The Freemasons Hall, a ‘secret’ landmark in Chennai, completes a 100

Freemasons Hall in Chennai, a century old building of beauty and secrecy, home to Masonic history and symbolism.

The Freemasons Hall, Chennai, completes a hundred today. It is a building hardly anyone outside the order of Freemasonry gets to see, tucked away in a vast compound at the end of a lane off Commander-in-Chief Road/Ethiraj Salai. In a way that is appropriate, for Freemasonry is cloaked, in popular perception at least, in secrecy. But the building is a thing of beauty. Freemasonry came to India with the colonials, and in Madras city, its history dates to the 17th Century. Many lodges rose and fell, and of the historic survivors, the Lodge of Perfect Unanimity (PU), founded in 1786, is the senior-most. The District Grand Lodge (DGL) of Madras, the administrative body for all lodges in the Presidency, came into existence in 1866. And from then on began a search for a suitable home for Freemasonry in the city.

Lodges till then met at various places and a student of Masonic history can discover all kinds of interesting locations — Fort St. George, the old prison premises at the end of Broadway, and several sites in Vepery included the property that would later become St Andrews Kirk. The Lodge PU gave us a city landmark when it built its temple (meeting place in Masonry) on the beach. That was in 1831. The brothers of the Lodge did not like it and eventually the building came to be purchased by the police. It is today the State police headquarters, and the DGP’s chamber still has a continuous frieze of Masonic symbols.

By the time Lodge PU moved from the Marina to Mount Road, the DGL was born, and it moved with it. A long tenure was had on what is now LIC premises, with the actual temple, designed by RF Chisholm no less, demolished just a decade ago. There too the Masons were not happy and a search for a suitable place ended only in 1916 when the present site by the Cooum at Egmore was located. A temporary home for the DGL was built on the premises by JW Madeley (of Kilpauk Water Works fame) so that functions could go on even as the main structure was completed. This exquisite annexe is now home to a Masonic library and a lovely auditorium. It still functions as the DGL office!

Designed by the architect’s firm of Jackson & Barker, Freemasons Hall was inaugurated by Governor Lord Goschen on February 26, 1925. The structure was funded by the Masons themselves, comprising Indians and Europeans. The Masonic requirement of Lodge Rooms having to be on an east-west axis meant that the building too had to be that way, which is why, when it was built, the best view of the edifice was from the Cooum river! The south side is fronted by a wet-weather portico held up by a series of Ionic columns. The building overall follows the Neo-Classical style. The grand stairway, in a circular chamber with Doric columns, has 33 steps in keeping with the degrees in Masonry, rising in anti-clockwise fashion, as dictated by Masonic rules. The Masonic temples (meeting rooms), originally two and now three, are ventilated through clerestory windows at a height of 12 feet from the floor. The walls sport Masonic emblems, and the furniture is priceless. Sadly what is lost is the grand organ, and music, which is so important to Freemasonry, is today by means of the keyboard. Masonry is now divided between Lodges affiliated to the DGL and the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India and both use the Freemasons Hall.

(V. Sriram is a writer and historian.)