John McDouall Stuart, explorer and Freemason

Next meeting - Monday 25 June 2007 at 6pm - at Freemasons' Hall, Adelaide -

Guest Speaker from John McDouall Stuart Society ...

John McDouall Stuart (1815-1866)
Explorer and Freemason

Initiated in Lodge of Truth No.933 E.C. North Adelaide on 1 Aug 1859
(when the Lodge met in the present day "Belmont House")

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"In April 1860, during the second of his heroic attempts to cross Australia from south to north, John McDouall Stuart reached the almost waterless center of the continent... A thousand miles from anywhere, the spot was the very 'climax of desolation,' as Stuart's fellow explorer Ernest Giles once nicely put it, and Stuart and his men went through hell to get there. They were sick and ragged and half starved, and it had taken months, but at least they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had become the first outsiders to penetrate to the brutal heart of the continent.

... So you may imagine Stuart's surprise when, in the middle of this baking nowhere, he and his party encountered three Aboriginal men who greeted them by making a secret sign of the Freemasons. Stuart didn't say in his journal what the sign was, but it was clear from his amazed description that it was unlikely to have been coincidental."

(from Bill Bryson's book 'In a sunburned country' p.240)

Also see entry from McDouall Stuart's journal for Sat 23 June 1860 ...

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The Stuart Highway, the main south-north highway of Australia is 2,834 kilometres or 1,761 miles long.

• John McDouall Stuart's biography is included in ADB online ...
• "McDouall Stuart a Mason" - article in the Register newspaper, Thursday 20 May 1920 (page 6h) and 21 May 1920 (page 6i).
• "Aborigines and Freemasonry: Where McDouall Stuart was Initiated" - article in The Mail (Adelaide, SA), Saturday 23 October 1915 (page 11i)
• McDouall Stuart Lodge No.219 in Alice Springs is named in his honour.

John McDouall Stuart is one of several Freemasons commemorated by statues in Adelaide:

statue in Victoria Square, Adelaide

Stuart has been the subject of several Australian postage stamps (1962 and 2012): 

The Lodge that never was ...

Many will remember the story "We of the Never Never", a book about outback Australian life in 1902 by Mrs Aeneas (Jeannie Taylor) Gunn, published 1908. This was later made into a movie (1982)

Following are notes on the Lodge that never never was - Palmerston Lodge No. 698 S.C. of Port Darwin.

George Draffen's "Scottish Masonic Records: 1736-1950" states that a Warrant was issued by the Grand Lodge of Scotland on 7 August 1884, to meet at Port Darwin in North Australia. The new Palmerston Lodge was to be No. 698 in the Register of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

Draffen noted that "it is doubtful is this Lodge was ever erected. If it was, it lapsed soon after."

George Draffen (1910-86) was Depute Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland (1974-6) and Grand Librarian of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

Is there any record or knowledge of Palmerston Lodge in Darwin or in Adelaide?

Proposals for the new Lodge would have been overtaken by the creation of the Grand Lodge of South Australia in April 1884.  At that time the Northern Territory was part of South Australia.

HCE Muecke, who was RW Provincial Grand Master of the Scottish Constitution in SA until April 1884, resigned from that Office just before participating as Installing Grand Master at the foundation of the new Grand Lodge - he installed SJ Way as Grand Master in 1884 and again in 1909 on the 25th anniversary of the Grand Lodge.

The records of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Scotland in South Australia were apparently lost - perhaps during transfer back to Scotland? Could the Warrant of the proposed new Palmerston Lodge have been sent to Adelaide, and returned to Scotland by Muecke?

The Port Darwin Lodge No.41 first met on 6 May 1896, with 18 Freemasons present. At that time Darwin was known as Palmerston (the name changed to Darwin in 1911). The Lodge acquired a block of land in Mitchell Street in September 1896; Darwin's first Masonic building was erected by 1901.

Updated 5 May 2007: Bro. Len Greenwood has advised:

"the first lodge in Darwin - The Port Darwin Lodge - first officially met in May 1896 at the Victoria Hotel (the warrant was issued in February 1896 but then came by ship to Darwin). Port Darwin moved to Mitchell St (near where the Darwin Hotel used to be) in late 1900 or early 1901 where they stayed until the move to Stokes St in 1962."