Inside The Brotherhood –
Explosive Secrets of the Freemasons
by Martin Short
“ ...We very soon gathered that our past Freemason friends and their wives no longer desired our company. After learning the good points of Freemasonry, and believing in its foundations, having enjoyed so much the company of the brethren and their families, this sudden treatment came as a shock. We were obviously being treated with the alternative treatment to murder, as laid down in the rituals. Instead of having our throats cut across, we were branded as 'wilfully perjured individuals, void of all moral worth and totally unfit to be received into this worshipful lodge...'.....”
Freemason Michael Richardson: Chairman of the Board of Management of The Royal Masonic Hospital (RMH) in Hammersmith and also managing director of merchant bankers N. M. Rothschild..who represents and personifies everything about Grand Lodge which many Freemasons resent: wealth, power, connections and the City of London and is also seen as the front man to the aristocrats who had given him the job ...who dominate Grand Lodge's committees and are still held responsible for the earlier 'betrayal' of masonic charity: closing and selling the School for Boys in 1977... the previous chairman of RMH was an eminent surgeon Lord Porritt ... the fact that a merchant banker, rather than a medical man, had taken over from the saintly Porritt was now seen as proof that the scheme to sell the RMH two years before was planned years before and felt that Richardson had been chosen because 'privatization' was a Rothschild speciality...
Comment: it is noted that researches come to the clear conclusion that the Rothschild family and their partners, who appear to own and/or control over 60% of the world's wealth and valuable resources .. appear to have profited well out most wars in the last 300 years and in particular the 1st and 2nd Word Wars by encouraging them to happen and lending money to all sides of these wars ... and effectively bankrupting both Britain and Germany who had to pay back their large war debts to the Rochschilds in gold at the end of the wars .. with it also claimed that Adolph Hitler was a grandson of a Rothschild (see Mark Hallet's book 'Hitler was a British Agent and other researchers) and it claimed that the Nazi Consentration Camps and Death Squads first focus was to murder senior Freemasons and this way re-organise the world wide control of Freemasonry into the Rothschild family hands .. the quiet shipment of hundreds of millions worth of gold from Heathrow Airport to Switzerland on pallets, wrapped in black plastic without any security with the late Thomas Allwood senior, transport engineer, on board to repay the Rothschild war debt, was brought to public light by INL News undercover journalist Thomas Allwood, who was murdered in Broxburn Scotland on the 21st June, 2013 a month before he was due to attend the High Court in London to have his application for Criminal Contempt against the Rothschild sponsored politicians..the UK Prime Minister- David Cameron, the UK Chancellor- George Osborne, the UK Home Office, the UK Border Agency and their Treasury Solicitors for deliberately preparing and presenting a false and fraudulent UK Border Agency Document 'falsely stating that USA Comedian had told the UK Border Agency Officers that he was paid $2,000 to be involved in introducing Fringe Entertainers in the making of a pilot of the INL News Group's and Thomas Allwood's 'Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show' due to be filmed over five days in April-May 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland'... as an illegal way of having Freemason Master Bowles at the London's High Court of Justice strike out a £500 million damages claim against ... the UK Prime Minister- David Cameron, the UK Chancellor- George Osborne, the UK Home Office, the UK Border Agency for the wrongful and illegal arrest of USA Comedian Ronnie Prouty at Heathrow Airport on the 27th April, 2011 and holding him custody for 24 hours and putting him in handcuffs the next day on a plane back to Los Angeles as a favour for Rupert and James Murdoch and the Rothschild family and their all powerful News Corporation and News International Media Group, as a way of commercially sabotaging the expensive fiming of a pilot of the INL News Group's and Thomas Allwood's 'Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show' due to be filmed over five days in April-May 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland'... there is mounting proof that leads to the involvement of Freemasons, MI5 and UK Special Branch in the planning and carrying out of the murder of Thomas Allwood on the 21st June, 2012 and the coverup of a lot of the known evidence and investigations by Scottish Police and Prosecution in the arrest and trial of Kyle Montgomery in November, 2012 for the murder of INL News undercover journalist Thomas Allwood ...
Conclusion by Martin Short at the end of his book 'Inside the Brotherhood
In my book I have tried where possible third hand evidence..not third-hand rumour... I have tried to provide sober deduction, not exaggeration... it should go without saying that anyone investigating a secret society - or even a 'private' one - as Grand Lodge now characterizes Freemasonry - will always find evidence hard to come by...therefore 'rumour and speculation'. although unsatisfactory, become legitimate .. if the investigator 'exaggerates; what little evidence he or she gets, the 'private society should hold itself to blame...Freemasonry gives rise to genuine public concern, which Masons ignore at their peril...
'What Public, Legal and Political Action Should be Taken regarding Freemasonry?
.... I suggest that the action taken about Freemasonry should be more than would appeal to the Tory MP who says, 'if people wish to belong to secret societies, that is their own business' , but probably less than is required by the Labour man who feels that 'Freemasonry should be made illegal'....
...Most MP's who completed my 1986 questionnaire said than councillors, local government officers, civil servants, policemen, judges and MP's should all be required to disclose their Masonic membership....the only proper way to test political opinion would be to put a 'disclosure' bill to the vote. There is no chance that the present Tory Government in the UK would sponsor it, so an MP should introduce a private member's bill and a free vote should follow...this bill also should give the public access to full and up-to-date membership lists of all masonic lodges...as I suggested on Chapter 21, these should be available at reference libraries in the localities where the lodges meet, and a town and country halls...
... thus us Bromyard one Craft Lodge List would be open for inspection..
... In Truro six ... in Cambridge eleven ..... in Sunderland twenty-nine....
.... in Croydon eighty-nine ,, in Manchester 129 ... in the city of London over 200 ....
..... in Greater London another 1,450 or more...
..The degree of 'publication' might also be required of all other Masonic bodies: from the Royal Arch .. right the way through to the Society of Rose Croix Order..
..The list of any lodge affiliated to a particular workplace, or recruiting mainly from within a specific organization, should be open for scrutiny by everyone who works at that place or in that organization. Thus the list for a town hall-lodge, such as the Borough of Newman, should be available at Newman Town Hall; the Holden Lodge list at Midland Bank; he London Hospital Lodge list at London Hopsital; the lis for the Union Lodge of Norwich should be given on demand to any emplyee of Norwich Union; the Lutine, Lloyd's and Fidentia lodge lists should be viewable at Lloyds of London; likewise lists of all military lodges (including the 21st Territorial SAS) at regimental HQ's; lists of barristers', Masters, Court Clerks' lodges should be displayed in the Inns of Court, at the Bar Council and the High Court, and the Manor of St James's list at New Scotland Yard, and at Bow Street, Vine Street and West End Central police stations...
...Most Masons would argue against these measures...
..They would say that although they have nothing to hide, why should their lists be publicly available if the same is not required for the MCC, the Athenaem, the Labour Party, the Transport and General Worker's Union, the Royal and Ancient Order of Foresters, the Sons of Temperance, the Druids, Rotary, the Round Table, the Elks, the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffalos, the Lions, the Kiwanis, the Baker Street Irregulars, the Sovereign and Military Oder of Malta, the Catholic Police Guild, BUPA, the AA, the Women's Institute, the Mother's Union or the subscription department of Readers Digest...
... The answer is simple. It is for Masons to demonstrate that any other organization has all these features:
1. A code of mutual aid, sworn by all members, to assist each other beyond the aid they swear to perform for all other people in society...
2. Oaths (however watered-dwon in recent years) which threaten that some physical, economic or social penalty - or negative moral judgement - will be applied to those who reveal the organization's secrets..
3. Rituals which make use of blindfolds, nooses, daggers or similar menacing objects or disorienting devices ...
4. Secret passwords, signs, grips or handshakes ...
5. Widespread public concern about the organization's activities or those of its members ...
I know of no golf club which has any of these features and no political party, trade union, friendly society, insurance company, businessmen's club, social group, or mainstream religious fraternity which has more than two of the above... If it can be shown that any other group manifests all of these elements, it should be subject to the same curbs as may be imposed on Freemasonry ..Some Masons claim that three Catholic organizations - the Knights of Columbus, the Catenians and Opus Dei - are quasi-Masonic ...If their rituals and oaths do resemble Freemasonry's, if genuine texts can be produced to prove it, and if there is widespread pubic concern, they too should be subject to any obligations imposed on the Craft..
..If Masons have nothing to hide, none of this should cause them great disquiet.... Just as their secretiveness breeds paranoia among the 'profane'. so a new openness would help dispel it, If the Freemasonry Craft is primarily a charitable organization, a movement or moral regeneration or just a load of men pursuing an arcane hobby, the have nothing to fear...`personal anxieties could be accommodated... such as that they maybe do not want their home addresses disclosed ..However, all voters' addresses are on view at public libraries on electoral roles... at Companies House, the home addresses of all company directors are available to anyone who pays a small fee ...As it happens, Freemason's home addresses might not be required, provided every lodge discloses the full named of all members..
..It is noted that today's MP's should bear in mind that any law to curb Freemasonry will face widespread evasion, as the history of the 1799 Unlawful Societies Act shows. Brought in 'for the more effectual Suppression of Societies established for Seditious and Treasonable Purposes', this was passed when there were fears of French plots to overthrow the Government of Great Britain and to achieve Irish independence. The Act claimed that societies such as United Englishmen, United Scotsmen, United Britons and United Irishmen were plotting seditious ends, and that their members swore oaths and secret vows, used secret signs and operated a cell-like structure across the country, However, a blanket ban on such organizations would also have banned Freemasonry, which shared all offending characteristics. To gain exemption, England's rival Grand Lodges (the 'Moderns' and the 'Ancients') jointly lobbied politicians will skill which would do credit to today's ruthless 'political action committees' in the USA. Their respective leaders, the Earl of Moirs and the Duke of Atholl, pressured Prime Minister William Pitt. According to 1799 Grand Lodge minues, the Masonic delegation reported that Pitt:
'... expressed his good opinion of the Society and said he was willing to recommend any Clause to prevent the New Act from affecting the Society, provided that the Name of the Society could be prevented from being made use o as a Cover by evilly disposed persons for Seditious purposes..'
The pressure worked ... Prime Minister William Pitt duly introduced a clause stating the Act did not apply to ' Lodges of FreeMasons, the meetings whereof have been in great measure directed to charitable purposes'...
...Pitt must have been beguiled by the smooth talking aristocrats, particularly Moira... According to one Masonic Historian, Moira's 'timely intervention had saved Freemasonry from extinction'....
...'Presumably Moira and Atholl had told Pitt that no British Masonic Lodge was likely to contain plotters bent on ' overturning the laws, constitution and government. and every existing establishment, civil and ecclesiastical' in Great Britain or `Ireland...Yet even 'regular' Freemasonry (as opposed to the truly seditious continental variety) had harboured traitors... Many American Revolutionaries were 'regular' Masons, notably George Washington, Ben Franklin and Admiral Paul Jones who had been initiated in Scotland. One Boston Lodge, St Andrews , was full of rebels, including Paul Revere, General Joseph Warren, John Hancock and John Rowe... It was John Rowe who inspired the Boston Tea Party, according to one of the 'Indian' raiders who belonged to the lodge, was planned within St Andrew's itself...
...The American Revolution had begun only twenty-four years before the Unlawful Societies Act became Law... It is extremely unlikely that Briton's Prime Minister, William Pitt, had any idea of Freemasonry's strength among the Revolutionaries - for sure Moira would have not told him! - but, had be known. he would have had good reason to suspect that the Freemasonry Craft might 'again be made use of as a Cover by evilly disposed persons for Seditious purposes'. Pitt wold also have had grounds for believing that not all brethren subscribed to their second Antient Charge: ' A mason is a peaceable subject to the civil powers, wherever he resides or works, and is never to be concerned in plots and conspiracies against the peace and welfare of the nation.'...
..Of course, even if Pitt had known about the Masonics of Washington and hi brother rebels, he may not have pressed the point because the Craft's leading petitioner, the Earl of Moira, had himself been a hero on England's side in the Revolutionary Wars. Pitt would have been 'snowballed' by Moira's revelation that no less than six of George III's sons were 'on the square', for how could a fraternity boasting 'so many of His Majesty's illustrious Family' possibly be seditious?...
...Nevertheless, the Act did impose major restrictions on Freemasonry. The 'names and descriptions' of all members of each lodge had to be registered with the local clerk of the peace.... By the time the Act was repealed in 1967, it had long been widely ignored .. Many lodges did not make returns..One pre-1967 lodge secretary told me: 'I never bothered and many other secretaries never knew this law existed..besides, who was going to make you do it... In out town most law enforcers - the Clerk of Peace, half the JP's and the police chief --were all in the lodge...!'
...Even more restrictive, the 1979 Act had exempted only meetings of 'regular Lodges of Free Masons held (before) the passing of this Act...for some years the Masonic orders subverted this clause by reissuing the warrants of dominant or dead lodges, thus back-dating the foundation of many lodges. Not only were these Freemasons breaking the criminal law, their stealth and deceit show they knew their actions were illegal..
... On the rolls of United Grand Lodge today there are fewer than 300 lodges which were founded before 1799, yet by 1967 another 6,000 had been 'consecrated'. Abroad view of the 1799 Act might have encouraged Masons to feel the exemption applied to any future lodges formed under both Modern and Antient Grand Lodges (united in 1813) and two more Grand Lodges in Scotland.. The terms of another Act in 1817 may have supported that view... However, neither Act legalized other Masonic Orders such as the Knights Templar (which had barely got going by 1799), the Rose Croix (founded in 1845), the Mark (organized about 1845), the Red Cross of Constantine (whose earliest lodge was founded in 1865) and the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (founded in 1866) ...... All these orders are self governing and have never come under the authority of the various Grand Lodges, which regulate only the CRaft and Royal Arch degrees. so they could never have been exempted from the ban on other societies imposed by the 1799 Act....
... The illegality of the `masonic Knights Templar is confirmed by the fact that their Grand Master, Lord Rancliffe, 'was personally concerned with the bill in the Lords' and neglected the Order thereafter. Masonic historians differ over whether the revival of the Masonic Templars some years later indicates that 'any question of illegality was over' or whether it suggests that 'the authorities were turning a blind eye'. My onw view is that all these 'higher' or ' sides' degrees ( from Knights Templar on wards) met illegally for more than a century until 1967.... Nobody would have dared enforce the 1799 Act (even had they known about it) because many magistrates, Court Masters, Court Lords, judges, policemen belonged to these same degrees... Through vested interests. Masonic law-breaking has been constantly connived at by the forces of law and order....
Today, any Parliamentary moves requiring public disclosure by masons should be matched by legislation creating an Ombudsman for the public servant and the police,as advocated by Brain Woollard ( see Chapter 13)... This is necessary to prevent the kind of career abuse which 4 million other State employees may suffer at the hands of Masons.. or... indeed..non-Masons..There must me many Masons in pub lic service who feel that hey too have had a raw deal at work ...In future they should have a mean of redress against anti-Masonic prejudice, especially if they are to be obliged to disclose Masonic Membership...
The former British ambassador featured in Chapter 32 has further suggestions:
...'..It should not be too difficult to procure form civil and public servants who belong to secret societies some written declaration and assurances about their activities..I also suggest that something should be done about the confidential personal reporting systems...It seems that any officer who believes he may be the subject victimization through the reporting system (as I was) should be entitles to state that the reporting officer as a Freemason and that this should be taken into account in assessing the report..Ideally, in my view, Freemasons should be excluded from the reporting process, but that is too much to hope for...
...I also suggest that the numerous voluntary organizations and charities which serve this country and have been one of its great strengths, should be required by law to keep an indication of any secret society membership by its officers..Members of any society - or indeed contributors to a charity - should, as a matter of routine, be able to obtain a statement of its officer's affiliations...This is not an unreasonable request, but a simple reassurance that the society is being run for the benefit of all members and not primarily for `masons perpetuating themselves in office...
In the present diminished and dangerous situation of our country, a very real danger exists from organizations, such as the Freemason Brotherhood - partly through infiltration, partly from the illusionment and frustration which arises when our meritocratic system is deliberately and consistently distorted....'...
..In the House of Commons in June 1988 Labour MP Dale Campbell-Savours introduced a bill to compel police recruits to swear they would not join any organization such as Freemasonry....he also demanded that officers who are already Masons should resign from their lodges or leave the police force.. On first reading the bill was passed by 117 votes to sixteen, but it had no chance of becoming law because of the shortage of Parliamentary time...
..If any future bill along these lines looks as if it might become law, it will encounter fierce lobbying just like the 1799 bill did ,,,, It will infuriate Masonic cops... It it ever reached the statute book, it could provoke mass resignation from the police force...
..This might not be a bad thing, but it seems unlikely that policemen could be banned from joining Freemasonry unless this 'private, voluntary organization' is itself made illegal....In the present political climate (of near perpetual Conservative rule) there is no chance of this happening,....
...However, beacsue an action is otherwise legal,,, it does not mean that public servants have an in alienable right to perform it...
..In many respects the civil liberties of public servants and already severely curtailed....Millions of public servants (including the police) sign the Official Secrets Act which curbs their right to discuss, publish or otherwise disseminate information which they may learn in the course of their work... Also no civil servant, member of the armed forces or policeman may stand as a candidate in local or national elections without first resigning his or her employment. Since 1984 no employees of GCHO may belong to a trade union. The armed forces and the police have long been deprived of that right, just as they have surrendered their civil liberty to withdraw their labour and go on strike...Thus, imposing a similar curb on policemen in respect of Freemasonry has undeniable precedents.. They would retain the right to remain a Mason..but they would lose their right to remain a copper.. a judge. a Master of the Court .... a Lord of the Court .,, or any other job which has the power and/or authority in any way over the public in general..so that the same rule might well be applied to all other public servants..
...All this is for Parliament and the public to decide and debate... In the meantime Dale Campbell-Savours says: 'If Freemasonry were to shed itself of its secrecy, its exclusiveness and its oath of allegiance, I would have no objection to police officers being members....'
..However.. if it were to do all that, it would not longer be Freemasonry!....
..Even some senior Freemasons such as Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Peter Neivens ( an honorary Manor of St James Lodge) has been concerned about excessive 'tears of sympathy' for Freemason Brothers who have been convicted of serious crime stares...'As for lodges which have allowed major criminals to remain as members for years after conviction... if that were proven to me, then if the authority rested with me, I would seriously think of disbanding that lodge...'
..If this policy were to be rigorously applied throughout Britain, not only would Freemasonry be far healthier : its opponents would have far less meat to feed on....Yet is must be doubted if the hierarchy as a whole would want to apply such discipline..As things now stand, Grand Lodge only acts against lodges like Waterways many years after they have become a haven for criminals, and only then after embarrassing media exposure.. It is therefore no wonder that in the meantime other lodges like the Queenswood contain cells of public corruption and the entire institution of Freemasonry is brought into disrepute as a result..
....however, Freemasons will argue that the merits of an institution as vast as Freemasonry do not turn on the vice or virtue of individual Masons... and that it does not change its esense because one Grand Officer, his Honour Judge Joseph Butler-Sloss, was exposed in the News of the World in July 1988 as a regular patron of Nairobi prostitutes while serving as a High Court judge on Kenya.. Freemasons argue that the private quirks of prominent men who happen to be a FreeMason should not be held against the Brotherhood... as Masons have said... this would be like condemning Christianity because quite a few vicars over the years have been caught molesting choirboys...
...As I write these final pages in December 1988 I am still being sent evidence of Freemasonry's reluctance to punish those who transgress its own moral code.. the evidence come not form outsiders..but from men who are themselves staunch Masons...One such source is leonard Acklam, a well-to-do self-made Yorkshire businessman who fought for years to win redress for a Masonic Grand Officer's outrageous attempt to interfere with justice...A Mason for 33 years, a Past Master of Brighouse Lodge (no. 1301) and a 30th degree member of the Rose Croix, Acklam is worth hearing...
...Leonard Acklam a Freemason, had employed a Freemason Solicitor to collect a £10,000 debt he was owed.. however his own solicitor lied to him about the case and when appointing a new non Mason Solicitor who threatened to report the Mason Solicitor to the Law Society and sue for negligence, a senior well respected Mason, Sir Herbert Redfearn told Acklam that he 'would lose a lot of friends' and that Acklam should 'look on it in a true Masonic manner and forget it.. a senior well respected Mason, Sir Herbert Redfern was not only interfering with Acklam's legal action against a Mason solicitor, but was also telling Acklams to forget the £10,000 he is owed...An in initial letter of complaint in 1981 sent to the local Yorkshire Ws Riding grand secretary did not go down well,,, for Redfearn was not only a Grand Officer of English Freemasonry, but also a leading industrialist, a deputy lieutenant of the county, a knight of the realm, a one time chairman of the National Union of Conservative Associations and the local Tory KIng-maker (future Tory MP Gary Waller was initiated in his lodge in 1971)..also he was photographed at Conservative Party occasions alongside Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, It was extremely unlikely. therefore. that any Yorkshire masonic body would dare condemn him...
Chapter 21 Tough at the Top
..Many police chiefs are mistaken when the claim the issue has never come up in public complaints against their police forces... I have a pile of letters from citizens who have enclosed copies of formal complaints they have sent to police forces alleging Masonic wrongdoing by policemen... ....In the future chief constables may have to act on increasing public. press and political concern about the role of Freemasonry in the police service...
..In the future chief constables may have to act on increasing public, press and political concern about the role of Freemasonry in the police service....
Early in 1988 Home Office leaks implied Home Secretary Douglas Hurd was thinking of requiring police officers to declare their lodge membership if Freemasonry emerged as a factor in any matter in which they were involved whether these were internal issued such as promotion and discipline or external investigations...
...It is my view that Mason membership should be declared by all police officers and that a regularly updated register of Mason serving in each police force should be kept at every police station and at headquarters of the police force concerned.. this register should be readily available to fellow police officers and to embers of the public..If this is not a service which police forces are willing to give their paymasters, then the register should be on display in all public libraries, just like electoral roles. There will be arguments over whether membership of other secret pr quasi-secret societies, pr fraternal organizations, should be declared. If a convincing case can be made that any other society is an extensive, powerful and cohesive as Freemasonry, then its members should indeed declare themselves.
If public opinion were to demand this register for policeman, it might even demand the display of entire Masonic Lodge Membership Rolls at public libraries. This would be stoutly opposed on grounds that it is not the 'British Way' of doing things, but that is for the British people to decide. British people have only just gain access to the Land Registry. For centuries it has been considered an invasion of 'property owners' privacy for other people to know who really owns what in Britain. However this has grossly infringe other people's right to information - especially information which could effect themselves. The same principle applies to membership of secret, or private, mutual aid societies .heir secrecy (about both what they do and who they are) is a standing invasions of the liberty of all non-members...
...The 1964 Police Act forbids policemen from belonging to a trade union. This appears not be formally applied to Freemasonry..despite the Craft's claim to be descended from a medieval trade union and despite its continues adherence to the same principles of combination and mutual aid for which policemen are banned from joining union today...
,,Ian Oliver, a non-mason a police chief stated: "... During my sixteen years in the Metropolitan Police until 1977, it was not unknown for officers to join the Masons ^n the hope that it might just help their promotion prospects...
Chapter 22 Judging by Results
... at least eighteen circuit judges, four Queen;s Bench judges, three family division judges, two judges in Chancery, three Lord Justices of Appeal and one Lord Justices of Appeal and one Lord of Appeal in Ordinary....this is some of the known ranks of Freemason's strength as revealed in Masonic reference books to which I have had access... many other sources (such as provincial yearbooks and membership lists of lawyers' lodges) have eluded me, so I am forced to guess that many more judges are 'on the Square' (a well known term to describe a member of FreeMasonry).. certainly many recently retired judges are Masons: fifteen circuit, one Queens Bench, two family division, one Chancery, three Lord Justices of Appeal and one Master of the Royal Court of Protection...
..A recent Lord Chief Justice , the late Lord Widgery, was Past Senior Grand Warden of England. The current Chief Justice of Australia, Sir Harry Gibbs, is 'on the square'. Sir Harry Gibbs, is also the only Australian on the judicial committee of the Privy Council..
..The president of the Lands Tribunal is a mason,,
...So is England's Chief Registrar in Bankruptcy is 'on the square'...so was his immediate predecessor is 'on the square'..
..Beyond the Royal Courts of Justice sit many more Masonic judges, from the current Recorder of Southport to an English Advocate-General in the European Community;s Court of Justice...still more barrister Masons choose to stay where real money can be made: as QC's..
...it is also noted that and even higher proportion of lawyers went to public schools and Oxford or Cambridge Universities: networks which are perhaps more powerful than Freemasonry.. however the difference is that those institutions (privileged and self-perpetuating though they are) are dedicated largely to the gaining of open educational qualifications which are essential in a lawyer. What the outsider might wonder is why many of these men, who judge the rest of us, need to belong to a secret (or would -be secret) society; how can these men be trusted to find the truth is court of law...when as Masons they swear belief in - and repeatedly enact - the mythical murder of a bogus historical figure whom they glorify as the stonemason architect of a temple built mainly of wood, even the stonemason architect of a temple built mainly of wood, even though he was neither a stonemason nor an architect! !!!
..for some enlightenment of what Freemasonry means to many esteemed dispensers of justice I wrote to Lord Templeman, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, who sits in the House of Lords...Lord Templeman is England's highest-ranking Mason judge,,,Lord Templeman did not reply to me (Martin Short) or Stephen Knight's letters...
..perhaps even non-freemason judges feel they belong to a greater brotherhood- of judges - which takes precedence over any feelings they may have about their colleagues' Masonic frolics...they may well fear coming out would provoke retribution...One Court recorder told me, '...I'm not a Mason, but don't quote me or I may end up hanging under Blackfriars Bridge..' .. I reacted as if this reference to the bizarre death of the Italian banker-Mason Roberto Calvi in 1982 was a joke, but the Recorder assured me he was very serious....
Chapter 19 The Encompassing of John Stalker
banker MASON WIRCH_HUNT ON TOP COP
MASON MAFIA FRAMED COP CHIEF
On the 29th June, 1986 those two deadly rivals for out Sunday morning favours, the People and the News of the World ran almost identical stories about John Stalker, Deputy Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police, Four weeks earlier John Stalker had been suddenly removed from a highly sensitive inquiry into allegations of a shoot-to-kill policy by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)..
..Why was John Stalker removed at the Deputy Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police became a massive media guessing game..Sooner or later someone was bound to blame the FreeMasons...
..The Press had already blamed the RUC, its Special Branch, Stalker's Rivals in the Manchester force, the SAS, MI5, the Norther Island Office, the Home Office and. or course.. the British Government...
The People wrote:
"... Top cop John Stalker is the victim of a plot by Freemasonry that stretches all the way from Ulster to Whitehall, according to his friends and colleagues.. They are convinced that 'a get Stalker order' originated in Ulster, where he made enemies with his inquires into an alleged police 'shoot-to-kill' policy... the order was taken up in Manchester...
The News of the World offered a less global but equally sinister scenario:
....
James Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, is studying secret information naming eight key officers. They are all members of the same Freemasons l
Lodge. Friends of Roman Catholic Mr Stalker believe the eight were asked by their mason colleagues in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) to 'dish the dirt' on him..
..Throughout the 'Stalker Affair I subscribed to a cuttings service which sent me every story linking Stalker and Freemasonry printed anywhere in Britain's press.
There are 200 such cuttings... such stories drove East Lancashire's Grand Lodge to hold the only press conference in fifty-seven years to deny the existence of a 'Mason Mafia'. ..Manchester's Masons claimed the witch hunt was on them,,
..Masons were active at almost every twist in 'Stalker', Some Masonic involvement was inevitable because Masons are numerically strong in the organizations with which Stalker was bound to clash with if he was doing his job properl...
the question is...Were masons acting in concert to protect each other, to protect Freemasonry or to protect the establishment in which Masons thrive and prosper...
..in my opinion Stalker himself produces evidence in his book about the affair fairly points towards a conspiracy of interests, if not of individuals..
In May 1984 John Stalker as asked to lead an inquiry into three 1982 incidents in which an undercover RUC 'Mobile Support Unit' had shot dead five suspected Republican terrorists and a seventeen-year-old boy, All six were unarmed so questions were asked as to why they had not been taken alive. The fear was that RUC men had committed multiple murder. The deeper concern was that the 'murders' were not unauthorized acts by police marksmen committed in the heat of the moment, but the product of cold-blooded policy... ..In 1984 four of the marksmen were tried for murder but were acquitted. This distressed the families of the dead men (all Catholics) and outrages Republican sympathizers.
The two separate trials had disclosed systematic (if badly co-ordinated) police lying. One defendant revealed that senior Special Branch officers had told him what false story to tell, allegedly to protect their informers (some south of the border). Stalker's job was to investigate not just he shootings, but the cover stories and also the local CID's limp search for the truth, for it seemed as if RUC marksmen had been acquitted because their CID colleagues had deliberately failed to make a murder case against them...
..In his own book John Stalker tells how his Manchester team found out that shorltly before these killings, an informer had told the RUC that four of the suspects had been involved in an IRA landmine attack which killed three policemen. This incident had occurred just three weeks before he suspect's own deaths so it seemed likely that they were he victims of RUC revenge killings...
John Stalker asked for the intelligence file on the landmine attack, to check if the dead men had indeed been named as suspects, but RUC Special Branch (SB) repeatedly denied such a file existed... then when he finally obtained approval to acces these files he was suspended from the police force...so he was never able to see the evidence....
Chapter 24 The Cotton Inheretence
"..Many of Britain's most prominent solicitors are Freemasons. They all appesr in Who's Who, yet none of their entries contains any reference to their involvement in Freemasonary (known as The Craft)
Some examples of past prominent Freemason solicitors are:
Sir Desmind Heap, President of the Law Society 1972-3, Solicitor for the Corporation of London fpr twenty-six years and England's greatest expert o town and country planning law.
Sir Edmund Liggins, President if the Law Society 1975-6. An eminent Warwickshire solicitor.
Sir David Napley, President of the Law Society 1976-7. England's leading defence solicitor. A lapsed Mason
Sir John Stebbings, President of the Law Society 1979. Member of a Derbyshire lodge (deceased December 1988)
David Sumberg MP, partner in a Manchester legal firm, member of a Staffordshire lodge.
Bert Millichip, Chairman of the Fotball Association, senior partner in the familty firm in West Bromwich, where he is active in Staffordshire Freemasnary.
Other prominent Masonic solicitors have included Julius Mermer, Lord Mayor of Cardiff 1987-8; John Evans, for twenty years Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court of Judicature; and Colonel George Kelway, High Court Registrar for Pembroke and Carmarthen from 1940 to 1962.
These folk are not household names. They do not match singers, sportsman or soap oera stars in public recognition. Yet they have been the backbone of Britain and Britain legal establishment which effectivey runs Britain... they are men of status and respect in the regions where they have built their careers, and nationally influential in the legal profession. Most of these men are Masons of Grand Rank and all are citizens above reproach...
..In contast, rank-and-filr Masonic solicitors are regarded as pillagers and looters by many anti-Masons. Stephen Knight's post -Brotherhood files are full of letters alleging all manner of conspiracies against the legal professions with allegations that most of the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs and court staff they complain about having done the wrong thing to them....are suspected to be Freemasons and/or closely associated in various solcial, business, political and legal networks and associations they belong to...to the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs and court staff that are embers of the CRAFT OF FREEMASONRY...
.Most of these correspondents of compalint suffer from the same the ame problem: they often do not have enough evidnece that Freemsonry and/or Freemasons and/or their associates and friends have played a part in their troubles.... the ones that do not have the evidence ask for information how to find out if the the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs and court staff that they say have done the wrong thing to them are in any way involved im Fremasonry...
...part of the answer to their question is that there should be a legal requirement that all Freemasons and/or anyone else in any sort of close association with Freemason members and/or involved in any way with any other social, political, business and/or legal association and/or network should ne required to openly declare such association on a public registrar before they are allowed to be involved in any appointment to a profession and/or job that involves making decisions about the public and/or acting for the public in any way..such as the solicitors and barristers, advocates, Masters, Magistrates, Judges, Justices, Lords, Sherriffs, court staff , anyone inv0lved in politics, local councils and/or any other puvlic and/or semi-public body and/or organisation....
..another part of the answer to their problem is the setting up an independent judicial inquiry body run by a retired judge who is not a Freemason and has declared not to have any possible strong biasn in favour of Freemasony...when anyone can request that they legal cases be reveiwed to see if they have been treate din a far and reasonable way... and such reveiw to be a completely different reveiw from all the normal appeals and reviews available at present in the legal system.. and such reveiw to be free of charge to the person requestion the reveiw...
..Their allegations are a shocking litany of businesses being destroyed, bankruptcies precipitated, investments mishandled, trust funds defrauded, tr5ials rigged and murders committed and covered up and who was really behind the murders also covered up so that proper and full investigations are simply not carried out by the relavent bodies...The writer of the allegations all claim Masonic solicitors have conspired with a mermutation of Masonic bank managers, estate agents, business rivals, policemen, judges - and even Masonic relatives.... each tragic tale has dozens of characters with an apparently bottomless capacity for evil... some 'victims' are themselves solicitors, driven out of business by Masonic competitors, or it is claimed....even if 95% of this stuff in fantasy, the rest shows there are a lot of wicked people in the world, be they be Masons or not...
..Freemasons however, did pay a large role in one miserable story of an old Lancashire lady who ame to sign anew will only days before she died. In 1980 Mrs Esther Cotton aged ninety-two was sick with cancer. She was living alone at home, taking tablets to kill the pain and slow the cancer's growth..On 9th December 1980 her doctor discovered sge was suffering not just from cancer but from bruses to her face and legs, black eyes and cuts, broke ribs and a collapsed vertebrae, Her doctor promptly put is Ormskirk General Hospital where she complained of leg and neck pains. Mrs Cotton's ankles were swollen and the cancer had completely destroyed her tight breast. Tests also showed she was very deaf and suffering from severe heart trouble and anaemia. Two days later she was sinking fast: nois at times but very drowsy in between. By 12th December, despite fairly heavy sedation, she was in constant pain...
On this same day Mrs Cotton was the subject of frenzied attention which was far from medical. Shortly after midday a solicitor named Gordon Brown appeared at Mrs Cotton's beside insisting she sign a new will. The soliticitor, Gordon Brown, was not Mrs Cotton's regular solicitor, but was acting on instructions from Mrs Cotton's son, Ernest... Because of the noise and bustle of the ward, Brown asked for the dying woman to be moved to a private room where, witnessed by two hospital administrators, she scrawled a mark where she was meant to sihn her name on the will document...
.... Within hours her condition rapidly worsened. Her face turned grey, she suffered a relapse, and had to be treated for congestive cardiac failure. Her condition further deteriorated ... On the 17th December, 1980, Mrs Cotton slipped into a coma and died. Mrs Cotton's funeral was attended to by her son Ernest and her daughter, Mrs Juneth Pilkington.
Juneth had ben visiting her mother twice daily but the first she knew of the will was on 29th December when a copy came through her letterbox. Juneth thought it strange that her mother had never told her about this will but stranger still that her mother Mrs Cotton could have made it at all. In hospital her condition had been so bad that she could say nothing, could recognize no one and, says Juneth, had quite lost her mental facilities.
As Juneth read through the will (in which she and her brother were named as executors) Juneth was stunned. The will said Juneth would get just one-quarter of the value of her mother's house. Each of four grandchildren would get a mere £100, but the rest of the estate would go to her brother, Ernest, 'for his own use and benefit absolutely'. The estate was no pittance. The and was worth some £60,000, much of it was tied up in the family business, a motor coach firm. Yet only five months before she signed this 'hospital will', Mrs Cotton had signed another very different message: she was going to leave each grandchild £1,000, but everything else was to be split between her son and daughter 'in equal shares absolutely'.
What shocked Juneth was not the loss of so much money, but the clandestine way in which the new will had been concocted. The solicitor Gordon Brown had never acted for her mother before, whereas her solicitor for the past thirty years was not consulted. Indeed, no one had even told Mrs Cotton's previous solicitor that Mrs Cotton was ill.
In the period between these wills the future of the coach firm had caused great family bitterness. The trouble went back to 1948 when old Mr Cotton had died without a will. The business had been held in trust ever since, with shares divided between Mrs Cotton and the Children. Juneth refused to sell her shares to Ernest, who ran the business and wanted total ownership. The 'hospital will' did not give him that - it could could not take away the shares Juneth already had - but it gave `Ernest his mother's 50 percent share, and thus Ernest had majority control for the first time.
Juneth herself had been very ill during her mother's last days at home but Juneth had called in to see her mother Mrs Cotton on the 4th December, 1980, when she found Mrs Cotton squatting on a settee in an incoherent state. Juneth called the doctor but does not know if he saw Mrs Cotton before the 9th December, 1980, when he sent her to hospital. However, Juneth was not sure whether Mrs Cotton was not suffering from cuts, bruises, broken ribs or collapsed vertebrae.
Years later Juneth gained access to previously withheld hospital notes and discovered that on 6 December someone had called the hospital to report that Mrs Cotton's back had 'caved in' and she was covered in bruises because of several falls. Juneth also learned that on the 8th December, 1980, the solicitor Gordon Brown, acing on Juneth brother's instructions, had twice visited Mrs Cotton so that she could dictate a new will. Nether he nor a colleague could have noticed her caved-in back, or they would have realized she was in no condition to make a will. Instead, Gordon Brown took down the details and later had them typed on the appropriate form. On 12th December, 1980, by which time Mrs Cotton was in hospital, she signed her new will. Two hospital employees initialled a few hand written words saying the contents had been read over to Mrs Cotton, 'she appearing perfectly to understand the same'.
Re-reading the will with care, Juneth felt her mother could have no idea what Mrs Cotton was signing. Mrs Cotton's signature was illegible, and unlike her normal signature as it appeared on the earlier will. The E(for Esther) was vaguely recognizable, but the A (for Annie) was like a M. In place of 'Cotton', there were a few gnarled loops with no 't's or an 'n'.
Juneth did not dispute that her mother made that that scrawl, but felt that maybe her hand had been held, but what was extraordinary about the will was that it contained two gross errors. Mrs Cotton's 'dwellinghouse' is described as '22 Brighouse Close, Ormskirk', whereas she lived at number 33. Even more astonishing, the document is made out in the wrong name: 'Hester Annie Cotton', not Esther Annie Cotton. At no time in her life had Esther ever been called Hester.
Would anyone in his or her right mind voluntarily sign a will made out in the wrong name and address? Can such a will be valid?
In succeeding months and years, Juneth tried to find out if her mother could possibly have known what she was doing. in 1981, Mr Cotton's doctor wrote that, on 9th December, 1980: "My patient appeared to be in agony and under a great deal of distress. I therefore did not think it appropriate to assess he metal capacity. I immediately arranged her urgent admission into hospital.'
On the 10th December, 1980, a hospital physician (whom solicitor Gordon Brown had approached) wrote, 'She is is a fit mental state to sign a will.' Later he explained that on 12th December, 1980, he thought Mrs Cotton capable of understanding and signing a will, and could appreciate the extent of the property, the person who should be considered, and the way her estate should be divided.
If so, how did Mrs Cotton not protest that her new will made a hast of her name and address? The opinion also clashes with Juneth's experience on 10th December, 1980, when her mother, Mrs Cotton, failed to recognize Juneth and two other familiar visitors. The next day Mrs Cotton did not recognize her own grandchild. The day after, Mrs Cotton failed to recognize Juneth, only one hour before she signed the new will...
... was wearing a hearing aid, but I did not check to see it it was working properly, as I had no reason to suspect that it wasn't. When I spoke to Mrs Cotton I did so is aloud voice, bending over the patient. Mrs Cotton did not make any comment regarding mistakes in her name and the address of her property. I asked the patient if she understood what I had read out and if she agreed with it. As far as I can recollect Mrs Cotton did not make any comments, Mrs Cotton appeared to be an elderly ill lady...
Juneth's solicitors sent all available hospital records and statements t a consultant physician in Liverpool. In his Opinion he sated Mrs Cotton had been very ill for six weeks before she died. When Mrs Cotton signed the will, her mind may have been clouded by pain from widespread canerous growth; impairment and cardiovascular functions through cancer, and toxic absorption; lack of natural sleep; effects of drugs against pain and for sedation; and difficulty in communication and resulting frustration due to advanced deafness. He went on....
.....It is indeed quite possible that `Mrs Cotton may have been given the appearance of not only hearing, but also understanding the contents of the will, as read to her, It is, however, more doubtful whether her cerebral functions were sufficiently unimpaired for her to express her own viewpoints on the contents of the will and to use her independent judgement ... I am inclined to believe that not only an extraordinary effort on her part would have enabled her to rise above her suffering in order to concentrate her mind on the task presented to her by the solicitor on December the 12th, 1980....
...... NO INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE EXISTS TO SHOW THAT MRS COTTON HAD EVER WANTED TO MAKE A NEW WILL....
In a letter to Juneth's solicitors, Gordon Brown said that Ernest Cotton had told him to visit his mother and take instructions. He cannot comment now because he died in 1984, yet the question remains.... for whom was solicitor Gordon Brown really acting for? Even if Mrs Cotton were compos metis, Mrs Cotton would not have known Gordon Brown from Adam. Mrs Cotton's son Ernest only brought Gordon Brown into her ninety two year old life at her last gasp. So what was the relationship between Ernest Cotton and solicitor Gordon Brown?
Ernest Cotton and solicitor Gordon Brown are both Freemasons- both members of Ormskirk's Pilgrim Lodge (no. 6207). In 1946 Ernest's Cotton's father had been one Ormskirk Pilgrim Lodge's founders.. Ernest Cotton was Master in 1962 and later achieved the mighty provincial rank of Senior Grand Deacon. Ernest Cotton was a big wheel in West Lancashire Freemasonry, whereas Gordon Brown had only just been initiated. When Brown drew up the 'hospital will' he was a mere Fellow Craft. Just three weeks later he was raised to the third degree and became a Master Mason. The gap in the two men's Masonic status was immense, notwithstanding that, in the wider world, Gordon Brown was a prosperous solicitor while Cotton ran a modest coach firm. When Cotton asked him to make a will for his mother, it was an offer Solicitor/Freemason Gordon Brown could not refuse. The job had even been arranged in the ledge. On the 3rd of December, 1980, as some brothers stood drinking at the bar in Ormskirk Masonic Hall, Ernest Cotton walked over to Brown and was heard saying he 'had a little job for him'.
Such deals may well go on all the time in Ormskirk Masonic Hall, which has many Masons, The mid-Lancashire town has a population of about 27,000 of which about 10,000 are men over twenty-one. The Masonic Hall in Park Road caters for eleven lodges with some 700 members. Even if many of them live in other communities nearby, it seems one Ormskirk man in twenty is 'on the square' (the common description of a Freemason). The town's most powerful lodge is Ormskirk Priority (no. 4007). At six o'clock on the fourth Wednesday of each month from September to April, its members slip into the hall to perform rituals, quaff a gin and tonic and super at the festive board.
This lodge showed its power one morning in July 1985 by bringing the town to a halt for the funeral of one of its most revered members. By nine o'clock Ormskirk was paralysed by traffic. Everyone was late for work and shops could not open because the assistants had not arrived. Tradesmen, office staff and shoppers sat in their cars and fumed because, without warning, the main carpark had been closed to the public so mourners would have only a short walk to the parish church.
The dead man, Howard Ballance, had been a pillar of the community since World War II. A dentist, he had been a councillor for town and country for thirty-eight years, He was chairman of Lancashire Police Authority for thirty-three years, and was still a Justice of Peace (JP) and chairman of the Magistrates Bench when called to the Grand Lodge Above'.
Nobody begrudged Ballance a good funeral, but giving his mourners sole use of the carpark sent the town wild. The Chamber of Trade was furious and rand the police to complain, The cops said the council had told them to do it. The Chamber's president blasted the the council's 'Kremlin-like attitude' of 'we are equal, but some are more equal than other'. The council blamed the idea on the police, but said that, anyway, 'it was a sensible way out of what could have been a ticklish problem'. The problem may have been how to appease Lodge no. 4007, whose members included several more councillors, and Ormskirk's ten other lodges. In all Freemason members could call on a total of fifteen of the town's fifty-five JP's and quite a few brethren among the local police.
One policeman belonged to Pilgrim Lodge with Ernest Cotton and his solicitor Gordon Brown. Other members were factory owners, engineers, builders, shopkeepers, estate agents, an accountant, a printer. a farmer and an instrument technician named Derek Pilkington. He was Juneth Cotton's husband, and it was her brother Ernest Cotton who had nominated Derek Pilkington in 1978 at old Mrs Cotton's instance.
Derek Pilkington was raised to Master Mason in October 1979 and regularly attended lodge meetings until November 1979 and regularly attended ledge meetings until November 1980, when the family was in dispute over the future of the coach business. Until this was sorted out Derek Pilkington decided to 'withdraw' from attend the lodge, thus avoiding a row with his brother-in-law and complying with Freemasonry's Ancient Charge that, 'no private piques or quarrels must be brought within the door of the lodge'.
However, the Pilkingtons did complain to a lodge elder about what they felt was Ernest Cotton's 'unmasonic behaviour. They said Ernest Cotton had 'quite wrongly' put pressure on his mother to sign a will to his own advantage and the near disinheritance of his sister. Ernest Cotton had also damaged the interests of a brother Mason (Derek Pilkington), breaking the Masonic commandment of brotherly love. The elder was upset and rand Ormskirk's top Mason (another JP) for advice. The Pilkingtons hoped this call would result in a pledge of Masonic justice, but they received none. Far from getting help from Freemasonry, they were soon ostracized by it, in Juneth COTTON'S words:
....We very soon gathered that our past Freemason friends and their wives no longer desired our company. After learning the good points of Freemasonry, and believing in its foundations, having enjoyed so much the company of the brethren and their families, this sudden treatment came as a shock. We were obviously being treated with the alternative treatment to murder, as laid down in the rituals. Instead of having our throats cut across, we were branded as 'wilfully perjured individuals, void of all moral worth and totally unfit to be received into this worshipful lodge...'.....
Derek Pilkington was promptly struck off the lodge steward's list, perhaps in retribution for branding Ernest Cotton's conduct 'unmasonic', perhaps because he had stayed away from three meetings rather than clash with his brother-in-law. It was on the advice of her mother's doctor that Juneth Cotton decoded to fight the 'hospital will', but she ran into widespread obstruction. She wanted to see insurance papers for the coach firm of which she had long being a partner. Swindon Insurance's local manager, George Parr, refused to let her have them, He said, she was 'on dangerous ground' and added, 'my firm has not got enough money to fight this,'..He did not explain these remarks, but Juneth thinks he was referring to the 'secret and silent power of Freemasonry and Rotary9=9 avery much related organisation)'. Parr may not have been a mason but he was definitely in Rotary: 'Many Rotarians are Masons and it seems clear that is Parr was to help me in my troubles he would be working against the interests of his close professional colleagues.' When Parr died in 1983, many Masons had refused to give Juneth Cotton details of the family firm's accounts. Pilgrim Lodge kept its funds in one of those banks...
Meantime, Derek Pilkington had been the victim of a forgery which could only have been perpetrated by a FreeMason. According to the constitutions every lodge member should receive a Grand Lodge certificate as soon as he is registered as a third-degree FreeMason. Derek Pilkington's third-degree Freemason certificate arrived twenty-three months late: on the 28th August, 1981 is a dirty crumpled envelope dropped through the letterbox at dinnertime. Derek complained to the Provincial GRand Secretary, who wrote back saying 'Pilgrim Lode had kept the certificate in order to present it to him in person...' and 'when he did not turn up to the lodge, it was sent on by registered post..'
That letter contained two errors. fed to the writer by some Pilgrim Lodge member. Derek had attended all its meetings for a full twelve months after he became a Master Mason: which was ample time for him to receive the certificate in person. As for 'registered post', he had never signed for the document because it had been stuffed through the door when no one was at home.
Derek Pilkington got in touch with the local acting post master who referred to the registered mail receipt book. This contained a signature in Derek's name which showed he had received the letter on the 26th August, 1981: a full two days before it landed of Derek's doormat. The official admitted the signature looked new and stood out from the page, but said it must have been made on that date..
If so, it had not been made by Derek because he and Juneth were on holiday in France on the 26th August, 1981, and did not return until two days later. No one else had been at home to sign on his behalf or in his name. Besides, the letter bore no registration slip. The Pilkingtons called in the police. A CID man confirmed that the signature looked 'fresh' yet nothing came of his inquiries, even though the suspects were obvious. The forgery could have been perpetuated only by a high-ranking Post Office official with access to the registered mail pen, or wit such a person's co-operation.
This may sound trivial, but it proves Freemasonry can pervert even the Royal Mail. It if interferes with registered letters, what else does Freemasonry contaminate?
The the incident also shows how far some Masons will go to cover up a breach of their own rules. First forge the signature, then lie to the Provincial Grand Secretary (a former policeman, then get him to regurgitate the lie to the victim. even hough he too is a Mason.
Handing out certificates on time and in the correct manner is the job of a lodge secretary. In 1981 the secretary of Pilgrim Lodge was Ernest Cotton. In November that year Derek sent a cheque to cover his annual subscriptions and £10 for Masonic charities. He also enclosed a note which he asked the Master to read in open lodge to the assembled brethren:
Please accept my apologies for my non-attendance at Pilgrim Lodge ... being unable to attend has been a bitter disappointment to me, but, as you know, there is a brother in the lodge with whom I am at variance over matters which have caused deep distress for almost two years to my wife and myself...I regret so few of my Brothers feel able to discuss my problems with me, or are prepared to listen... However, when the time comes, the Great Architect of the Universe will surely as always be on the side of righteousness...
The letter was not read out and Derek Pilkington never got a reply to his letter...
..In 1983 Derek also lost his job...
The manager who sacked him was also in the brotherhood.. Freemasons are exhorted to give a brother work, not deprive him of a job. yet Derek's dismissal was unfair and unnecessary, as he later proved to an industrial tribunal which found wholly in Derek's favour..
..In January 1984 the Masonic solicitor Gordon Brown died aged little more than fifty. His funeral was attended by many Pilgrim brethren, but not by Ernest Cotton. Some Pilgrim men felt Brown's health had declined largely because he had spend three year trying yo defend the indefensible 'hospital will'. The Pilkington's are convinced its 'mistakes' were deliberate.
For instance, the will says Juneth Pilkington is to get one-quarter of the value of Mrs Cotton's 'dwellinghouse' but then gives the wrong address. This might have been a mistake, but it could have been a deliberate ploy to cut her out of her inheritance altogether. As it is worded, she would have received one-quarter of a property which her mother never owned - in other words, nothing at all.
The Pilkington's also say the mistake over Mrs Cotton's name is a Masonic sign. Falsely named 'Hester Annie', not 'Esther Annie', her initials become H.A. These also stand for Hiram Abiff (H.A.), the 'architect' of the Temple of Solomon. The 'Widow' is inserted, as word which did not appear in the earlier will. However, if this is a 'Masonic' will, the word 'Widow' is there to show that Ernest is the 'Widow's Son', a phrase FreeMasons use to identify themselves to other Masons.
Derek Pilkington has often complained to top Masonic officials, but they refuse to get involved, saying his dispute with Cotton is a legal matter in which Freemasonry cannot interfere. Derek retorts that Masonic lawyers have interfered from the start, first by drawing up a 'Masonic will' and then by ensuring no other lawyer is town dare to fight it. When he complained to Freemasons' Hall in London, Commander Michael Higham wrote to suggest he consult another lawyers 'in another town'.
This is just what the Pilkingtons did, when they eventually found a non-Masonic solicitor in Manchester. In 1987 they were about to fight the will in court, when Ernest Cotton's side made a last-minute offer: half the value of the mother's house and £4,500 for Juneth Pilkington's share in the coach business. This came to £18,000 out of an estate worth some £60,000. Her barrister urged her strongly to accept, to avoid a legal contest which would exhaust the estate and leave her with nothing.
As a result the will's glaring mistakes ( or Masonic signs) were never tested, nor was the legality of Mrs Cotton's signature nor the issue of her mental state. Instead, a highly suspect will - perhaps made under duress - was laundered and legitimized by the legal process itself. Now the law took its own cut, Juneth had to pay costs of £9,000: half her entire share of the estate.
... Ernest Cotton in the meantime had been Master of Pilgrim Lodge a second time.
.... Ernest Cotton has now been awarded the lofty rank of Past Provincial Grand Warden, an honour which goes only to men who embody what the Anchient Charges call 'the benign influence of masonry, as all true masons have done from the beginning of the world, and will do to the end of time'. A former town councillor, Cotton has even had a road named after him.,,
In contrast, Derek Pilkington has been 'excluded' from Pilgrim Lodge for non-payment of dues but, as he told officials, he could not attend until the anti-Masonic deeds of other members of the lodge had been remedied. Derek's unfair dismissal by another Mason and subsequent unemployment were two more reasons why he could not pay £35 a year. Yet his Brethren resolved that it was Derek Pilkington, and no one else, who was 'void of all moral worth and totally unfit to be received into this worshipful Lodge or any other warranted Lodge or society of men, who prize honour and virtue above the external advantages of rank and fortune...'.....
For many years Worshipful Brother Ernest Cotton ran a funeral business from the same premises as the family coach firm. A decade later, on the shelves of the unlocked and deserted garage, a plastic bag was discovered. It contained the remains of a named individual incinerated at Thornton Crematorium on the 15th November, §974. Out of respect for the man and his family, I shall not name him here... However, his crematorium reference number was C9856. Perhaps he too was a Freemason, Even if he was not, his ashes deserved rather better care from a Masonic undertaker...
"..It is an obvious truth, that the privileges of Masonry have long been prostituted for unworthy considerations. and hence their good effects have been less conspicuous.... William Preston, one of Freemason's greatest teachers....written more than 200 years ago by William Preston..
In 1972 William Preston could see his beloved Brotherhood sinking into a 'general odium, or at least a careless in difference'....
Today Freemasonry has an even worse public image that in Preston's day ...but does it deserve it?
In Martin Short's Inside the Brotherhood, Martin Short tries to weigh all its good effects against the cost of this enduring prostitution...
Martin Short's Inside the Brotherhood car has its origins in the pioneering work of Stephen Knight who died in July 1985 aged thirty-three, just eighteen months after the publication of his best-selling, controversial and much-despised expose of Freemasonry, The Brotherhood...
..... Had Stephen Knight lived, Stephen Knight would have written his own sequel. Instead Martin Short stepped, almost literally, into a dead ma's shoes.. Martin Short's tracked down many of Stephen Knight's sources and read hundreds of letters sent in response to Stephen Knight's book, which were never pursued because of illness. More than three years after Stephen Knight's death, fan mail still pours in for Stephen ...
Mr Wijat's friend Magic Rabbit 
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