The Teachers
A Teacher
Albert Mackey
Physician turned Freemasonry’s foremost encyclopaedist and codifier.
The transmission
Albert Gallatin Mackey was an American physician and Masonic scholar born in Charleston, South Carolina. He abandoned medicine to devote himself to Freemasonry as a lecturer, editor and prolific author, producing more than forty books and articles codifying Masonic history, law and symbolism.
What they gave
He wrote ‘A Lexicon of Freemasonry’ (1845), the first Masonic dictionary, ‘The Symbolism of Freemasonry’ (1869), and the comprehensive ‘Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry’ (1873), and articulated the doctrine of the Masonic Landmarks.
The line they stand in
A leader in several grand lodges and the Scottish Rite, his reference works became standard authorities across the broader Masonic tradition.