with such things and why would anyone make threats to 'prove' it?

Comically, the recognized Masonic scholar, Robert Davis, wrote  on his blog on 6/10/2008:

"Perhaps we shouldn’t totally discount Prince Edwin’s famous Articles of Fraternity. He was the son of the tenth century Saxon king Athelstan, and assembled the first general meeting of Masons. If it is true that his constitutions were approved by the aristocracy as law for lodges from that time hence (and there is not a shred of evidence that it is), we can add another 300 years to our source of origin; making us a whopping 1,000 years old!"

Of course, their Grand Secretary would then argue that the group formed in a pub in 1717 wasn't the same as their "holy order"....  You can't win when using facts with Clatworthy.

Starting a new Grand Lodge

Simply stated, in the present day for a new Masonic Grand Lodge to form and receive recognition as such requires several things including either the absence of a Grand Lodge in that geographical area (as was done a few decades ago in Alaska, USA, for example) AND for it to be formed by THREE (count 'em - 3) 'regular lodges' already operating in that physical location under the aegis of a regular and recognized Grand Lodge. A couple of guys meeting somewhere (pub, chapel, minster, Starbucks, cellar, whatever) and claiming that they're "reponing" something doesn't really count - in marbles or in Freemasonry!

And there's one other thing: the Grand Lodge whose lodges are already there must ASSENT to the creation of the new Grand Lodge. If you read the letter from the United Grand Lodge of England, sent to all of their Lodge Secretaries throughout England and to the world (it's not private: it's on official websites of the organization), you'll find something quite different.

For those who aren't familiar with the niceties of Masonic recognition, all of this may seem very tedious. However, such requirements are necessary in order to ensure that those who are seeking to join Freemasonry will, in fact, have the ability to 'travel in foreign countries' as Master Masons and enjoy fraternal friendship with the 4-5 million Masons located around the globe. Otherwise, any bloke on the street corner could grab a mate and go set up their own little pub club, calling it a 'Grand Lodge' and begin soliciting subscriptions. The bottom line, though, is that regardless of how many Masonic-related graphics anyone uses on their website, regardless of whatever contrived history one might wish to bore folks with, and despite employing Masonic titles including the cozy reference to 'Brothers', joining with one of these groups is not going to cause ANYONE (except the small number of people in that so-called 'Grand Lodge') to acknowledge you as a Mason. (Be sure to see our page on Fake Masonry for more information.)

UPDATE: November, 2007 - Be careful about what you read on the web - and how it can mislead. They FORMERLY had on their website:

The Grand Lodge of All England at York has established its Legitimacy of Origin and Regularity with The Conference of Grand Masters of North America, The Commission on Information for Recognition(Written confirmation received 27th October 2006)

Now why they needed to establish ANYTHING with North America since they're in Merry Olde England is a mystery but that notwithstanding, what they didn't mention is that they had been told otherwise in subsequent e-mails. You can, in fact, now read exactly what the Commission has to say about them: 

2. An organization calling itself the Grand Lodge of All England is presenting itself as a legitimate Masonic Grand Lodge in England. It claims to trace its roots to a Lodge at York, founded in 1705, which later styled itself a Grand Lodge in 1725, first named the Old Grand Lodge at York, and later the Grand Lodge of All England at York. This Grand Lodge went dormant in 1740, was revived in 1761, and went dormant again in 1791, never to meet again. On December 23, 2005, an assembly of Masons met and “reclaimed English Freemasonry on behalf of its rightful custodians.” The Grand Lodge of All England emerged and is said to be a revival of the Grand Lodge that went dormant in 1791. 

It must again be stated that the Commission does not determine the regularity of a Grand Lodge; it only evaluates the facts available to determine if the entity meets the standards for recognition, as adopted by the Conference of Grand Masters of North America, and reports those findings to the member Grand Lodges of this Conference for their use. 

The Commission cannot validate the claimed legitimacy of origin of the Grand Lodge of All England, since no documentation has been presented that this Grand Lodge was reinstated or reconstituted in 2005 by a recognized Masonic authority. In addition, it cannot claim exclusive territorial jurisdiction since a pact or treaty does not exist to share the jurisdiction with the United Grand Lodge of England. It is therefore the opinion of the Commission that the Grand Lodge of All England does not meet the standards for recognition. 

Full report here and here. So, dear friend, read what's in red then read what was ACTUALLY reported. Quite a difference, huh? Oh, and since that time, they've created a page about how the Conference of Grand Masters is really quite irrelevant. No recognition = no admittance for its members anywhere other than it's own make-believe lodges with the only ones acknowledging its members as Masons are the other members of that same group - that small coterie of believers.Oh, my gosh.... The EVIL Ed King!

UPDATE: December, 2007 - Gee whiz! They must be reading this page....

December 2007 saw a flurry (perhaps 'frantic outpouring' might be a better description?) of essays, blog posts, etc. trying to justify their LACK of recognition. Gone is the claim they'd made about "establishing its Legitimacy of Origin and Regularity" with, instead, the Conference of Grand Masters of North America now demonized as irrelevant to their existence. They also moan that the statement made about them by COGMNA wasn't placed on the web until 7 months after COGMNA's annual meeting - which, we'd think, could/should have worked in their favor giving their fantasy a half-year reprieve! In reality, the back story is that the e-mail sent them wasn't really what they claimed it was and they had received a subsequent clarification that NOTHING had 'been established' by the Commission. Their current claim that the Conference is back-peddling is actually back-peddling of their own! If they want to make the claim that they WERE acknowledged somehow, then they should produce ALL of the e-mails they  received from the Conference Secretary on the matter so that their assertions could be examined in the light of day!

In addition, the reponed Grand Lodge of All England has now begun to violate even more Masonic 'landmarks' (and/or traditions and/or protocols) by "invading" the territory of regular/recognized Grand Lodges, ostensibly forming so-called Grand Lodges in the United States. Their first is a lodge in Ohio which is headed by an individual who has already belonged to TWO OTHER pseudo-'Grand Lodges' which are identified here on masonicinfo.com as 'bogus'. He seems to think that the third time will be the charm apparently - or really wants a chance to wear a fancy apron! We wish him the best. The Grand Lodge of All England, like the Regular Grand Lodge of England, seems to be reaching out actively to disaffected Black men in the US who belong to groups which are considered 'fake Masonry' by Prince Hall Freemasonry. We can't help be impressed by the loyalty of these new leaders: dangle a title in front of them and they're yours! What a great way to increase membership, eh? What we've found particularly comical is that their list of so-called lodges seems to grow each month and yet, ironically, not a single member (except the Grand Secretary) is ever seen anywhere online. What are the odds, eh?  (Nope: by mid-2009, they're now down to only two English soil lodges. Must be the economy or something....)

Oh, and the 'next big thing' was their breathless announcement that "After many years of concentrated research, The Grand Lodge at York is pleased to announce that it has traced the final resting place of King Athelstan's brother, Prince Edwin of York." "...many years...."? This group had only been in existence for two at the time of the announcement. For an organization claiming a connection back to 900AD, you wouldn't think that two years is "many" would you? But more than that, so what? Does this somehow give legitimacy to the fact that a group (of perhaps three people - like all of the 'fake Masonry' groups, their actual membership is NEVER mentioned) got together in York, England and declared themselves to be the legacy heirs of something that's been dead for a couple of centuries? Not bloody likely....

Don't link on me...

During August, 2008 there were two hysterically funny instances brought to our attention. The prolific 'Grand Secretary' had apparently been engaged in Internet threat campaigns against sites that link (unflatteringly) to their website. Simultaneously, they had created a completely bogus line of succession of supposed Grand Masters of their group and were contacting Masonic historians and authors begging them to include their manipulated research material in future works.

The historical claims were completely laughable and since then, I've been in communications with several Masonic authors and researchers who had quite a chuckle over it all, several of whom even checked this site to get 'the scoop' on this group.

The internet threat was the funniest and was particularly comical if you know even the basics about internet and legal protocols. A regular/recognized lodge under the regular/recognized Grand Lodge of Arizona created a web page about fake masonry that included a link to the Clatworthy so-called Grand Lodge of All England. Poor Mr. Clatworthy had a problem with that, sending an e-mail to them saying "Whilst this Grand Lodge does not generally enter into correspondence with disreputable bodies such as yours, we on this occasion write to you requiring you to remove our name from the website. Failure to do so within 7 days will result in a requirement being sent to your internet service provider, GoDaddy.com, Inc., for your site to be closed down." HUH? Suddenly it's illegal to link to another website? WOW! GoDaddy would have such a laugh. In fact, Clatworthy even sent a copy of his e-mail to the Grand Lodge of Arizona as if he expected it to have some sort of effect. It likely escaped his notice, though, that the regular and recognized Grand Lodge of Arizona was just a couple of blocks away from the Webmaster's office. Do you suppose that the Webmaster might just happen to know the folks down the street already? SO many of these self-created 'Grand Lodges' are formed by disgruntled individuals who have no understanding of either Freemasonry OR reality that it's not surprising that they would assume that no one in Grand Lodge would have a clue as to their own members in such close proximity. Perhaps in their world, but certainly not in real life.

Oh, and something which surely ALSO escaped Mr. Clatworthy's keen eye was that the Webmaster happens to be an employee of an ATTORNEY! Should we add insult to injury by noting that said Attorney was the Master of the Lodge of that website?

OK, if you aren't keeling over in laughter by now, you've just got NO sense of humor at all.

So look out, folks: if you link to these guys, why they're going to write to your internet service provider and say you can't. Forewarned is forearmed - or something like that!

Masonicinfo Note: The flag shown above is a United States Naval ensign, flown from 1775-1776. It was something we thought might be appropriate for this group which claims to go back to 900AD. It's also relevant to today's actions: since September, 2002 (LONG before this 'reponed' Grand Lodge of All England existed), it has been flying on U. S. Navy ships involved in the Global War on Terrorism....  The picture at the top of the page is of King Edward I - which somehow we thought quite appropriate as well.

Whatever you want...

All of the above notwithstanding, we have said before and will repeat it here yet again even though Mr. Clatworthy claims his group is (was?) VERY angry about us writing things which might cause you to recognize that they're not 'the real deal': if you want to join something you think is going to be just right for you, GO FOR IT! PLEASE don't let anything we've written stop you from doing what your heart most desires. In this case, if you want to meet up with a couple of chaps you think are ok, you might enjoy this organization and/or others like it. If, however, you want to be a true part of the 300+ year old tradition that is Freemasonry and want to be able to visit those Masonic lodge buildings found both locally and around the world, you won't be able to do so. In addition, if you join an unrecognized (sometimes referred to as "clandestine") lodge such as that run by the "Grand Lodge of All England", it could be a far more difficult process to become a Mason in a regular and recognized lodge later on. That's just the way things are - and we don't make the rules on this stuff!

And just so you know, their website wasn't created until January of 2006 so their claim to an ancient copyright lineage going all the way back to 2005 is specious at best but we won't quibble about a couple of months when there are several centuries unaccounted for. See here for the proof. What we found even more comical, though, was that an apparent member of a regular/recognized lodge in Maryland, USA owns their domain name! Oh, and before we get another e-mail from their "Grand Secretary", this time railing that we're wrong about the ownership thing, we'd encourage him to try transferring the domain admin name/address, for example, without the owner's blessing. The point will be proven pretty quickly. Still further, we sure hope that the oh-so-web-savvy 'Grand Lodge of All England' didn't pay too much for their fancy web design which is, simply, a (now older) rip-off of their designer's own site using the open-source (free) Mambo content management system. Comical, eh?

Funny thing: as predicted, there's been a falling out apparently and the great, grand lodge of all England can't or won't pay its bills so doesn't get their domain OR their website. Ah, they'll attract millions regardless, particularly with claims like this one:

"Free Masonrie is NOT a Christian sect. We have Fellows who are Christians, Jews and Muslims. Free Masonrie pre-dates Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It is the fount of all of these religions."

 

Pasted from <http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?s=cc7d6f8aab959c2859aa7567e2b3a361&t=133470&page=15>

Uh-huh. You've GOT to be a good actor to pull that one off with a straight face. Congratulations, Mr. Clatworthy! If, folks, you BELIEVE that, coming - no doubt - from the 'finest academic minds' that Mr. Clatworthy could muster, then you'll likely also be finishing up reading here to go look for Elvis in your local 7-11 Store! Apparently, topping the absence of Elvis Presley, his 'Free Masonrie' was off hiding for several thousand years until the poning of the imaginary Grand Lodge in the 900's which he reponed a couple of years ago. Talk about a secret priesthood, eh? So secret, only Clatworthy (and perhaps the other two members of his group who've gone strangely silent of late) knows about it. Just amazing.

There's a sucker born every minute:

On the David Icke Forums - the only place which will tolerate his pompous pedantry it seems - Mr. Clatworthy wrote this on October 25, 2010:

"It is pure propaganda and willfully dishonest to repeat, repeat, repeat "allegedly has three members" when we have Fellows throughout the United Kingdom, in 21 other countries plus 25 States of the Union in the USA."

And yet, ironically, not a SINGLE PERSON has ever come on to a Masonic newsgroup nor have they joined Mr. Clatworthy on the Icke Forums to support this bit of baloney. One can only think that the delusional Mr. Clatworthy, sans website still and with a 2 year old blog post site, would realize what a fool he must appear to the real world.

And just when we thought that Mr. Clatworthy had cornered the market on genealogical foolishness and bizarre claims of grandeur, along comes Mo Bedard to prove that there's no end to these self-created fantasies. See here for more information about his WebmasterMasons.

(1)   Perhaps if it had been held elsewhere it wouldn't have been "in the sight of God"? You can read some of these odd claims here on another typically inappropriate forum - at catholic.com.

(2)   \Re*pone"\ (r?-p?n"), v. t. [L. reponere; pref. re- re- + ponere to place.] To replace. --R. Baillie.

Modern Language Association (MLA): "repone." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 19 Jan. 2007. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/repone>

If you'd like to read Mackey's legend, you can click here. Oh, and if you'd like to play dress-up along with this group, you might want to consider the adorable costume shown above. You can purchase it at this link.

Updated 20 July 2009 and 28 December 2009, adding the hilarious claims of "Free Masonrie" and again on July 18, 2010 noting the apparent demise of the charade and in October, 2010 with more info about their sorry internet state and bizarre claims of membership. The information above may appear to some (especially if they have a grudge to carry against regular/recognized Freemasonry) to be judgmental and defamatory. However, sometimes facts don't paint a very rosy picture - and all of the above is FACT! The last update for this has likely been done - since they too are done. December 2, 2014.

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