A Melbourne Masonic mystery part 1: The University Chancellor

The Masonic Library, Archive and Museum in Melbourne together are full of historical gold. Finding the means to preserve and admire these treasures will benefit both the Craft and the public.

1854

Amid the excitement and disorder of the Victorian gold rush, Melbourne's elite created ‘the University.’

The foundation stone was laid on Monday 3 July 1854 by the recently arrived Lieutenant-Governor Charles Hotham with Justice Redmond Barry, resplendent in his immaculate chancellerian robes – and silk stockings, as master of ceremonies.

Professor Richard Selleck in his book The Shop, says the ceremony began with a procession from the city to the muddy paddock where the University was to be built. It was intended, he imagined, to follow a familiar pattern with a prominent role for Freemasons.

Selleck’s assumption about the Freemasons was reasonable, but was it correct?

Soon after the ceremony, a Freemason calling himself ‘Hiram’ wrote to the Argus, the most read paper in the city, complaining that the Freemasons had in effect been uninvited. He asserted that this would not have happened if La Trobe had been Lieutenant-Governor and he wanted an explanation.

I came across this controversy in preparing a review of Professor John Barnes’ 2017 book, La Trobe: traveller, writer, governor.  I don’t think anyone noticed it before. So, was Selleck correct or Hiram? The answer turns to be neither, but the event did signal some kind of change. The story suggests that the Masonic presence in Melbourne’s early history has been somewhat neglected and that further research, building on Peter Thornton’s comprehensive work (A Century of Union: The United Grand Lodge of Victoria and The History of Freemasonry in Victoria) can yield a better understanding of both Melbourne and Freemasonry in that period.

Redmond Barry as Chancellor, 1878.
Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria.

Redmond Barry

Redmond Barry is famous for sentencing Ned to the gallows, but Ned hadn’t been born in July 1854. He was an Irish aristocrat whose ancestors became Protestants in the time of Cromwell. Their English allegiance was central to their identity but they were Irish nonetheless. They were Conservative and ‘high Tory’ in their politics and ‘wedded to the property interests of the landed gentry.’ The Barrys played a leading role in local Freemasonry.

In contrast with the present, Freemasonry in this period should not be regarded only as being a prominent fraternal organisation. In the words of R A Berman in The Architects of Eighteenth-Century English Freemasonry, 1720 – 1740,  ‘It should also be considered as a force that helped to shape the structure and development of the social, economic and political evolution that was then in progress.’

Barry was born in 1813 in County Cork, graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1837 and was admitted to the Irish Bar. He emigrated to Australia, landing in Sydney, then settling in Melbourne in 1839, establishing a practice in the minor courts. He became the Standing Council for Aborigines in 1841 advocating that they be tried before a jury which included Aboriginal people; an approach consistent with the values of 18^th Century Freemasons. He was Melbourne’s first solicitor-general in 1851 then elevated to the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1852. He was involved in almost every social, cultural and philanthropic activity in Victoria at the time of his death in 1880.

Barry was a prime founder of the University and Public Library placing his personal stamp on both. There would be no contemporary fiction in the Library but working men could come and freely learn and there would be no religious test at the University for the all-male students.

Professors could not be in holy orders nor could they lecture on religious topics - anywhere. La Trobe supported the institution and provided funding for it, wishing to avoid the interdenominational rivalry which plagued the University of Sydney.

Barry became a Freemason in Dublin. In Melbourne, he affiliated with Australia Felix Lodge of Hiram No 349 in the Irish Constitution (later No 4 in the Victorian Constitution) on 30 April 1847 (8 years after his arrival) remaining a quiet member.

Barry’s reputation has undergone a revision, highlighted by the current University of Melbourne Chancellor, Allan Myers AC QC who presented the 2016 Redmond Barry Lecture. To quote Myers, ‘I have called Barry cruel, pessimistic, fearful, hypocritical, vain and impetuous. Barry’s social views and political philosophies have little, if any, importance for Australian society in 2016. But an energetic devotion to the advancement of institutions which promote education, scientific knowledge and access to the arts is as important today as it was 150 years ago.’

We can both acknowledge his weaknesses and celebrate his achievements.

Melbourne in about 1854 via Wikimedia.

Part 2 will describe something of the role of Freemasonry in early Melbourne and the changing plans for the University’s foundation stone laying ceremony.

A Melbourne foundation-stone mystery

I recently had the enjoyable opportunity to make a presentation to the Victorian Lodge of Research. The presentation was titled A Melbourne masonic mystery: The University Chancellor, the uninvited Freemasons and the foundation stone…

I began by pointing to the value of the local Masonic Library, Archive and Museum. It is full of historical gold. It's a tremendous resource which can provide unique insights into Victoria's history - especially its social history and its family history.

The story itself is set in Melbourne 1854 - 165 years ago to the day.  

Amid the excitement and disorder of the Victorian gold rush, Melbourne's elite created ‘the University.’ Its foundation stone was laid on Monday 3 July 1854 by the newly arrived Lieutenant-Governor, Charles Hotham. The master of ceremonies was Justice Redmond Barry, resplendent in his immaculate chancellerian robes – and silk stockings.

Sir Redmond Barry as Chancellor, later in life.
Picture via Wikipedia.

Professor Richard Selleck in The Shop, says the ceremony began with a procession from the city to the muddy paddock north of the city where the University was to emerge. It was intended, he imagined, to follow a familiar pattern with a prominent role for Freemasons.   

Soon after the ceremony, ‘Hiram’ wrote to the Argus, the most read paper in the city. He complained that the Freemasons had in effect been uninvited. He asserted that this would not have happened if La Trobe had been Lieutenant-Governor. He wanted an explanation.

I had come across this controversy in preparing a review of Professor John Barnes’ book, La Trobe: traveller, writer, governor. I didn’t think anyone noticed the issue before and thought it was worth investigating. So, was Selleck correct or Hiram? The answer turned out to be neither, though Hiram was nearer the mark. And the event did signal some kind of change.

The case also illustrates that further research, building on the work of Victorian Masonic historian Peter Thornton, can still yield improved understandings of both Melbourne, its people and Freemasonry in that period. Thornton, who died in 2015, may well have read everything in the Archives and his books are a great pointer to what's there. However, finding those references now is a little harder.

Barry was a prime founder of the University placing his personal stamp on it. There would be no religious test at the University for the all-male students. Professors could not be in holy orders nor could they lecture on religious topics - anywhere. La Trobe supported the institution and provided funding for it.

As many Melbourne Freemasons know, Barry became a Freemason in Dublin. In Melbourne, he affiliated with Australia Felix Lodge of Hiram in the Irish Constitution when it began in April 1847, eight years after his arrival. He remained a quiet member.

La Trobe was not a Freemason, but he was certainly a friend of the Masonic bodies, the Churches and Barry himself. He saw them all as civilising forces.

Strangely, the story of the University’s foundation stone relies on understanding what happened for the foundation stone ceremony of the first Prince’s Bridge and 1846 and the subsequent celebrations when it was opened in 1850.  

But the solution to the conundrum needed more. It needed a review of some forgotten histories and digging in the archives. Two archives actually - The University of Melbourne and the Freemasons. The search uncovered the existence of correspondence between Barry and the masters of Melbourne’s four lodges in 1854 channelled though Robert Levick the now somewhat forgotten Masonic educator of that early period.

But, as is often the case, resolving one mystery left unanswered at least one more. 

The presentation will appear as a series here over the next few months and will also (with pictures and references) be included in the Lodge’s annual Transactions, now in its 32nd year.

The first Prince's Bridge as it looked in 1870, also later in its life. How is this structure relevant to the University foundation stone?  Courtesy Museums Victoria.

A Melbourne Masonic mystery part 1: The University Chancellor

The DNA search for ancestors of 麥世鹏.

The aim is to find the home village of 麥世鹏.

For those of you following this story for my first outline of ‘Mak’s life' and the quest to find his Chinese family, I’ll provide updates from time to time on progress.

We’ve now done two tests a YDNA and a ‘family finder’ both with FamilyTreeDNA .

The Y-DNA test has yielded one match.

This leads the descendant of a man who was adopted in the early part of the last century by a family with who gave him their surname. The fellow who did the test has passed away and his descendants don’t know anything about his adoptive family except that lived in Guangzhou and spoke Cantonese.

Now they know that somewhere they have a 麥 connection – and from that an Australian connection. Perhaps this fellow's father became an orphan in the conflicts around the 1911 revolution.

The family finder tests also showed one match.

In this family, there is also no knowledge of a 麥 surname. One side of the family comes from Guangzhou and the other from Hong Kong so may well have also originated in Guangzhou on the mainland. At the moment it is impossible to tell which side of the family the 麥 connection is.

One other distant connection was made more recently, though again the family have no knowledge of the 东 name. This third family currently live in Dongguan, China, and have apparently always lived there. A possible pointer to our man's origins.

Dongguan (东莞市) is a significant industrial city in Guangdong Province, China. It is in the Pearl River Delta bordering the provincial capital of Guangzhou. Dongguan's city administration is regarded as progressive in seeking foreign investment, ranking behind only Shenzhen, Shanghai and Suzhou in exports. It is also home to one of the world's largest shopping malls, the New South China Mall – nothing to do with New South Wales though… 

In Mak Sai Pang’s time Cantonese was widely spoken as well as Hakka. Today’s population mainly speak Mandarin. 

So, while we don’t know which city Mak Sai Pang came from, Dongguan is a candidate. However, further information on the family trees of the three matches mentioned would be needed. Finding closer DNA matches to people with certain 麥 ancestry is also necessary.

If you know someone with a 麥 (‘Mak’ or ‘Mai’) ancestry please encourage them to take a DNA test and document their family tree - and let me know the outcome.

麥 turns out to be a widespread surname in Guangdong and is seldom found outside the province. It is not ranked among the 100 most common surnames in China and not even listed among the 507 surnames in 百家姓 of Surnames of the hundred families (which obviously contains five times as many surnames as the title implies). 

So, although there are still millions of possible 麥 family connections, the home base is somewhere in Guangdong. But which city?

Famous people with the surname 麥

If you have any suggestion for famous people please let me know and we can run some mini-biographies.

Are you a Mak 麥?

If you are, you may have a part to play in solving an Australian mystery!

How to write the surname.
Courtesy of Wiktionary.

The earliest documented Chinese migrant to Australia arrived 201 years ago. His name was Mak Sai Pang 麥世鹏.

There are two important things we don’t know about him:

1 – Where exactly in China did he come from? and

2 – Where did he go later in his life?

Pretty important questions to find answers for.

A Qing Dynasty official ponders his ancestry.
Image via Wikipedia.

His significance was celebrated across two nations last year, but the mysteries still remain. However, if you’re also a Mak 麥 you may be able to help solve them. Perhaps you may also learn more about your own family along the way.

My article The mystery of Mak Sai Ying unpacks these issues and sets out where to go to from here. There are still some documentary trails to follow but even with these, we may still not be able to resolve the two questions outlined above.

These are, to be sure, family questions but they also have historical significance if they can help us understand more of this individual and his particular circumstances. The large mosaic which is Australian history is made up of many individual tiles.

The ‘Mak project’ aims to resolve the family history questions. As the documents so far have not resolved these, DNA testing could well help.

Results for the Y-DNA test (which traces the male line) are now in and have yielded one match. This leads to a man who was adopted in the early part of the last century by a different family in Guangzhou. His descendants now know that they have a Mak connection. But where exactly is this connection? How far back does it go?

The fact that this family lived in Guangzhou – provides some hope as that is certainly where it looks like 'our' Mak originated.

So, what next?

The first thing is to find more Mak males with ancestors who lived in Guangdong to do the YDNA test. This collective activity should give all participants some insights into their ancestry and in particular locate those who have the same male line ancestry as our mystery Mak.

Perhaps you’re a Mak who already knows where you people came from. Wouldn’t it be great to be connected with a significant Chinese Australian? 

The next DNA test is the ‘family finder’ the results of which will help find Mak’s cousins whether male or female. The test is about to the done for our Mak descendant and will yield some more connections, perhaps with distant cousins in Canada, Malaysia or the UK and even China.

If you’re a Mak man (also pronounced ‘Mai’ in standard Chinese) and would like to take part in the Y-DNA test, please look at FamilyTreeDNA. You can sign up for the Y-DNA test and if you also join the Chinese project at the same time, you may get a discount.

Females who have Mak ancestry can still take part via their 'family finder' test.

Let me know if you have any questions and please share any thoughts on Mak origins.

The ancient version of the surname.
Courtesy of Wiktionary.
Can you see a happy face?

Baptists in Early North America Volume 3 - Newport, Rhode Island, Seventh Day Baptists

I read Janet Thorngate’s book in one day and thoroughly enjoyed it - and the escape from the 21st Century. If you have an interest in the denomination or the period, you’ll find it a delightful and very informative journey.

Having come across them first over 35 years ago, the Seventh Day Baptists are like old friends - who I didn’t know as well as I should have. The opportunity to exchange a few thoughts with Dr Thorngate was a great opportunity and is reflected below in this response to the book. 

Baptists in Early North America—Newport, Rhode Island, Seventh Day Baptists is volume 3 of a series about Baptist history in early North America. The Seventh Day Baptists are a unique identity within the Baptist world and they are the least well-known grouping. This book will help dispell that relative invisibility by illustrating their historical credentials.

The series itself provides a significant contribution to religious and Baptist scholarship, recovering never-before-published original records and manuscripts for students, scholars, and genealogists.

The story of the Newport Seventh Day Baptists begins in 1664 when some members of Newport’s first Baptist church began meeting for worship on the seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday). The documents which are the core of the book follow them through the first 137 years of their life as the Newport Seventh Day Baptist (SDB) Church.

The transcriptions of the church’s first three record books (1692–1808) are preceded by extensive excerpts from the manuscripts and letters of Samuel Hubbard, one of the founding members. These document the origins in John Clarke’s Newport Baptist church and the influences from Sabbath keeping Baptists in mid-seventeenth century England (also old friends).

The record follows the covenant community, nurtured in colonial Rhode Island’s unique religious freedom, from Newport’s pioneer period through its Golden Age as a major colonial seaport and its devastation during the Revolutionary War.

Scattered membership could be found east and south into Plymouth Colony and Martha’s Vineyard and west to Westerly and Hopkinton, Rhode Island, and New London, Connecticut. The members were a surprisingly diverse group from Native Americans, African-American ‘servants’ to Rhode Island Governors and wealthy merchants.

Governor Samuel Ward (1725-1776),
image cropped from Rootsweb via Wikipedia.

Although I have some ancestors who were in the region at the time none that I know of where members of the congregation. I was entertained to discover, however, that I am a 14^th cousin of Governor Samuel Ward (1725-1776) who was a member of the church. Our common ancestor is further back in time.

The congregation had involvement with other Baptists in founding Rhode Island College (now Brown University). and through the Second Great Awakening, then joined with other congregations to form the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference in 1802.

I was particularly interested in the reference to the English Sabbatarians in the detailed historical introduction and got a much better sense of the cross Atlantic support which the Newport seventh day Baptists and their English cousins gave each other.

Dr Peter Chamberlen was one of many who offered support. He was a prominent and often provocative character who was ‘protected’ from imprisonment in England because he was regarded by the Royals as an excellent doctor. Like other Sabbath-keeping churches of the period (including the Rhode Island churches), his congregation did not produce a written statement of beliefs; they were aiming to ‘grow in grace and knowledge’ and didn’t wish to assume that they ‘had it all’. However, he did promote the ‘formula’ of ‘keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus’. These two concepts are exemplified by Sabbath keeping and believer’s baptism - the hallmarks of SDBs. 

The record books provide some compelling insights into the lives of the New England Sabbatarians and their times and illustrate the changes in congregational preoccupations over the period.

Thorngate’s thorough work identifies the individuals in the original documents spelling out their relationships to paint pictures which help us see the real people.

There is obviously still a rich vein of original material from this period on either side of the Atlantic to be mined. 

Although not a focus of the book, the formation of the SDB denomination is something accomplished immediately after the period that this book covers. It was the process whereby different church groups considered joining and some chose not to. I’m intrigued by the possibility that the times may have produced independent Sabbatarian groups as well.

In England, there never really was an SDB denomination formed and at this stage, there is no evidence that any separatists became independent Sabbatarian groups in America after the Rogerenes. This group broke from the SDBs in Connecticut in the 1680s, lasting into the 19th century but they ceased to be Sabbatarian by about 1700 (see Thorngate’s introduction page lxxii-lxxiii).

However, the earliest Pennsylvania and New Jersey SDB churches were not ‘daughter churches’ of the Rhode Island bodies (having totally separate origins) but early on sought fellowship with each other, somewhat formalized through their many loosely organized yearly meetings.

When the conference was forming, the main issues discouraging union were, as is often the case, governance issues, not theological questions, but the churches which ultimately chose not to join were all short-lived. For the next 200 years, churches formed that called themselves Seventh Day Baptist (some independently, some 'daughters') and there are lists of them identifying which joined and which didn’t join the General Conference (for example in Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, volume 2) but none became independent Sabbatarian groups.

The later 19th century origins of Seventh-day Adventists and Church of God Seventh-Day groups have separate histories. It seems that no-one yet has carefully researched the relationships between SDBs and the emerging 19th century Sabbath-keeping Church of God groups. There may have been an SDB ‘association of churches’ in the American Midwest in areas which some participating churches were or eventually became ‘Church of God’ congregations. Many American churches took part in a regional association but never joined the SDB Conference. Internationally there has often been cross-fertilisation of Sabbatarian groups - often described differently by believers and historians.

But to return to the book and its direct concerns...

Ronald Angelo Johnson, PhD, of the Department of History at Texas State University, is better placed to judge the work academically. His review in Baptist History and Heritage, Summer 2018, shows he was clearly impressed: ‘The study exhibits an incomparable grasp of denominational historiography…’. His conclusion?

‘The distinctive life of the Seventh Day Baptist Church, the volume’s diverse collection of records, and Thorngate’s impressively details footnotes will inform future histories of the church and the city…’

A powerful recommendation.

Baptists in Early North America Volume 3 - Newport, Rhode Island, Seventh Day Baptists is published by Mercer University Press.

Janet Thorngate

Janet Thorngate author of
Baptists in Early North America Volume 3 -
Newport, Rhode Island, Seventh Day Baptists.

Janet Thorngate is chairman of the Seventh Day Baptist Council on History (formerly the Seventh Day Baptist Historical Society) and former librarian of the Seventh Day Baptist Historical Library and Archives.

She has degrees in English and History from Salem College and West Virginia University (MA) and has taught Church History at the Seventh Day Baptist School of Ministry and English at Salem International University and West Virginia University.

Alonzo Marion Poe grows up

Alonzo Marion Poe awoke early on Tuesday 6 May 1845. ‘Marion’ was a naive 19-year-old eager for adventure with nothing keeping him in Missouri. 

He was about to mature in a hurry. 

John Lemmon had not been in Missouri long when he met Marion. ‘Old Lemmon’ had recently left New York after he and some of his family were ‘attacked with lung fever’.

‘The doctor told us: "Don't you stay here another winter…Go to Oregon…" So, I sold my house and made my way here with my family and friends.’ 

Lemmon thought for a moment then looking earnestly at Marion said, ‘I need someone to help look after the cattle, negotiate with the Indians and provide some muscle.’ Marion confirmed that he knew about cattle and said, ‘We often see the Sioux here’. Marion’s unpaid co-workers were Lemmon’s son and three of his son-in-law’s relatives. Marion always enjoyed chatting with them, though sometimes found them over-earnest.

Lemmon was aiming for the fertile Willamette Valley, south of the Columbia River. That is where almost everyone went, indeed the previous year, five families Marion knew had set off with the same objective.

‘Oregon Trail’ from The Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail 1852-1906 by Ezra Meeker,
The University of Texas at Austin via Wikipedia.

Easily bored, Marion enjoyed shooting toads, snakes, squirrels, birds and rabbits, so his supply of ammunition was usually low or exhausted. 

This habit was about to change.

One morning Lemmon beckoned Marion to follow him. ‘Last night one of our cows fell behind the herd with its calf.’

They chatted as they rode, Marion on his spirited horse with its new-smelling saddle and Lemmon on his old faithful. ‘Do you think we’re safe?’, Lemmon asked. Marion remarked casually, ‘We’re only a few days out Missouri in a large group. We won’t have any serious trouble’.

They found the cow and Lemmon gave it a whack with his small ‘black snake’ whip, an ideal tool for managing cattle. The pair were ambling back to the wagons when they noticed a small group of Indians behind them.

Marion rode out to chat, confident in his ability to charm. As they spoke one of the Indians held his horse’s bridle while two others slipped his feet off the stirrups. Marion was too frightened to speak. And he had no bullets.

The Indians were ready to pull him off his horse, but the sharp-eyed Lemmon was watching. He galloped towards Marion, giving a well-placed crack with his whip across the Indian’s hands. He immediately let go of the bridle.

Lemmon gave Marion’s horse a whack saying in a firm voice, ‘Hold on to the saddle!’ The horse bounded, and the startled Indians stepped back. Lemmon kept up a barrage so the Indians had no time to draw their bows.

Campfire stories still included the Indians, but now Marion's comrades laughed when they told how Mr Lemmon rescued him from death. Everyone enjoyed the new mood for the rest of the journey.

The group reached Oregon mid-September and Marion set out by himself to find his friends. 

They would find him a more mature man. 

Postscript:
Poe's Missouri friends had moved north of the Columbia River to avoid the reach of new laws preventing coloured persons from owning land and so protect one of their number - George Bush. The move probably made Poe more of a pioneer than he may have intended to be. 

Breaking up Camp at Sunrise, by Alfred Jacob Miller, via Wikipedia.

Main source:

Details of the journey are found in Sara J. Cummins, Autobiography and Reminiscences, La Grande Printing Company, La Grande, Oregon, 1914. 

Further reading:

The when and where of Alonzo Marion Poe