Some Masonic Musings

W. Bro. Aubrey N. Newman, OSM, PJGD, is an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leicester and the author of many highly acclaimed Masonic papers and lectures prepared during his fifty-three years as a Freemason. He was initiated into the John of Gaunt Lodge No. 523, in Leicester in 1967, just after his fortieth birthday, serving as its Master in 1981 and again in 2000 after having served for five years as its Secretary. In 1984 he joined the Lodge of Research No. 2429, also in Leicester, becoming its Master in 1996. In 1990 he became a member of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, where he was Master in 1998 and has chaired the Editorial Committee for the last twenty-two years. He was appointed Prestonian Lecturer for 2003.  In 2017 he was awarded the Order of Service to Masonry by the MW Grand Master for his outstanding contribution to Freemasonry in the area of Masonic research. He currently holds Grand Rank in both the Craft (PJGD) and the Mark (PAGDC), the latter honour being conferred in the field at Leicester by the MW Pro Grand Master at the Sesquicentenary of his Mark Lodge, Fowke No 19, in May 2018

He was exalted into the Royal Arch in St. Martins Chapter No. 3431 in 1984, becoming its First Principal in 1990. He is a Past Provincial Grand Scribe N, of Leicestershire and Rutland. 

In 1983 he was advanced in the Fowke Lodge of Mark Master Masons (no. 19), served in the Chair in 1992, was appointed Past Provincial Grand Junior Warden in 2008, and was given the field appointment of Past Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies in Mark Grand Lodge in 2018. 

As a lecturer, and in due course Professor, in History at the University of Leicester, he has had a distinguished academic career and is now an Emeritus Professor of the University. His particular specialties are the Eighteenth Century and British Jewish History up to the present day, in which connection he is a Vice-President (and former President) of the Jewish Historical Society of England.

He has lectured on Masonic subjects in a number of Lodges in England as well as in the United States and in Israel.  When the Grand Lodge of the State of Israel celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding (where his father had been present) Lodge Montefiore was invited to host a delivery of his Prestonian Lecture.  He remarks that as there were some ten visiting Grand Masters present at that delivery who did not understand English, he probably had the distinction of sending more Most Worshipful Brethren to sleep at one time than any other lecturer had done.