Freemasonry, a fraternal society with origins in English 14th-century guilds of stonemasons, is often associated with conspiracy theories (the most recent being that members scuppered the inquiry into Titanic’s sinking), cultish secret handshakes and blackballing ceremonies. Certainly, the organisation has been highly secretive in the past, demanding members keep others’ secrets and not talk openly about its beliefs and rituals. In recent years, though, there has been a drive towards openness and honesty, and it is hoped that what freemasons see as scapegoating of the fraternity and the general public’s perceptions of lodges as houses of cliques and corruption will diminish ahead of the movement’s 300-year anniversary in 2017.

Current members are keen to stress the organisation’s historic status and that Freemasonry has long been concerned with the care of orphans, the sick and the aged, connections that can be drawn back to its guild origins. The link to stonemasonry guilds is also largely the source of mysterious Masonic symbols such as the square and compass. These symbols have been re-appropriated to convey moral lessons, learned as freemasons explore the ‘craft’ through initiation ceremonies, and which aim to teach self-knowledge and encourage moral standing based in an ethical approach to life, charity, integrity, kindness, honesty and fairness.

Freemasons are traditionally members of one of three grades: apprentice, journeyman (sometimes fellowcraft) or master mason, although local bodies may vary in setup. The basic units of local-level freemasonry, lodges, are supervised by higher-level grand lodges.

Due to there being no international governing body overseeing all lodges, each maintains a certain level of independency, perhaps only governed at a regional level; some may have their legitimacy questioned by other lodges, as has historically been the case. From the 1720s English Freemasonry spread further afield and many lodges were founded in France and America, but differences in rituals and beliefs – whether Freemasonry was a religion or not, and whether belief in a Supreme Being should be mandatory – led to a schism between the French and English–American branches of Freemasonry, and they still do not acknowledge each other today.

The exact origins of today’s organisation are hard to pinpoint, as various elements of Masonic practice can be traced to different times. Many historians suggest the early 1700s, although ceremonial regalia within local trade organisations goes back a further two or three centuries. There also seem to have been rituals and passwords in the 17th and 18th centuries and a lodge in Edinburgh dating to 1598 can lay claim to being the oldest in the world. However, one notable date was the founding of the first Grand Lodge, of London and Westminster, on 24 June 1717, and this date is often cited as the birth of modern Freemasonry.

Timeline of freemasonry: