The earliest recorded speculative Freemason. He was initiated 16 October 1646 as reported in his diary - " 1646, Oct: 16, 4:30 p.m. I was made a Free Mason at Warrington in Lancashire, with Col. Henry Mainwaring of Kerincham in Cheshire." Col. Mainwaring, his coinitiate, was his father-in-law,
Elias Ashmole, born 1617, was a well known figure in the 1700s. Briefly, his bio is: alchemist and astrologer, medical doctor, lawyer, Royalist captain, Commissioner of Excise, founder of Ashmolean Museum of Antiquities - Oxford (still exists), Fellow of the Royal Society, author of several books and interested in alchemy and alternative philosophy.
This English notable and man of stature had absolutely nothing to do with stone masonry. Prior to the writing in his diary, there is no other record of the initiation of a speculative Mason. Although he promised to write a History of Freemasonry, he never did.
His only other mention of Freemasonry appears in a diary entry. On 10 March 1682, very nearly thirty-six years after the first mention, Ashmole received a ‘Summons to appear at a Lodge. . . at Masons Hall, London’, and the next entry in the diary states: [11th] "Accordingly I went and about Noon was admitted into the fellowship of Freemasons . . . I was the Senior Fellow among them (it being thirty-five years since I was admitted). There were present beside my self, the fellows after named. Mr. Tho Wise Master of the Masons Company this present year . . . We all dined at the Half Moon Tavern in Cheapside at a Noble dinner prepared at the charge of the New-Accepted Masons."
[Masonic Curiosities by Yasha Bresiner]
Fraternally,
Norm Leeper, PM, HA
