"OF TIMES LONG PAST": A REVIEW OF THE EARLY DAYS OF THE NEWSTEAD LODGE No. 47, THE ABBEY CHAPTER No. 47 AND CRAFT AND ROYAL ARCH MASONRY IN ENGLAND AND NOTTINGHAM C. A. Shock, C. M. Geary Masonic Printing, [s.l.], 1999. Paperback, £4.50, [no pagination; no ISBN]. Available from J Hodgson, 35 Laurel Park, St. Arvans, Chepstow, Monmouthshire, NP16 6ED.

Professional historians have recently developed closer connections with, and greater respect for, their amateur colleagues. An increasing number of handbooks and courses are available for the two main areas of amateur historical activity, family and local history. However, there is a third, equally active, area of amateur research of which most professional historians are unaware, namely research by Freemasons into the history of local lodges.
    Lodge histories are generally produced for the members of the lodge as souvenirs of anniversaries, but they can be very useful for the historian researching Freemasonry, as a means of providing quick access to information in lodge records, particularly about membership.
    This book is a characteristic example of the lodge history. Particularly to be commended is the way in which it considers both the Craft lodge and the Royal Arch chapter. In the absence of a Royal Arch equivalent of Lane’s Masonic Records, information about Royal Arch chapters in a particular area can be difficult to piece together. Bro. Shock also provides a thoughtful account of the general development of Freemasonry in Nottingham, with an interesting discussion of the role of the Antients. He seeks to place masonic history in the context of general events, although it is advisable to use a more up-to-date general history than Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples.
    But at the end one is left dissatisfied. Bro. Shock gives a vivid account of the dramatic changes in Nottingham from the beginning of the nineteenth century. These must surely have had some impact on the nature of Freemasonry there, but what? One approach might have been to take lists of members and compare them with such sources as ratebooks and census records. Did the increased immigration into Nottingham draw masons in from elsewhere? What kind of person became a mason? What effect did economic and social changes have on levels and nature of membership?
    There is no attempt to answer such questions. The most useful lodge histories for the historian are those that describe the people who joined the lodges, and, unfortunately, in this study only a fitful picture emerges of the Brethren who made up the Newstead Lodge and the Abbey Chapter.
    Andrew Prescott