The existence of two Freemasons’ lodges associated with staff and journalists based at the Palace of Westminster, New Welcome Lodge No 5139 and Gallery Lodge No 1928, has been widely known for many years (Secret Freemasons’ lodges for MPs and journalists revealed, 5 February). Both lodges have Wikipedia entries and have published histories. They do not meet at Westminster, but at Freemasons’ Hall in Covent Garden, and you can find the times of their meetings in the United Grand Lodge of England’s publicly available Directory of Lodges and Chapters.

While I was director of the Centre for Research into Freemasonry at the University of Sheffield in 2006, I published with John Hamill, formerly the curator and librarian at Grand Lodge, an article in the Labour History Review which gives a detailed account of the formation of New Welcome Lodge in 1929 (not 1926). New Welcome Lodge sought to widen the social basis of Freemasonry. Among the Labour MPs who joined the lodge were Arthur Greenwood, Ben Tillett and Lewis Silkin. Hugh Dalton suggested that the lodge was responsible for Attlee’s election as party leader, but the membership lists show this was not true. Since the second world war, it mostly consists of staff from the Palace of Westminster, with a handful of MPs, and is comparable to other clubs connected with Westminster. Gallery Lodge also found that it was not viable if it restricted its membership to journalists and so widened its membership.

Professor Andrew Prescott

University of Glasgow

• As a Freemason of 35 years, and a Guardian reader for considerably longer, I found little to dispute in your article. But more research would have revealed that during the reign of George III, the Unlawful Societies Act 1799 was passed, making it unlawful to take certain oaths. However, Freemasons were specifically exempted from the terms of the act on the express provision that the secretary of each lodge each year gave the meeting place, names and occupations of every lodge member to the clerk to the local justices. What the clerks did with these lists is lost in the mysteries of time. The legislation stayed in place and was strictly observed until 1967, when it was repealed in the Criminal Law Act 1967. Therefore it is only during the past 51 years that lodge memberships have become “secret”.

Gareth Davies

Ellington, Northumberland

• It was to make parliament more transparent that I forced the first election for lobby chair back in 1981. After winning, I strengthened the rules empowering the chair to report any reporter caught working for a non-media lobbying group. Though the abuse of parliamentary passes continues, the culprits are not journalists but politicians, especially peers. The register requires press gallery pass holders to register all paid employment. It does not require them to declare voluntary membership of bodies such as political parties, the National Union of Journalists or the Freemasons.

David Rose

Lobby correspondent 1968-2010

• While on the Greater London Council I received an anonymous letter asking me to look at staffing in the 700-strong supplies department. It was suggested there could be a link between one’s position in the hierarchy and one’s membership of Concord, a Freemasons’ lodge. Lodge membership was limited to around 50 – apparently because, when the lodge was founded around the turn of the 20th century, that was the number of people who could fit on a charabanc to go on a day trip to Brighton.

Officials looked into the possibility of there being any favouritism involved in awarding higher-paid jobs to members of Concord. The evidence suggested there was. OK, it is a long time ago, but the point remains that within any public institution the existence of closed, invitation-only memberships is bound to undermine reasonable expectations of transparency and fairness.

John Carr

Chair, GLC staff committee, 1981-86

• Dawn Foster (Secret masons have no place in public life, 6 February) asks: “Masons, tell me this: if you truly huddle in secret to no malign end and with no professed benefit unavailable elsewhere, what is the point?” As a Freemason of five years’ standing, based at a lodge in Middlesex, let me try to answer your question. You are basically saying: “If it is not for personal gain, then what is the point?” It is for personal gain, but the gain of camaraderie, friendship and a sense of belonging rather than for work contracts or evading the law. I also go mountaineering for often similar personal gains, but the two pursuits are neither interchangeable nor sinister.

Hugh Reid

London

• Sarah Wollaston MP says Freemasons “weasel an unfair advantage. So of course it should be compulsory to declare membership of Freemasons if your job is paid for by taxpayers” (Freemasons in Westminster should declare membership, says union, 6 February). The biggest and most unfair advantage in Britain is gained by attending a public school. For example, in the last 100 years Eton College alone has produced four prime ministers, none of them impressive. When it comes to weaselling an unfair advantage, old Etonians leave Freemasonry in the dust. If your job is paid for by the taxpayer, should it be compulsory to declare a public school education?

Dr David Cooper

Newbury, Berkshire

• What is wrong with you? How does it matter whether there are one, two or a million Freemasons’ lodges? People have every right to meet, and if they want to play at medieval rituals, why should anyone object? Stop this intolerant nonsense.

Meghnad Desai (not a Freemason)

Labour, House of Lords

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