On 16 October 1646 a young Royalist officer noted in his diary that he had been "made a Free Mason" at Warrington, in Lancashire, together with a relative by marriage. That brief note is one of the earliest documents recording the admission to a lodge of a man who was not a working mason. The diarist was Elias Ashmole, antiquary, alchemist, astrologer, herald and founder of England's first public university museum.
The formative years
Ashmole was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, in 1617, the son of a saddler. Thanks to influential relatives he was able to study and move to London, where he trained as a solicitor. During the English Civil War he sided with King Charles I and served as an officer and excise official in the Royalist army.
In those years he also spent time at the University of Oxford, where he became interested in mathematics, natural sciences and astrology. He became friends with the astrologer William Lilly, who introduced him to the circles of London's students of astrology, and he began collecting alchemical and astrological manuscripts.
The note of 1646
The diary page of 16 October 1646 lists the names of the lodge members present at Warrington. Historians of Freemasonry regard it as precious because it shows that by the mid-seventeenth century English lodges were already admitting men outside the trade, the so-called "accepted" masons, long before the founding of the Grand Lodge of London in 1717.
We know almost nothing about what took place in that lodge or what symbolic meanings were cultivated there. More than thirty years later, in 1682, Ashmole noted that he had attended a meeting at the hall of the London masons' company. These two notes are all the diary says about his Masonic activity: it is important not to attribute to him a role in the birth of Freemasonry that the sources do not document.
Alchemist and editor
Ashmole's most important contribution to esotericism was editorial. In 1650 he published, under the anagrammatic pseudonym James Hasolle, the Fasciculus chemicus, a translation of an alchemical work by Arthur Dee, son of John Dee.
Two years later came the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652), a large anthology of English alchemical poems, many of them previously unpublished or scattered in manuscripts:
| Author or text | Period | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Thomas Norton, The Ordinall of Alchemy | Fifteenth century | A poem on the practice and virtues of the alchemist |
| George Ripley | Fifteenth century | Canon of Bridlington, one of the greatest English alchemists |
| Texts attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer and others | Various periods | English compositions on the theme of the Work |
In his long preface Ashmole presented alchemy as a noble science, distinguishing spiritual and philosophical inquiry from the greed of those who sought only gold. In 1658 he also published The Way to Bliss, a treatise on the philosophers' stone.
Herald and historian of the Order of the Garter
With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Ashmole obtained several posts, including that of Windsor Herald. In 1672 he published a monumental study of the Order of the Garter, The Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, still regarded as a reference work on the history of that order of chivalry.
In 1661 he was among the original fellows of the Royal Society, the scientific academy founded in London at the end of 1660. His presence shows how, in seventeenth-century England, an interest in alchemy and astrology could coexist with the new experimental science.
The Oxford museum
Ashmole was a friend of the Tradescant family, gardeners and collectors who had gathered at Lambeth a famous collection of plants, animals, ethnographic objects and curiosities. John Tradescant the Younger left him the collection by deed of gift; after Tradescant's death a long legal dispute with his widow followed, which Ashmole won.
Ashmole gave the collection, together with his own books and manuscripts, to the University of Oxford, which built a dedicated building to house it. The Ashmolean Museum opened in 1683 and is regarded as England's first public university museum. Ashmole died in London in 1692.
In short
- Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) was an English antiquary, alchemist, astrologer and herald.
- His diary records his admission to a lodge at Warrington on 16 October 1646.
- The Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652) rescued and published many English alchemical poems.
- He was a founding fellow of the Royal Society and gave rise to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
