All men possess some measure of intrinsic worth, but genius , like int he case of Robert Burns, is a rare and singular gift bestowed upon humanity. The word genius denotes originality, deriving from the Latin gignere, meaning “to be born,” and, earlier still, from the Greek gennaō, “to generate” or “to produce.”

A man may be an able soldier or a skilled politician, yet only a man of genius becomes an inventor, a poet, or an original thinker. Whenever we encounter individuals of exceptional intellect, shaping their own destinies and rising above their contemporaries, we recognise the presence of such minds. They have appeared in every age and among all races of humankind. They belong to no single class or creed and are often deeply religious in their own distinctive way.

Robert Burns, Scotland’s greatest son, was indeed such a man. He taught the world through his poems the difference between religion and faith.

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp

The man's the gowd for all that."

THE MAN HE WAS

Possibly no poet ever lived who possessed that original style and uniqueness of composition as Robert Burns. He was the poet of the rights of the common people. His qualities were fire, tenderness, humour, simplicity and all so nicely and rarely blended together.

He touched with delicate and joyful hands the deep and noble feelings of old Scotland and the life, the faith, the genious and hope of his native land.

This is why we love Robert Burns, for it was he who taught us the brotherhood of man, that which lives in his songs and always will live while human nature is the same. He saw the nature with the eyes of a child, saw beauty in the fold of hills, in the trees, in the flowing waters and the sound of the wind filled him with a sad joy.

Such was Robert Burns, a man full of passion and pity.

If he could have its way with us, every injustice, every cruelty, every despotism would fall and every man would have a more fulfilled life and superior soul.

“Then let us pray, that come what may 

As come it will, for all that

That man to man, the world over 

Shall brothers be, for all that”

HIS LIFE

Continue reading Robert Burns – A Poet and a Freemason

The Solicitor, a Forensic Scientist, and the Shadow of the Ardlamont Murder

In Scottish law, the unique Murder Not Proven verdict exists alongside Guilty and Not Guilty. Dating back to the 18th century, it allows jurors to express that, though they suspect wrongdoing, the evidence falls short of removing reasonable doubts. Jack House, author of the book Murder Not Proven—later adapted for television by the BBC—argued that Victorian trials were not only shaped by evidence, but by respectability. In his view, social standing often protected the accused. The more respectable the defendant was or even looked, the greater the chance of escaping justice. A telling example of this was the 1893 trial known as the Ardlamont Case (12/12/1893 – 22/12/1893), in which Arthur Toovey, a solicitor and Middlesex Freemason, was called to testify.

The Ardlamont Case: Murder or Misadventure?

The trial commenced on 12th December 1893 at the Edinburgh High Court. It centred on the suspicious death of Cecil Hambrough, the simple-minded son of an English aristocrat family weighed down by financial difficulties, who died during a shooting trip at the Ardlamont estate in Argyllshire, Scotland. Hambrough, in his early twenties, was accompanied by his tutor, the 33 years old Alfred John Monson, and a man introduced as Edward Scott who was later unmasked as a career criminal.

_{Alfred John Monson (left) – Photo from  Murder Not Proven by Jack House and Cecil Hambrough (right) – Photo courtesy of the Worcester College}

Just two days before he left for Ardlamont, Monson had secured a £20,000 life insurance policy on Hambrough’s life—naming himself the sole beneficiary and funding the initial premium by drawing on other fully assigned policies. It was a sophisticated confidence trick.

On August 10th, Hambrough was found shot in the back of the head while out game shooting with Monson and Scott—just a day after the duo’s attempt to drown him in the estate’s lake had miserably failed.

Monson claimed the rifle the young man was carrying had discharged accidentally as he was attempting to climb a fence. But suspicion mounted rapidly when Monson’s dubious past, and his questionable financial deals came to light.

The case presented a classic situation: a motive, no eyewitnesses, circumstantial evidence, but no incontrovertible proof. Ultimately, Monson was acquitted—with the jury returning a verdict of Not Proven.

The Testimony of Brother Arthur Toovey

Among those called to give evidence at the trial  was Arthur Toovey (11 December 1852 – 6 April 1915), a well-regarded solicitor based at 18 Orchard Street, Marylebone, London. In 1890, he had taken up residence at Mount Cottage, Pinner, shortly after the Metropolitan Railway had been extended from Baker Street—just a stone’s throw from Marylebone—making commuting from places on the outskirt of London, both practical and convenient.

_{Photo of A. Toovey from the Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette of Friday, 16 April 1915}

In Pinner, Toovey quickly emerged as a force for change and in 1894, he led a successful campaign to preserve its rural status, fending off a proposal to place Pinner under urban powers. As a mark of merit, the following year he was elected Councillor and Vice-Chairman of the newly independent Parish.

^{Harrow Observer – Thursday, 24 January 1963}

Continue reading BROTHERS IN SERVICE

In the 18^th century, actors were known as “His Majesty’s Servants”, and were entitled to wear the royal livery of scarlet. The most talented English Shakespearean actor of the time was David Garrick, whom Alexander Pope described “a young man who has never had an equal as an actor and never will.” Garrick became famous also as a playwright, producer and manager of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, London.

EARLY LIFE

He was born on February 19, 1717, at The Angel Inn in Hereford Town the grandson of David de la Garrique, a French Huguenot wine merchant, and the third child of Peter, a British Army recruiting officer who had emigrated from France in 1687. The family lived in Litchfield, Staffordshire, where David met Samuel Johnson while attending the local free grammar school. They became friends for life. The year 1717 is coincidental.

David travelled to Lisbon, Portugal, with his brother Peter Jnr in 1728 to learn about the wine business from their paternal uncle and returned to Litchfield a year later to continue his education.

When Samuel Johnson closed his failing Academy in Edial, near Lichfield in 1737, which David sometimes attended, he travelled to London in search of better fortune. David accompanied him. They set out in March, sharing one horse and a little money on the journey. In Rochester, the well-known mathematician Rev. Colson, had offered to give him free education, but then left for a post at Cambridge soon after David arrived. The young man returned to London and, with a little family inheritance, started a wine business jointly with his brother Peter running the venture from Litchfield. Much of the time as wine merchant was by necessity spent socialising and transacting business in taverns and coffee-houses, an occupation that young Garrick found quite agreeable. He focused  his business calls at the Bedford Coffee-house in Covent Garden, an establishment plagued by scandals, but also crowded every night with actors, playwright and theatre managers. The likeable Garrick was soon accepted within that circle and when in March 1741, a player at the Goodman’s Field Theatre fell unwell, Garrick dashed onto the stage to anonymously play the part of Harlequin.

David Garrick always wore a five-curled wig. He was a charmer with large eyes, stocky, short, with a soft voice and initially spoke with a strong Staffordshire accent that made him mispronounce words like “firm” as “furm”. In short, he was not considered suited for the theatre, but he proved everybody wrong.

Rising temperatures and poor sanitation in the capital during the summer caused the theatres to shut down for a few months, the wealthy to flee to their country homes, and the actors to tour the provinces.

In the summer of 1741, Garrick joined the Giffard & Dunstall theatre company and went to Ipswich where, under the stage name Lyddal, he became known as a talented young actor. in October the same year, he played Shakespeare’s Richard III for the first time under his own name at the Goodman’s Fields Theatre in Whitechapel, London. His performance was a hit and for seven months the nobility and gentry filled the road to Goodman’s Fields with their carriages to see him act.

Garrick had a long relationship with the scandalous Irish actress Pegg Woffington, but in June 1749, he married Eva Marie Veigel, a famous Viennese dancer and Lady Burlington’s protégée. John Fielding wrote of David’s lifetime devotion to Marie, “the chastity of Mr Garrick… and his exemplary life as a man has been a great service to the morals of the dissipated age.” The couple were childless, and even though Eva Marie outlived David by a record 43 years, she never remarried.

WAS GARRICK A FREEMASON?

Continue reading HIS MAJESTY’S SERVANT DAVID GARRICK – A FREEMASON ?

One individual whose reputation lies far from that of the archetypal Huguenot is John Jean Misaubin (1673-1734). It has been estimated that there were some 470 Huguenot refugee who practised the profession of medicine in England, from the beginning of the Reformation until the Huguenots ceased to seek refuge under the reign of George III. Dr John Misaubin was a fashionable ‘quack’ known to posterity thanks largely to the famous image of him by William Hogarth (1697-1764). He has been identified since contemporary times as ‘the thinner of the two doctors in Plate V of ‘A Harlot’s Progress’ published in 1732‘.

Here they are arguing the merits of their respective pills and potions whilst their patient Moll Hackabout, the Harlot, is dying of venereal disease, the reward of their calling.

Unsurprisingly, in the light of Hogarth’s striking and damning portrayal of medical incompetence, veniality and lack of humanity, all succeeding commentators over the years have repeated a pejorative refrain and called Misaubin a “notorious quack”.

Misabubin has a presence in another of Hogarth’s great modern moral subjects’ series, his ‘Marriage a la mode’ of 1743-45.

The meaning of this scene, the third in the series, has always been particularly obscure. The impoverished Count with his young girl friend is visiting a quack who has been said to be Misaubin with his ‘Irish wife’. But not only the image is not a physical representation of Misaubin, his wife Martha (Marthe) Angibaud, was too a French Huguenot. Hogarth’s reference to Misaubin lies in the setting, thought by some commentators to represent Misaubin’s museum at 96, St Martin’s Lane. Here are shown two machines; one for pulling corks and the other for reducing dislocated shoulders! The open folio on the machines reads: ‘Explication de deux machines superbes l’un pour remettre l’épaules l’autre  pour servir de tire bouchon inventés par Mons de la Pillule…  — vues at approuvées par l’academie des Sciences a Paris’. The other specific reference to Misaubin is the dummy with the long wig in the cabinet indicated by the Count’s cane.  Misaubin lived at this address only from 1732 until his death there in 1734.

Continue reading DR MISAUBIN – THE QUACK FREEMASON