Freemasons and Hastings
Most of Hastings has been built by masons and free masons. Free masons have been part of building Hastings and being it’s very foundations.
84 was built by Freemasons. It was built by a Henry Carpenter, who was the Grand Master at the Derwent Lodge (St Leonards on Sea)
In the late 1800s the new business and professional classes wanted to build a new society and new towns they could be proud of. With new architecture, engineering techniques, sanitation, electricity, gas, and safe, better social housing and society. They had the new advancements and wealth to do it. There as a social moral reform, and they went with it. Many Freemasons were church and protestant ethically based. They wanted to build a New Jerusalem. And they “went-for-it.”
No 84 was built as a new model village development on the edge of town, from newly bought fresh farm land. The built, experimented, tried all the new fads and designs. No 84 is full of arts and crafts movement design. There is a terrace of 10 town houses. It is only when you go into them you find they are all designed differently. The ornate plaster ceiling decoration in my flat at No 84 is different from the same flat in No 87 a few doors along. They were having fun. They were creating solid beautiful houses for a new solid safe kind of living they wished to emulate.
The area of St Helens and Blacklands and the Park became known as “The Paradise.”
You may complain, but they also built the new smaller terrace houses for the workers. People may think these are pokey worker shacks. But in those days they were new. and new decent housing for workers. Whereas before workers would only have insanitary shacks and hovels. These terraces were new living, and they were built with good sanitation and built to last. And so they do, as a good Victorian terrace is always a popular buy and investment for many first time buyers or low income buyers. They are a good investment and solid.
The Freemasons did this. Our founding fathers of most of our towns and civil structures and amenities. They were just people who wanted to be organised and build a new foundation for society.
They have probably got too big for their britches and a bit above themselves, but that is the same with all groups with original goals and good foundations, they always end up and clique and an inner circle that looks to look after itself at the exclusion of everyone else. Unions do it, Political Parties do it, churches do it, local small football, rugby clubs and knitting circles and slimming clubs and choirs do it. Local pubs do it. It starts out good, then becomes a closed clique. I do not know how many times I have heard and had it said back to me clearly by say Union, or Party (Lib Dem, Conservative, Labour, Green, UKip ) and churches, that they will support their member and the interests of the organisation over the law and the rights of the common citizen and public.
I do not think Masons or Freemasons are any different. Have got a bit above themselves, got too big for their britches and need to remember where they come from and how they got there and what was important at the beginning.
Let’s not get too complicated.
Masons and Freemasons and Lodges were started as a way that professional skilled people such as builders, masons, carpenters, architects, painters, scuptors etc could bond in order to look after themselves and their families.
In former times such as middle ages, when rich swanky people were building monasteries, churches, castles, estates and stately homes the ones who were employed to build them, the builders and craftsmen were in a very vulnerable and precarious position. You could be hired and fired at will. Rich people and employers,kings, bishops, lords etc could sack you for next to nothing or because they wanted to cut your wages or hire someone cheaper.
It was a very precarious position for a builder or skilled person. It was also very vulnerable for the wives, children and families who were dependent on them. Skilled craftsmen often had to tour the country looking for work. They were very vulnerable and had to leave wife and children at home. In new and strange towns they were vulnerable to being attacked as strangers or taken advantage of and exploited. The Masons created the lodges so there was somewhere to go in most towns. The mason or craftsman would have somewhere safe to go, to lodge and where people would look after him.
Also, building trades and skills were very precarious and full of risks and death rates. The masons therefore, as much as unions later, created funds and systems where they could support a fellow member and his family in times of death or injury.
Freemasons were not Alien Reptiles or advanced developed race of Illuminati. They were and are normal human beings.
Their background was church based and protestant based. They were “Freemen.” as understood in the Protestant reformation understanding and creed. The foundation were in Scotland. The constitution was written by a Protestant Presbterian minister.It follows the protestant and Biblical teaching and ideas. The structure of the Masons and lodges were based on protestant presbyterian values. There is a central tenet, structure and base. But all individual local lodges, like local churches are left to create and form their own structures around the rules. Protestants were very much of the belief that a man’s mind and conscience was his own, and between himself and his God. It was not for any other man to dictate or dominate, but to educates, enlighten and encourage, and gently guide another man on his way by a way of life long education and endeavour.
In the beginning, and for quite a bit of history Masons would not let Catholics join. That is because they believed in the Freeman position, and could not and would not tolerate anyone breaching or undermining it by alliegance to any other authority.
