The Craft
A Masonic Funeral.
A Record Thinner Than The Legend.
Dr John Rae, Arctic explorer, surgeon and Hudson’s Bay Company chief factor, was buried by a lodge that walked for him. Here is what the sources carry, what they do not, and where the family line actually runs.
Dr John Rae was buried in Kirkwall in July 1893, and the members of Lodge Kirkwall Kilwinning attended in the regalia of their order. That is the sourced Masonic fact about him. He left no children, so the family line runs through his sister Marion rather than through him.
Born In Orkney
At the Hall of Clestrain, Orphir, on 30 September 1813. Died in London on 22 July 1893.
Age When Licensed
Licensed by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1833, then straight onto a Hudson’s Bay Company ship as its surgeon.
Miles Of Coast Surveyed
Across four Arctic expeditions between 1846 and 1854. Source: Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Knighthoods
He answered the Franklin question and was written out of it. Chief trader 1847, chief factor 1850, retired 1856.
What The Record Supports
Every row here names its source. The rows that would need one and do not have one say so instead.
The Lodge Walked At His Funeral
A contemporary newspaper account of the Kirkwall procession, dated 2 August 1893, records that the members of Lodge Kirkwall Kilwinning attended “wearing the regalia of their order”. That lodge sits on the Roll of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in the Province of Orkney and Zetland. It is the strongest Masonic fact in the record, and it is a burial rather than a membership roll.
The Standard Biographies Do Not Mention It
Neither the Dictionary of Canadian Biography nor his Wikipedia entry, the two fullest accounts of his life, mentions Freemasonry at all. No initiation date, no lodge of origin, no degree. A lodge turning out in regalia is strong evidence a man was one of them. It is not a record saying so.
What This Page Does Not Claim
No lodge of initiation, no date and no degree, because not one of the three is sourced. The flattering reading is available and is not taken.
The Line, And Why He Is Not A Grandfather
Rae gets called an ancestor often enough that it is worth being exact. He is a collateral one, and the reason is on the record.
He And His Wife Had No Children
Rae married Catherine Jane Alicia Thompson in Toronto in January 1860. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography records it in four words: they had no children. Nobody descends from John Rae. Anyone who claims him is claiming a line that runs beside him, not through him.
It Runs Through His Sister Marion
Marion Rae married Dr John Hamilton and lived in Stromness, where Franklin spent his last night on British soil as their guest. The rest of the descent, Hamilton into the Hudson’s Bay Company and a later child named John Rae Hamilton after the explorer, is set out in the lineage post.
Somebody Else Arrived At The Same Line
Alice Jane Hamilton, a Canadian novelist, is described as the great great granddaughter of Rae’s sister Marion Hamilton, and wrote a novel after finding the connection. Two people reaching the same collateral line from different directions is worth more than either reaching it alone.
The Symbols, And What They Are Not
Most of what gets written about this subject is really written about its pictures.
The Double Headed Eagle Is Scottish Rite, Not Craft
The crowned two headed eagle carrying the numeral 33 belongs to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, a separate system of degrees a Master Mason may go on to. It is not the emblem of a Craft lodge, and nothing on this page claims a degree in it for anybody.
The Rough Ashlar And The Perfect Ashlar
Two stones, one as it came out of the quarry and one squared. The essay on this site puts the point better than a definition would: you are the material, and the work is on yourself.
A Picture Is Not A Document
Pyramids, an eye, two pillars. The images on this page are that kind of art and they are here because they are handsome and because they are what people expect to see. None of them is evidence for anything stated above.
Read The Lineage
Four essays already on this site, and one correction this page carries.
Tracing A Hudson’s Bay Family Line
The full descent, Rae to Marion to Hamilton to Wise, and the Chief Factor in the middle of it. Start here.
John Rae And The Northwest Passage
How he answered the Franklin question by out thinking the Royal Navy rather than outspending it, and what it cost him to come home with the answer.
John Rae And Freemasonry, The Lodge At Stromness
An essay on what a lodge offered a man about to spend decades at the edge of the map. It names Stromness, and the funeral record points to Kirkwall Kilwinning. The essay is the argument, this page is the record.
The Meaning Behind A Family Name
Why families name children after the dead, and what it is an instruction to do.
Common Questions
Almost certainly. A contemporary newspaper account of his funeral procession in Kirkwall on 2 August 1893 records that the members of Lodge Kirkwall Kilwinning attended wearing the regalia of their order. A lodge does not turn out in regalia for a stranger. No initiation record has been located, so this page treats it as strong evidence rather than as a documented membership.
Unknown on the sources available here. Lodge Kirkwall Kilwinning, on the Roll of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in the Province of Orkney and Zetland, is the lodge that attended his funeral. That is not the same as the lodge that initiated him, and no initiation date, lodge of origin or degree appears in either the Dictionary of Canadian Biography or his Wikipedia entry.
No, and he cannot be. Rae married Catherine Jane Alicia Thompson in Toronto in 1860 and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography records that they had no children. The family line runs through his sister, Marion Rae, who married Dr John Hamilton of Stromness. The full descent is set out in the lineage post linked on this page.
Craft Masonry is the three degrees worked in a lodge under a Grand Lodge, in Rae’s case the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is a separate system of further degrees that a Master Mason may go on to, and the crowned double headed eagle with the numeral 33 is its emblem, not a Craft one.
They were supplied for this page and are published on the owner’s confirmation that he holds the rights to them. The Pythagoras plate is signed by J. Augustus Knapp and dated 1926. The rest are captioned as what they depict. None of them is a document, and none is offered as evidence for anything stated above.
The Men Are Gone.
The Lodge Is Still There.
That is the part worth taking from it. Institutions that outlive the people who built them are the only ones that were ever worth building.