Tracing Boards

Tracing Boards

In the early days of Freemasonry the symbols and emblems, used as mnemonics, were drawn in chalk on the lodge room floor, and erased after every meeting. As lodges began to meet in their own buildings they used illustrated floorcloths which developed into the modern tracing boards. This transition was not smooth:

"It having been represented to Grand Lodge that a Painted Cloth containing the Flooring of a Master's Lodge was hanging publicly expressed in a painter's shop, and they, considering that the same might be of pernicious consequences to Masonry, ordered the same to be sent for; and, in regard that the use of such painted Floorings was expressly forbid, instruct the Lodge of St. Andrew's (to whom it belonged) not in future to use any such Floors."

David Murray Lyon, History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, (Mary's Chapel), Number 1 Edinburgh : William Blackwood and Sons, 1873. Cited in The Builder Magazine, April 1926, vol. xii, no. 4.

Canadian Work in British Columbia

Entered Apprentice symbols of the Craft.

Fellowcraft King Solomon's Temple.

Master Mason emblems of mortality.

Boards sold by Dominion Regalia, Ontario, throughout the twentieth century.

Kamloops Lodge No. 10, Kamloops

Entered Apprentice symbols of the Craft.

Fellowcraft King Solomon's Temple.

Master Mason emblems of mortality.

H.T. Lamb tracing boards, early twentieth century.

Cariboo Lodge No. 4, Barkerville

Entered Apprentice symbols of the Craft.

Fellowcraft King Solomon's Temple.

Master Mason emblems of mortality.

George Kenning and Son tracing boards, undated.

Duke of Connaught Lodge No. 64, North Vancouver

Entered Apprentice

Fellowcraft

Master Mason

Handpainted boards based on the 1845 J. Harris designs for the Emulation Lodge of Improvement (London), donated by J. Wylie Donaldson. 20.833" x 34.139".

Scottish Ritual

Entered Apprentice

Fellowcraft

Master Mason

The Scottish Ritual of Craft Freemasonry, Edinburgh : John Bethune, [1925]. vi. 131, 48pp. 6 cm x 8.5 cm. Image size: 7.73 cm. x 14 cm.

Lectures of the Three Degrees

Entered Apprentice (1876)

Fellowcraft

Master Mason

The Lectures of the Three Degrees of Craft Masonry (Complete) a new and revised edition, with Wood-Cut Illustrations of the Three Tracing Boards, The Ceremony of Installation, and an appendix. Uniform with "The Perfect Ceremonies of Craft Masonry," The two works forming the only Complete and Accurate Manual to everything in the Three Degrees. all rights reserved. Privately Printed for A. Lewis. 1874.

Also see : ""History of the tracing board", Mark S. Dwor. Vancouver : Vancouver Grand Masonic Day, 1999 ; "Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. Vol. 64 (1953) p. 79. Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076: London.

EARLY TRACING BOARDS | SYMBOLISM INDEX | HISTORY OF THE TRACING BOARDS

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