Masonic armchair of walnut (?) or mahogany, the vase splat inlaid with a mason's plumb (for checking true verticals), the seat rail with out-curved corners, the front legs cabriole on claw and ball feet. The emblem of the plumb against a board suggests that this chair was made for the Junior Warden of the Lodge.

Masonic armchair of walnut (?) or mahogany, the front legs cabriole and carved with acanthus at the knees and with claw and ball feet, the seat rail plain, surrounding a drop-in seat. The arms scroll outwards and down, supported on back-curving supports, which are set back from the front legs. The uprights of the back scroll outwards at the top where they meet the chair rail, the ends of the chair rail tightly scrolled back. The centre of the top of the chair rail is carved with a serpentine outline. The back splat is of complex vase form, but its front face is undecorated, except for an inlaid plumb line, lying against a board, this motif running up into the chair rail. The drop-in seat is new. Theuse of the motif of the plumb suggest that it was made for the use of the Junior Warden in the Lodge.

Given by the South Middlesex Lodge of Freemasons, Fulham

Presented by the South Middlesex Masonic Lodge, 132 Hurlingham Road, London SW6. The Master's chair, and two wardens' chairs (W.218 to 219 -1923) had been on loan to the Museum since 1915 (Nominal File Ma/1/S2626, RF 23/7249). They were thought at that time to date from about 1730, that being the date of the foundation of the Lodge no. 76, which met at the White Bear, King Street, Golden Square, London, but in terms of style it is more likely that the chairs were made after 1760. The lodge was re-named the Well-Disposed Lodge in 1771 and in 1779 it moved to Waltham Abbey, Hertfordshire, where it met at the The Cock inn, and it is even possible that the chairs date from that period, as chairs for such ceremonial uses tended to use rather conservative designs, as they do today. At the time of acquisition this was described as 'Scratched and split'.

A letter from Mr John Hamill, Librarian and Curator at Freemason's Hall, dated 5 July 1988, to Claire Graham, author of Ceremonial and Commemorative Chairs in Great Britain (1994), gives the history of the 'Royal Alpha Lodge No. 16', the Grand Master's Personal Lodge:
'It was an amalgamation of five lodges, one of them being Lodge No. 76, at the White Bear, King Street, Golden Square, which was founded in 1730. From 1735 to 1778 the lodge met at various taverns in the City and Southwark. In 1771 it took the name 'Well Disposed Lodge'. From 1778 to 1814 it met at the Cock, Waltham Abbey, Essex, but was dormant from 1805. In 1814 the Grand Master, HRH Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, wished to have a personal lodge and 'took over' the dormant Well Disposed Lodge, transferring it to his appartments at Kensington Palace and changing its name to 'Alpha Lodge' [it appears to have become 'Royal Alpha Lodge in 1824, on the occasion of its amalgamation with the 'Royal Lodge No. 210]. The whereabouts of the Lodge's Minutes and records pre-1818 is not known. Nor can I establish a source for the statement that your chairs were the property of this lodge in the 1730s.
The earliest record of the chairs comes in the Minutes of the South Middlesex Lodge No. 858 for 25 February 1886 when the Master of that lodge was thanked "for his kindness in having the lodge chairs so beautifully repaired". A note stated that the chairs had been acquired when the lodge was constituted in 1861 but did not state where they had come from. Unfortunately the records of Lodge 858 were also a casualty of the blitz. The chairs were used by Lodge 858 until 1908 when they removed to Frascati Restaurant in New Oxford Street, which had a properly furnished Masonic Suite. From 1908-1915 the chairs were stored at the house of the Lodge Secretary. In February 1915 he reported that they had been loaned to the Victoria and Albert Museum. On 25 October 1925 th Lodge resolved to offer the chairs to the V&A as a gift to the nation. It was written up in the Daily Telegraph for 22 Novembers 1923 (copy enclosed [this now in departmental files]).'

As the Royal Alpha Lodge No. 16 continues to exist, it is not clear why or how these chairs passed to the South Middlesex Lodge but an undated memo, probably from the 1960s, reported that a member of the Lodge, Mrs C.H. Matthews, believed that the chairs had come to the lodge 'in the early 60's of the last century'.

When they were first acquired the chairs were shown in Gallery 57.

This chair was lent to Provost Skene's house, Aberdeen, from 1953 to 2017 (RF 53/2885)

A Freemasons' Lodge or meeting house is provided with a number of pieces of furniture that are used in the course of ceremonies. The best-known pieces of furniture are generally the trio of chairs used by the Master and the two Wardens. These are generally larger than ordinary chairs, requiring a footstool for the Master at least. In their general form they follow that of fashionable chair design, but they include carved or inlaid emblems of some of the tools that have symbolic meaning for Masons, such as the set square and the plumb line (as on this one). The plumb line was generally used on the Junior Warden's chair The three chairs do not sit together in a lodge, as they are often portrayed in photographs. The chair of the Master sits at the east end of the main room of the Lodge, with that of the Senior Warden at the west end, and that of the Junior Warden in the middle of the south side. This chair and its companions (W.218-1923 and W.219-1923, the latter now de-accessioned) were given by the South Middlesex Lodge but were apparently made for an earlier lodge, which was later absorbed by the Royal Alpha Lodge, the personal lodge of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843). The papers of the original lodge do not survive so we cannot know who made the chairs.

W.220-1923