Page 21 - Ashlar July-September 2019

N A L G R
I O
G E AND LODGE
The Ashlar R Vol. XV Issue II
The Degree of RAM

by Written and compiled by R.W.Bro. J.N.Chowdhary, Senior RAM Grand Officer.
The Degree of RAM as of today and the History the minutes of a meeting held in Bath in 1790.
thereof. Numerous records exist throughout the
The Degree of Royal Ark Mariner, although country of the Ceremony of Elevation being
worked under the aegis of the Grand Lodge of performed since that date.
Mark Master Masons, and requiring every The claims that a Grand Lodge of Ark Mariners
candidate to be a Mark Master Mason, has no was formed in 1772 and presided over by HRH
historical connection whatsoever with that The Duke of Clarence are not substantiated by
Degree. Mark Grand Lodge's rule over the the known facts and thus later claims that this
Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Royal Ark Grand Lodge had fallen into disuse, only to be
Mariners is simply a quirk of fate. It stands revived in 1871, do not really stand up to any
entirely alone and totally unrelated to any other degree of scrutiny.
Degree in Freemasonry. Whilst the Degree seems to have been
The history of the Degree is an obscure and practiced in a variety of ways and in a host of
difficult subject and the number of historical different Lodges, there was almost certainly
facts that have emerged over the years have no Grand Lodge presiding over the Degree.
indeed been small. As a result the precise We are, of course, reminded of the
origins of the Royal Ark Mariner Degree are widespread practice of the Degree every time
unknown. The Degree is around two hundred we enter a Craft Lodge and observe the use of
years old and, as its name suggests, has a the dove bearing an olive branch by the
nautical flavour taking for its setting the Deacons rather than Mercury, the messenger
circumstances leading up to the Great Flood of the Gods, which we sometimes see in Mark
and the steps taken by Noah to build the Ark by Lodges (and indeed in a number of older Craft
which mankind and all living creatures were Lodges).
preserved from perishing in the 'Universal It is interesting to note that, once again, the
Deluge'. ubiquitous Thomas Dunckerly, so important in
Like the Mark Master Mason's Degree, which is the fortunes of many Degrees in Freemasonry
based on the fact of the construction of the was also describing himself in 1793 as Grand
Temple at Jerusalem, so the Degree of Royal Commander of the Society of Ancient Masons
Ark Mariner is also based on an actual of the Diluvian Order of Royal Ark Mariners. It
happening, the Great Flood, as recorded in the was Dunckerly who appointed one Brother
Bible and as verified in 1929 by the Ebenezer Sibley, another man of considerable
archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley, who not ability in several fields, as his Deputy. Shortly
only found clear evidence of the Flood, but before Dunckerley's death it was Sibley who
established that it had occurred some 6,000 welcomed Lord Rancliffe as the next Grand
years previously. Commander. Rancliffe held the office until
The legend of Noah, his sons, the Ark and the 1799 after which time the Grand Lodge
Deluge were enacted in the Mystery Plays of gradually withered and died. The Degree,
the Seventeenth Century and continued as however, survived and clung on tenaciously in
catechisms in many of the early Masonic a number of places. In 1843 an attempt was
rituals. By the 1750s there was a Degree of made by Brother John F Dorrington to revive
Noachites or Prussian Knights. However, the The Grand Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners. It has
first authentic record of the Degree appears in to be said, though, that his Grand Lodge was

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