‘The Lady Freemason’. The Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Aldworth, nee St. Leger,
The Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Aldworth, nee St. Leger, known as ‘The Lady Freemason’
The Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Aldworth, nee St. Leger, known as ‘The Lady Freemason’ was the first woman recorded as being initiated into Freemasonry sometime between 1710 and 1712, into a Lodge which met at her family home, in County Cork, Ireland.
It was presided over by her father Viscount Lord Doneraile, and it is said that Mr. Richard Aldworth, whom she later married, was also present. According to a memoir published in 1811, the teenage Elizabeth fell asleep in the library, and was awakened by the sound of voices coming through some loose brickwork left behind from an unfinished restoration.
Her curiosity aroused, she managed to loosen the bricks and watched spell-bound; as she eavesdropped upon the masonic ceremony going on in the next room. As it neared its conclusion, she tried to escape unnoticed, but on opening the door, was met by a grim-faced Tyler holding a drawn sword; her father’s butler. She screamed and fainted.
Having returned her to rest in the library, the members discussed what had happened and decided to initiate into her, as a Freemason; so as to obligate her to secrecy.
James Joyce gave a more earthy account in his novel ‘Ulysses’: ‘There was one-woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the Saint Legers of Doneraile’.
Although there are engravings of her wearing a Masonic apron, together with the jewel of an early craftsman (the trowel pendant – see the engraving above), there is no evidence of her ever attending another Lodge meeting.
It is said of her: ‘She had such a veneration for Masonry that she would never suffer it to be spoken lightly of in her hearing...’.
She died, aged 80, and was buried in the vault of St Finbarr’s Cathedral, Cork in 1773; and later memorialised by a plaque erected there by the Masons of Cork.
Today, the Lady Freemason would surely have been a member of the ‘Order of Women Freemasons’ or’ Freemasonry for Women’.
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| May 11, 1867 edition of the National Freemason newspaper, published in New York City |
Resources:
Freemasons NZ Masonica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Aldworth
Images:
Photo 1: Elizabeth Aldworth (1693-1773). By Contemporary portrait - http://karenswhimsy.com/masons.shtm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4197641
Photo 2: May 11, 1867 edition of the National Freemason newspaper, published in New York City
Photo 3: By ShadowRAM at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23099992
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