WOMEN FREEMASONS
BY BRO. DUDLEY WRIGHT, ENGLAND
THE BUILDER, August 1920
Although the Antient Charges forbid the admission or initiation of women into the Order of Free and Accepted Masons, there are known instances where as the result of accident or sometimes design the rule has been broken and women have been duly initiated. The most prominent instance is that of the Hon. Elizabeth St. Leger, or, as she afterwards became, on marriage, the Hon. Mrs. Aldworth, who is referred to sometimes, though erroneously, as the "only woman who over obtained the honour of initiation into the sublime mysteries of Freemasonry."
The Hon. Elizabeth St. Leger was a daughter of the first Viscount Doneraile, a resident of Cork. Her father was a very zealous Freemason and, as was the custom in his time -- the early part of the eighteenth century - held an occasional lodge in his own house, when he was assisted by members of his own family and any brethren in the immediate neighbourhood and visitors to Doneraile House. This lodge was duly warranted and held the number 150 on the Register of the Grand Lodge of Ireland.
The story runs that one evening previous to the initiation of a gentleman named Coppinger, Miss St. Leger hid herself in the room adjoining the one used as a lodgeroom. This room was at that time undergoing some alterations and Miss St. Leger is said to have removed a brick from the partition with her scissors and through the aperture thus created witnessed the ceremony of initiation. What she saw appears to have disturbed her so thoroughly that she at once determined upon making her escape, but failed to elude the vigilance of the tyler, who, armed with a sword stood barring her exit. Her shrieks alarmed the members of the lodge, who came rushing to the spot, when they learned that she had witnessed the whole of the ceremony which had just been enacted. After a considerable discussion and yielding to the entreaties of her brother it was decided to admit her into the Order and she was duly initiated, and, in course of time, became the Master of the lodge.
According to Milliken, the Irish Masonic historian, she was initiated in Lodge No. 95, which still meets at Cork, but there is no record extant of her reception into the Order. It is, however, on record that she was a subscriber to the Irish Book of Constitutions, which appeared in 1744 and that she frequently attended, wearing her Masonic regalia, entertainments that were given under Masonic auspices for the benefit of the poor and distressed. She afterwards married Mr. Richard Aldworth of Newmarket and when she died she was accorded the honour of a Masonic burial. She was cousin to General Antony St. Leger, of Park Hill, near Doncaster, who, in 1776, instituted the celebrated Doncaster St. Leger races and stakes.
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This picture of Elizabeth Aldworth dressed in her Masonic regalia was published in Robert Freke Gould's "Concise History of Freemasonry." The original from which the engraving was made is said to be a portrait painting in the possession of her descendents.
In his talk to the chapter of the Philalethes Society, cited above, Neville B. Cryer described the well-known particulars of the initiation of Elizabeth St. Ledger (later Elizabeth Aldworth) as a Speculative Mason -- and he noted that this occurred in 1712, before the Grand Lodge of England was formed -- and thus before it was declared that the exclusion of women was an "ancient landmark," and a stop was put to female participation in the Craft.
The "co-masonic lodge" Le Droit humane is created...
In 1879 several Chapters owning allegiance to the Supreme Council of France of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, at the instigation of the Grand Orient, seceded from that allegience and reconstituted themselves as La Grande Loge Symbolique de France. One of these Chapters, bearing the name of Les Libres Penseurs, meeting at Pecq, a village of Seine et Oise, in November 1881, proposed to initiate into Freemasonry, Mlle. Maria Desraimes, a well-known writer on Humanitarian and women suffrage questions, which they did on 14th January, 1882, for which act the Lodge or Chapter was suspended. Mlle. Desraimes was instrumental in bringing into the ranks of Freemasonry several other well-known women in France, with the result that an Androgynous Masonic body, known as La Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossaise was formed on 4th April, 1893 although its jurisdiction at that time extended over only one lodge, that known as Le Droit Humain, which came into being on the same day, and which, in 1900, adopted the thirty degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
