Anti-Masonic campaigner with poster

A carte-de-visite showing an unidentified man dressed up on Masonic regalia.

Far from being a Freemason himself, he appears to be waging a one-man war against the organisation. The poster in the background rails against the ‘illegal, amoral and despotic oaths’ and the ‘barbarous penalties’ of the fraternal society.

The top line of the poster reads ‘Mah-hah-bone,’ which, according to an ‘exposé’ in the Bristol Mercury (18 July 1879), was ‘the most sacred word in the Masonic vocabulary’ and was whispered to a candidate during his initiation ceremony by the Master Mason, although the article went on to claim that this was in fact only a substitute because ‘the real word is unknown even to Master Masons.’

Numerous advertisements make it clear that was all a part of a long-running anti-Masonic campaign. From at least 1852 a book, complete with woodcut illustrations, which the publishers touted as a ‘An Exposure of the Secrets of the Craft.’ This was available by mail order, for the price of 1s 6d, from J. Thorne of Shebbear in Devon, perhaps the man seen in this photograph. Ten years later he was still advertising his publication, now apparently in its 9th edition.

According to the 1861 census, 68-year-old Jeremiah Thorn was a ‘retired tailor.’ He died at Bideford in 1868 leaving an estate valued at £1000.

Photographed by A.W. Cox and Son of Nottingham.