Freemasonsry is one of the oldest and largest fraternity groups in the world. It has gone through evolutionary phases of development and according to different historical studies, the organisation took its final shape between the 18th and 19th centuries.
Eminent people are supposed to be a part of this brotherhood. As is the case with powerful organisations, there’s a lot of speculation and myth which only adds to its mystery.
Ancestry, a genealogy company is coming out with an online compilation of identities of two millions Freemasons and a report in The Daily Telegraph speculated that everyone from Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling to the Duke of Wellington and Lord Kitchener were Freemasons.
In his book The All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper, Bruce Robinson claims that even Jack The Ripper was a member of the Freemason brotherhood that protected him from being prosecuted – since protection of the brotherhood from any exposition was one of the priorities of the Freemasons. He claims that Jack the Ripper was a singer called Michael Maybrick and that all the murders had elements of a masonic ritual. The Freemason symbol, which has a pair of compasses was reportedly carved into the face of one victim.
They weren’t protecting Jack the Ripper, they were protecting the system that Jack the Ripper was threatening. And to protect the system, they had to protect him. And the Ripper knew it.Bruce Robinson, Director, Screenwriter and Novelist, told The Telegraph
Other members include Sir Winston Churchill, Edward VII, George VI, Edward VIII, explorers Ernest Shackleton and Captain Robert Falcon Scott, scientists Edward Jenner and Sir Alexander Fleming, engineer Thomas Telford, businessman Harry Selfridge and social reformer Thomas Barnardo, as well as both Gilbert and Sullivan.
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