The single pearl earring, nose ring and knitted cream polo scream millennial barista more than member of the world’s oldest secret society. Beneath the vaulted art deco ceilings of the Metropolitan Grand Lodge, however, London’s Freemasons are welcoming an image update. Along with maintaining the traditions formalised in the capital in 1717, its Gen Z and millennial brethren are popping up on the Freemasons’ TikTok account, trading grand dinners for nights out at Nando’s, and featuring in homespun grime videos.
That includes Luke Nutkins, the well-dressed 36-year-old who works in streaming at the BBC. Does its current push to attract younger members mean Freemasonry has finally become cool? “Cool is generous,” he mulls. “I don’t think it’s trendy. [But] it has a coolness about it.”
The exact origins of Freemasonry are unclear, but the theory goes that it was modelled on the customs of medieval stonemasons, who built Britain’s castles and cathedrals and would employ unique words and gestures (like handshakes) to recognise one another when working far from home.
A society of kings and trailblazers
There are 170,000 members of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) belonging to 7,000 lodges spanning the country; notable brethren have included Sir Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Shackleton, Buzz Aldrin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and royals from King George VI to Prince Philip. The vast majority of lodges are male-only, but two admit women.
Today, symbolism still abounds. Brethren are to embark on a journey through three ranks that will see them transform from rough ashlar, a coarse stone, to a perfect ashlar; they wear lambskin aprons in a nod to their stonemason forebears, black suits to demonstrate that every brother is equal, and white gloves to represent “purity” (I see one tourist purchase a pair in the upstairs gift shop; the aproned rubber duckies go untouched). While Freemasonry was once a byword for the white middle classes and replete with “toffs”, per Nutkins, now, some centre around more modern pursuits, with groups dedicated to Formula One or rugby, rum and cigars.
Electronic music being laid over videos of dancing brethren on TikTok (where they have more than 43,000 followers) and producing their own grime music (lyrics: “faith, hope, charity; man walk the walk”) have also helped to give Freemasonry a refresh. Yet the long-held accusations — that they are a shadowy network secretly pulling the strings behind major institutions — persist. Is it a secret society? “I don’t think so,” says Nutkins. “Do I think it’s a society of secrets? Yes.” When I put the question to Yves Davis, a 22-year-old digital marketing student, he answers with an identical turn of phrase.
Davis became a brother when he was 18, making him the third generation of his family to join the UGLE (he is wearing his late grandfather’s Masonic ring when we meet). Others have come to Freemasonry through more eclectic means, like the 27-year-old from Turkey whose interest was piqued by Dan Brown books; and a 25-year-old for whom the idea got legs at a house party.
“I feel like I’m part of something”
Joe Southwood, 26
Mayfair restaurant manager Joe Southwood, 26, was pottering by the UGLE’s Holborn HQ a couple of years ago when he “happened to pop in, not really knowing what it was, and ended up on a tour accidentally.” That was enough to get him to apply via the unsponsored route (most would-be brothers are vouched for by an existing member), and “I just fell in love with it.”
For Southwood, dressed in a natty spotted shirt and surprisingly chipper at spending his day off — one of the hottest in April for 80 years — in a signal-less side room in Holborn, the community the brotherhood provides has been a lifeline. “I don’t have a girlfriend; I don’t have any friends outside of work — I live quite a solitary existence,” he says. “Through this I’ve been introduced to, and met, so many fantastic people… I feel like I’m part of something.”
The Connaught Club, next door, has been hosting Freemason meetings for under-35s since 2007 — a hub for young men who, like Southwood, find themselves seeking connection. Over the past decade, the number of under-35s reporting that they have either one or no close friends has risen from seven to 22 per cent; the UK also has the highest rates of lonely young adults in Europe. Where men his age might once have gathered at church, lodges are “like a little parish,” Southwood thinks, “where instead of a vicar you have a Worshipful Master”.
Coming out as a Freemason
What actually goes on in these meetings, which typically happen four or five times a year per lodge (brethren can be members of multiple lodges) is more opaque. One ceremony is said to involve being blindfolded and put into a coffin-like box; Nutkins describes them as “like a play; there’s words to learn, there’s a hierarchy you have to respect; there’s funny handshakes and symbols and stuff” (his girlfriend describes its trappings as “a bit silly”). When I ask Davis what his initiation entailed, he says that divulging the details would be “a bit like spoilers… [keeping quiet] is more to surprise people for this really amazing story.”
Inevitably, this hush-hush approach continues to fuel what the men describe as “myths” surrounding Freemasonry — though none will identify the specific claims they find egregious. I can hazard a guess at some of the accusations on which they are none too keen: that it is a cult, or offshoot of mythical secret sect the Illuminati; that members seek one another out via secret handshakes and offer members favourable treatment in the corridors of power. In December, the Metropolitan Police ordered that staff declare if they are Freemasons due to it being a “hierarchical” group that “requires members to support and protect each other”, with more than 300 admitting to an affiliation.
The young men I meet at the Goose and Gridiron, named after the alehouse where the idea for Freemasonry was first discussed (now a café selling uninspiring sandwiches) include a Gen Z brother who doesn’t want to disclose his last name; another exits when I ask to record our chat. “I have found that not everyone likes to be outed, which was a difficult conversation I’ve had with Masons in the past,” says Nutkins, who has been a member for 15 years. “I don’t think it’s a shameful secret.”
For Lee Townsend, a brother of 14 years’ standing, his star turn in the recent grime TikTok was “like my coming out video”. Now 49, he had told few people outside of his family about his affiliation with the group — despite being a highly active member of multiple lodges. “There’s a lot of stigma and taboo around it,” he thinks. But “for an organisation that’s added so much value to me as a person and the way I operate and move, why should I hide it under a bushel? So here it is.”
Townsend is yet to be called up for a sequel to his music video — but he can scratch the itch at lodge meetings, where he seeks to “perform the socks off” centuries-old scripture. “It just really is a motivating and encouraging thing to know that kings, presidents and prime ministers have learned those same words,” says Townsend, who works for a social enterprise.
The spectre of members past looms large at UGLE HQ, where a cavernous marble lobby is framed by stained glass windows up the stairways reading “Audi, Vide, Tace” (part of a longer phrase meaning to “hear, see and hold your tongue”). The first floor houses a library and museum including an enormous gilded blue throne made for King George IV in 1791; there too are oil paintings and portraits.
While flirting with modernity appears to be the goal, not all brethren are sold
I am unable to see the shiny gold Grand Temple for myself as there is a shoot going on (it is a popular filming destination, having appeared on the likes of Spooks, Poirot and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), though the 56-year-old PR officer-cum-TikTok-manager asks, “Is that Eddie Sheeran?” as a lookalike passes us on his way to set.
While flirting with modernity appears to be the goal — at least, on social media — not all brethren are sold. “We don’t need to do the TikTok thing; we don’t need to be on Instagram,” Nutkins thinks. “If we were to suddenly turn around and have everyone dressed in cool clothes, big baggy trousers and hoodies and doing TikToks, it would just feel a bit disingenuous.”
Instead, he wants to trumpet the organisation’s charity work; and the value of young and old mixing in ways they otherwise never would. The coolest brother in his lodge, he says, is a “gnarled” 97-year-old organist who drinks triple whiskies, “looks a bit like Yoda” and has previously carried Nutkins home after a night out.
It is these connections, and the financial and emotional support provided by the UGLE, that have got him through the darkest of times, he adds — including the death of his sister, his cousin’s suicide and a work discrimination case. “It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say I would not be on this Earth right now were it not for them,” according to Nutkins. “It’s really saved me.”
