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Was Sir William Gull a freemason, as Stephen Knight claimed? In his book “Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution,” Stephen Knight writes:
It is impossible to find out if some of the lesser known people in Sickert’s story were Masons. The chief characters certainly were. Warren, Gull, and Salisbury were all well advanced on the Masonic ladder. Salisbury, whose father had been Vice Grand Master of All England, was so advanced that in 1873 a new Lodge was consecrated in his name. The Salisbury Lodge met at the premier Masonic venue in England, the Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen Street, London.
John Hamill, the then Librarian for the Freemasons’ United Grand Lodge of England (and now Director of Communications), when replying to a paper on The Life and Times of Sir Charles Warren in 2002, made an interesting comment in response to this claim. He wrote:
"The Stephen Knight thesis is based upon the claim that the main protagonists, the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, Sir Charles Warren, Sir James Anderson and Sir William Gull were all high-ranking Freemasons. Knight knew his claim to be false for, in 1973, I received a phone call from him in the Library, in which he asked for confirmation of their membership. After a lengthy search I informed him that only Sir Charles Warren had been a Freemason. Regrettably, he chose to ignore this answer as it ruined his story."
The full article can be read here: http://www.mqmagazine.co.uk/issue-2/p-48.php
Early in 2008, I visited Freemason’s headquarters in Great Queen Street, London and asked them to search their records again. On 12 March 2008, I received the following reply from the United Grand Lodge of England Library and Museum:
Dear Mr Chilver
SIR WILLIAM WITHEY GULL
Further to your enquiry, we have checked our records for the above name without success. Please note that, for certain periods, our records are incomplete. It may be that this gentleman was a freemason but without a lodge name or number we cannot locate him in our records.
Yours sincerely
Diane Clements
Director
It is impossible to find out if some of the lesser known people in Sickert’s story were Masons. The chief characters certainly were. Warren, Gull, and Salisbury were all well advanced on the Masonic ladder. Salisbury, whose father had been Vice Grand Master of All England, was so advanced that in 1873 a new Lodge was consecrated in his name. The Salisbury Lodge met at the premier Masonic venue in England, the Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen Street, London.
John Hamill, the then Librarian for the Freemasons’ United Grand Lodge of England (and now Director of Communications), when replying to a paper on The Life and Times of Sir Charles Warren in 2002, made an interesting comment in response to this claim. He wrote:
"The Stephen Knight thesis is based upon the claim that the main protagonists, the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, Sir Charles Warren, Sir James Anderson and Sir William Gull were all high-ranking Freemasons. Knight knew his claim to be false for, in 1973, I received a phone call from him in the Library, in which he asked for confirmation of their membership. After a lengthy search I informed him that only Sir Charles Warren had been a Freemason. Regrettably, he chose to ignore this answer as it ruined his story."
The full article can be read here: http://www.mqmagazine.co.uk/issue-2/p-48.php
Early in 2008, I visited Freemason’s headquarters in Great Queen Street, London and asked them to search their records again. On 12 March 2008, I received the following reply from the United Grand Lodge of England Library and Museum:
Dear Mr Chilver
SIR WILLIAM WITHEY GULL
Further to your enquiry, we have checked our records for the above name without success. Please note that, for certain periods, our records are incomplete. It may be that this gentleman was a freemason but without a lodge name or number we cannot locate him in our records.
Yours sincerely
Diane Clements
Director
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