Time immemorial Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Time immemorial The term time immemorial means extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition. The implication is that the thing referred to is, or can be regarded as, indefinitely ancient. The term has been formally defined for some purposes. In English law time immemorial means "a time before legal history, and beyond legal memory" so called; formerly an indefinite time, but in 1276 this time was fixed by statute as the year 1189 , the beginning of the reign of King Richard I . Proof of unbroken possession or use of any right since that date made it unnecessary to establish the original grant. In 1832 the plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned and the principle substituted that rights which had been enjoyed for full twenty years (or as against the crown thirty years) should not be liable to impeachment merely by proving that they had not been enjoyed before.

Source: The public domain Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) The Court of Chivalry is said to have defined the period before 1066 as "time immemorial" for the purposes of heraldry . Dictionary of legal terms - T Dictionary of legal terms - T [ Home ][ Index - Dictionary ][Dictionary of legal terms - T] UK Law Dictionary - English Legal System Tamper To interfere improperly or in violation of the law such as to tamper with a document. The term "jury tampering" means to illegally disrupt the independence of a jury member with a view to influencing that juror otherwise than by the production of evidence in open court. Tariff On imposing a life sentence, a judge is required to fix a minimum period (the tariff) which must expire before the Parole Board will consider whether it would be safe to release the offender on licence. The starting point is the sentence the offender would receive if a life sentence were not imposed. Tenancy by the entireties A form of co-ownership in English law where, when a husband transferred land to his wife, the property could not be sold unless both spouses agreed nor could it be severed except by ending the marriage.

A person to whom a landlord grants temporary and exclusive use of land or a part of a building, usually in exchange for rent . The contract for this type of legal arrangement is called a lease . The word "tenant" originated under the feudal system , referring to land "owners" who held their land on tenure granted by a lord. Similar to joints tenants . All tenants in common share equal property rights except that, upon the death of a tenant in common, that share does not go to the surviving tenants but is transferred to the estate of the deceased tenant. Unity of possession but distinct titles. Tenement Property that could be subject to tenure under English land law; usually land, buildings or apartments. The word is rarely used nowadays except to refer to Tenure A right of holding or occupying land or a position for a certain amount of time. The term was first used in the English feudal land system , whereby all land belonged to the king but was lent out to lords for a certain period of time; the lord never owning, but having tenure in the land.

Used in modern law mostly to refer to a position a person occupies such as in the expression "a judge holds tenure for life and on good behaviour." The formal beginning of English law is 3rd September 1189 -the accession of Richard I, and the end of the reign of Henry II the father of the Common Law. Today, an ancient custom can have the force of law, such as a right over land, if it can be shown to have existed since "time immemorial" (now a lesser period). The Statute of Westminster in 1275 fixed 1189 as the earliest date from which evidence in land disputes could be considered. The Statute of Westminster was the product of Edward I (Known as Edward the Law Giver, or Edward the English Justinian, or Edward Longshanks). Tithes Tithes The tenth part of an income donated for religious purposes. Tithes were required by Mosaic law, which demanded payment in kind from all agricultural produce. Church law also required tithes to maintain churches and clergy. They were abolished in Britain in 1936. In Scotland, to undergo trial, after which no further trial on the same charge may take place.

Kids.Net.Au - Encyclopedia > Time immemorial Encyclopedia > Time immemorial The term time immemorial means extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition. The implication is that the thing referred to is, or can be regarded as, indefinitely ancient. The term has been formally defined for some purposes. In English law time immemorial means "a time before legal history, and beyond legal memory" so called; formerly an indefinite time, but in 1276 this time was fixed by statute as the year 1189 , the beginning of the reign of King Richard I . Proof of unbroken possession or use of any right since that date made it unnecessary to establish the original grant. In 1832 the plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned and the principle substituted that rights which had been enjoyed for full twenty years (or as against the crown thirty years) should not be liable to impeachment merely by proving that they had not been enjoyed before. Source: The public domain Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) The Court of Chivalry is said to have defined the period before 1066 as "time immemorial" for the purposes of heraldry .

Time immemorial - definition of time immemorial by The Free Dictionary Time immemorial - definition of time immemorial by The Free Dictionary Related to time immemorial: since time immemorial time immemorial 1. Time long past, beyond memory or record. Also called time out of mind. 2. Law The time before the keeping of legal records. time immemorial n 1. the distant past beyond memory or record 2. (Law) law time beyond legal memory, fixed by English statute as before the reign of Richard I (1189) time′ immemo′rial time in the distant past. ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us , add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content . Link to this page: View in context I said secretly, because the Fairy had warned the Queen that the King was a magician; and as from time immemorial there had been a standing feud between the Fairies and the Wizards, he might not have approved of his wife's visit.

View in context For my own part, I should doubtless have belonged to the latter class, had I received instruction from but one master, or had I never known the diversities of opinion that from time immemorial have prevailed among men of the greatest learning. View in context Before Tarzan came upon his first visit, La had had no thought that such men as he existed, for she knew only her hideous little priests and the bulls of the tribe of great anthropoids that had dwelt from time immemorial in and about Opar, until they had come to be looked upon almost as equals by the Oparians. The Volokh Conspiracy - "Time Immemorial" : [Eugene Volokh, August 30, 2006 at 3:12pm ] Trackbacks "Time Immemorial" : I'll bet you thought that's just one of those colorful terms for "a very long time." But it actually means -- at least in one dialect of legalese -- "since before September 3, 1189," as set forth in the English Statute of Westminster (1275).

The phrase is also sometimes written as "time out of mind" and "the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." John Foster ( www ): That's why the standard form of release provides "for, upon, or by reason of any matter, cause or thing whatsoever from the beginning of the world to the day of the date of this RELEASE." What happens if there is lying about an unknown cause of action from September 2, 1189? It could happen! 8.30.2006 4:44pm Pat conolly ( mail ): The first question on my mind was, "What's significant about that date?" Easily answered, per Wikipedia, that was the date Richard I, the Lionhearted, was crowned King of England. 8.30.2006 5:04pm Back in the day, I was heavily swayed by Joan Peters' book, From Time Immemorial . I've never really known, though, is this thought of as a credible/influential book? I'd guess people here, as well as anywhere, would know.

8.30.2006 5:07pm Dan Jacobs ( mail ): Here is my question.....is that date as understand under the modern, Gregorian calendar, or is that a date as understood under either the Julian calendar or some other variation? 8.30.2006 5:35pm ( link ) Maniakes: My understanding is that dates before the Gregorian Calendar went into effect in Catholic countries (October 15, 1582) are generally reported in the Julian calendar unless otherwise specified. Only dates between then and when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in the country in which the dated event occurred (September 14, 1752 in the British Empire) are ambiguous. 8.30.2006 6:05pm ( link ) SamChevre: Well, that's a useful piece of trivia--correction; I had somehow thought that "the memory of man" ran back to 1066.

8.30.2006 6:37pm ( link ) aces: Interesting that the one legal definition of "time out of mind" put it at 86 years (at the time of drafting). I would define "time out of mind" as much further back; OTOH, 86 years is about right for "within living memory," which I suppose could be read as the same thing. 8.30.2006 7:08pm elChato ( mail ): SamChevre: Wikipedia says that the term means "indefinitely ancient" but was formally defined by the Court of Chivalry as pre-1066 for heraldry purposes; and English law defined it as"a time before legal history, and beyond legal memory." In 1276, this time was fixed by statute as the year 1189, the beginning of the reign of King Richard I.

The entry isn't too clear but apparently this statute had to do with tracing land titles- I'm guessing that you had to trace a land title back to 1189 or a common ancestor, until 1832 when "the plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned; instead, it was held that rights which had been enjoyed for twenty years (or as against the crown thirty years) should not be impeached merely by proving that they had not been enjoyed before." 8.30.2006 9:06pm elChato ( mail ): SamChevre: Wikipedia says that the term means "indefinitely ancient" but was formally defined by the Court of Chivalry as pre-1066 for heraldry purposes; and English law defined it as"a time before legal history, and beyond legal memory." In 1276, this time was fixed by statute as the year 1189, the beginning of the reign of King Richard I.

The entry isn't too clear but apparently this statute had to do with tracing land titles- I'm guessing that you had to trace a land title back to 1189 or a common ancestor, until 1832 when "the plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned; instead, it was held that rights which had been enjoyed for twenty years (or as against the crown thirty years) should not be impeached merely by proving that they had not been enjoyed before." 8.30.2006 9:06pm Benjy ( mail ): This might have been an effort to make pre-Norman claims less tenable. The Norman nobility displaced the Anglo-Saxon nobility, taking their lands, etc. 8.31.2006 1:19pm Time immemorial : definition of Time immemorial and synonyms of Time immemorial (English) For the 1984 book on the Arab-Israeli conflict, see From Time Immemorial . Time immemorial is a phrase meaning time extending beyond the reach of memory , record, or tradition , indefinitely ancient, "ancient beyond memory or record".

[1] The phrase is one of the few cases in the English language where the adjective is a postmodifier —some other phrases, such as the legal terms attorney general and court martial , also follow that pattern, largely due to the influence of Norman French. The term has been formally defined for some purposes. In English law and its derivatives, time immemorial means the same as time out of mind, [2] "a time before legal history and beyond legal memory." [3] In 1275, by the first Statute of Westminster , the time of memory was limited to the reign of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), beginning 6 July 1189, the date of the King's accession. [4] Since that date, proof of unbroken possession or use of any right made it unnecessary to establish the original grant under certain circumstances.

In 1832, time immemorial was re-defined as "Time whereof the Memory of Man runneth not to the contrary." [5] The plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned; instead, it was held that rights which had been enjoyed for twenty years (or as against the Crown thirty years) should not be impeached merely by proving that they had not been enjoyed before (holding by adverse possession ). The Court of Chivalry is said to have defined the period before 1066 as time immemorial for the purposes of heraldry . [6] See also The Meaning of Magna Carta since 1215 | History Today The Meaning of Magna Carta since 1215 King John Magna Carta Ralph V. Turner considers how and why Magna Carta became a beacon of liberty in Britain and, increasingly, in the United States. Most students of English history know that King John’s barons forced him to grant Magna Carta, the great charter of liberties that placed the English king under the law.

They know that this charter, agreed by John in 1215 at Runnymede meadow and confirmed in definitive form by Henry III in 1225, is a crucial document for England’s history, likely the best known of all documents surviving from medieval England. Its attempt to impose the law’s limitations on a ruler is summarised in Chapter 39: No free man shall be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go or send against him except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. Less familiar is the role of Magna Carta in the centuries after 1225, when it was taken up periodically as the banner of discontented subjects rallying against their monarch, and their programmes for political reform included calls for its reconfirmation. Following John’s death in 1216, the Great Charter’s fate was in doubt, with a nine-year-old boy as the new king Henry III. Yet the Charter took root and was quickly reissued, again in 1217, and in its definitive 1225 version.

When in 1258 the great men of the kingdom had grown impatient with Henry’s incompetent rule, baronial reformers sought to revive the 1215 Charter’s provision for a committee of barons to supervise the king. Among their reform proposals was a demand that Henry ‘faithfully keep and observe the charter of the liberties of England’. The rebellion failed, but the royalist victory in 1265 did not end Magna Carta’s prominent position in England’s political life, for part of the peace settlement was the King’s renewed promise to observe it. In Edward I’s reign (1272-1307), his subjects turned to the Charter as a focus for discontent over his burdensome financial exactions; and in 1297 with his Confirmation of the Charters (plural because the 1225 Charter of the Forest was also confirmed), he acknowledged that Magna Carta bound him. When dissatisfaction mounted once more in 1300, Parliament sought additional concessions from Edward, set forth in the Articles upon the Charters. A century after Runnymede, a precedent was set for parliaments to seek reconfirmation of the Charter and clarification of its meaning.

In the fourteenth century, two parallel movements were under way to enforce Magna Carta’s curbs on arbitrary royal authority. One was a revival under Edward II (r.1307-27) and again under Richard II (r.1377-99) of baronial committees to supervise royal government, reminiscent of the mid-thirteenth-century reform movement. Another was Parliament’s appearance as a permanent political institution, acting as the protector and interpreter of the Great Charter. With a representative assembly in place, it substituted for periodic baronial commissions as the favoured mechanism for subjecting the king to the law. Fourteenth-century parliaments sought royal confirmations of the Great Charter and drafted statutes reinforcing its promises. Often the first item of parliamentary business was a public reading and reaffirmation of the Charter, and as in the previous century, parliaments often exacted confirmation of it from the monarch, resulting in over forty reconfirmations by the early fifteenth century.

Magna Carta was seen as sacrosanct, and statutes conflicting with it were ruled invalid; a statute enacted under Edward III in 1369 declared, ‘If any Statute be made to the contrary, that shall be holden for none.’ Other statutes re-interpreted and expanded the Charter’s provisions. Noteworthy are measures enacted under Edward III (r.1327-77), known to seventeenth- century critics of Stuart absolutism as the ‘six statutes’, which spelled out precisely the Charter’s promise of what was coming to be called ‘due process of law’. The third of these statutes is significant for expanding the numbers protected by Chapter 39, replacing ‘no free man’ with more inclusive language, ‘no man, of whatever estate or condition he may be’; and promising that no one was to be dispossessed, imprisoned, or put to death without ‘due process of law’, the first use of that phrase in the statutes. By the mid-fifteenth century, Magna Carta slipped into the shadows of high politics where it remained until the seventeenth century, and the custom of periodic royal confirmations ended early in Henry VI’s reign.

The reigns of the Yorkist and Tudor monarchs saw strong reassertions of royal sovereignty, and although people never entirely forgot Magna Carta, they no longer rallied around it. The Charter’s ties to the common law ensured its importance, however, for the land-holding classes looked to it as a key protector of their property. Thousands took part in common law procedures, notably trial by jury, and these inculcated the Charter’s principle of due process of law and the plea rolls and the year books give evidence for litigants’ citations of it. In law books studied by the emerging legal profession, Magna Carta was the first of the statutes; and by the late-fifteenth century, collections of statutes beginning with it were among the earliest books to be printed in England. Appeals to specific provisions appear frequently in late medieval plea rolls, proving wide familiarity with the Great Charter, with lawyers and litigants sometimes twisting its technical provisions for frivolous purposes. Yet by the end of the Middle Ages, it was cited less frequently because statutes spelling out its principles afforded added protection against an arbitrary king, binding him to act ‘according to law’ or by ‘due process’ or ‘process of the law’.

Magna Carta played little part in the great controversy of Henry VIII’s reign (1509-47), his break with the papacy; and he often violated his subjects’ rights in enforcing conformity to his new Church. Only occasionally did his victims, imprisoned without indictment or bail, claim ‘the liberty of an Englishman’, as guaranteed them by the Charter. A few prominent Catholics claimed protection under its first chapter promising freedom for the English Church, but most turned to the theology of universal papal authority for arguments against Henry’s supremacy over the Church of England. By the late Tudor period, though, radical Protestants such as the Puritans presented a greater threat to royal supremacy over the Church of England than did Catholics. They sought the Charter’s protection against persecution by Elizabeth I’s new ecclesiastical tribunal, the Court of High Commission. The High Commission, armed with Roman and canon law procedures, forced dissidents to incriminate themselves, a practice that alarmed common lawyers prejudiced against Roman law. Since many legal professionals were also Puritans, they made common cause with Protestant militants.

Magna Carta took a central role in the seventeenth-century conflict between king and Parliament, as common lawyers and parliamentarians turned to a mythical ‘ancient constitution’ as a defence against Stuart kings’ assertion of the royal prerogative. Historians, common lawyers and Members of Parliament searched medieval manuscripts of early law codes and forgotten royal charters for ammunition against James I and Charles I. They treasured the Charter as a key element of England’s ‘ancient constitution’, a body of laws and customs supposedly surviving from pre-Roman Britain that imposed limits on the king’s power over his subjects. The champion of the doctrine of the ancient constitution and the revival of Magna Carta was Sir Edward Coke (d. 1634). Coke conceived of the English constitution as a chain of royal confirmations of English law, stretching back to the age of Edward the Confessor and beyond. Because he viewed the Great Charter as a reaffirmation of liberties enjoyed by the English people from time immemorial and still binding because of its many confirmations over the centuries, he urged Parliament to demand a royal reconfirmation. Coke and his companions opposing the early Stuarts construed the Charter anachronistically and uncritically.

They were convinced that its clauses reaffirmed such longstanding rights of the English people as trial by jury and the right of habeas corpus, thought to be derived from law-codes and royal charters predating John’s grant. The civil wars of 1642-48, kindled by Coke’s revival of the Great Charter, had more extreme consequences than the 1215-16 rebellion, as it resulted in military dictatorship, the King’s execution and a decade of experiments in government. But the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, culminating in the deposition of James II and establishment of Parliament’s supremacy, seemed a repetition of the baronial rebellion against King John. The settlement following William and Mary’s accession included a Declaration of Rights, enacted by Parliament as a new Magna Carta. Sir Edward Coke’s portrayal of England’s past was now fashioned into the ‘Whig interpretation’ of history, with a triumphalist view of liberty’s ceaseless advance. Whig writers ranked the 1688-89 Revolution alongside King John’s 1215 concessions, convinced that it reconfirmed an ancient compact between king and people, restoring fundamental law and limited monarchy.

Debate late in Charles II’s reign over excluding his brother, the future James II, from the succession had led royalist propagandists to challenge Coke’s myth of the ancient constitution. Tories turned to the royalist historians’ rediscovery of the ‘feudal law’ and Norman ties of lordship and vassalage that had made the barons dependents of the king, holding their lands in return for services to him. Royalist writers tended to dismiss Magna Carta as a feudal document with little long-term relevance, and in fact royalist historians such as Robert Brady (d.1700) painted a more accurate picture of the medieval past than Coke. Nonetheless, the Whig interpretation triumphed in the eighteenth century. Its victory was symbolised by Brady’s replacement as Keeper of Records at the Tower of London, curator of the kingdom’s historical records, by William Petyt, a historian supporting Coke’s ancient constitution. Early eighteenth-century Tories, languishing without power under the first two Georges, replaced their faith in unrestrained royal power with defence of the ancient constitution, charging the Whig majority with undermining historic English liberties.

Tory support for the ancient constitution drove Whig defenders of their parliamentary leader, Sir Robert Walpole, to stress the superiority of the post-1688 constitution, and to question Magna Carta’s relevance. One Whig writer, repeating earlier royalist arguments, now maintained that the barons alone had gained from the Charter. After George III’s accession in 1760, American colonists and their English sympathisers began to question parliamentary sovereignty, and radical political movements challenged complacency about the glories of the English constitution. Opponents of Parliament’s monopoly on power denounced its political machinations, graft and corruption. The reformers were a diverse group ranging from radicals inspired by the rationalism of the Enlightenment to religious dissenters looking back to a golden age of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan parliaments. With radical journalists stirring up public opinion against Parliament, freedom of the press came under attack. One radical writer, Arthur Beardmore, arrested for seditious libel in 1762, showed an eye for publicity, arranging to be arrested while teaching Magna Carta to his young son. He became a popular hero, and a print picturing him showing the Charter to the boy circulated widely.

Another radical, John Wilkes (d. 1797), imprisoned in the Tower in 1763 for seditious libel, transformed his prosecution into a campaign for the people’s rights against oppression, invoking Magna Carta, ‘that glorious inheritance, that distinguishing characteristic of the Englishmen’. The radical movement proved short-lived, however. After 1789, radical sympathy for the French revolutionaries alienated moderates, and the government took such harsh measures against them that reaction and repression soon became the rule in Britain. A satirical article in a radical newspaper noted that the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) was descended from ‘two notorious traitors of old times, called Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights’, and declared that the Charter was ‘so very old and infirm that he seldom stirs abroad, and when he does he is sure to be insulted, and is very glad to get back to his lodgings again’. Although hostility kindled by the French Revolution stalled any innovation, agitation for wider representation in the Commons revived after 1815. Nineteenth-century popular movements for parliamentary reform such as Chartism turned to Magna Carta for support.

Other tendencies, however, undermined reverence for the Charter and England’s medieval constitutional legacy, especially Bentham’s radical Utilitarian philosophy. Its rational and pragmatic outlook led lawyers and judges to cease to venerate the common law simply because of its antiquity and to view it as a stumbling block to progress. Advocates of legal reform understood that revising the common law was impossible without first reforming the House of Commons, and once this was achieved in 1832, Utilitarians could turn to reform of English law. To them, the triumph of Parliament at the end of the seventeenth century meant the Great Charter had lost its special place as fundamental law standing above statute law; the nation’s legislative assembly had replaced it, however inadequately, as the protector of the people’s liberties. By the mid-nineteenth century both politicians and the lawyers favoured reorganisation of the law, and striking obsolete legislation from the statute books began in earnest with the first Statute Laws Revision Act of 1856. Two more acts followed in 1861 and 1863, repealing hundreds of old laws; these acts and subsequent legislation abrogated much of Magna Carta.

Some in the Commons sought assurances that no statutes considered ‘stones in the edifice of the constitution’ would be abolished, and one MP offered an amendment to preserve Magna Carta and other constitutional landmarks, but this failed. The ease with which abrogation of clauses of the Charter was achieved is surprising, a striking display of parliamentary sovereignty. During Commons debates, the Solicitor-General dismissed the Great Charter’s significance, reminding members that ‘as signed by King John’ it was not a statute and could be consulted only in ancient manuscripts. Stricken from the statute books by the 1863 legislation were seventeen of the 1225 Charter’s chapters, many of them ‘feudal’ clauses that had lost their practical effect two centuries earlier when tenures by knight-service were abolished. By the 1880s, many Britons felt that further pruning of the laws was needed, and still more chapters of the Charter were repealed. A few provisions of Magna Carta remained on the statute books into the twentieth century. In 1965, Parliament created the Law Commission for statute revision, and the commissioners recommended repeal of laws that ‘cannot be shown to perform a useful function’.

They proposed a bill repealing over 200 laws, including eight chapters of the Great Charter that they found to be ‘of no practical significance today, being either obsolete or superseded by the modern law on the subject’. Legislation that followed in 1970 left only four chapters of Magna Carta intact: chapters 1, 13 and 39 of King John’s Charter, and 37 of the 1225 version. The first Chapter promised freedom for the English Church, and Chapter 13 (9 in the 1225 version), guaranteed the City of London its ancient liberties and free customs. Chapter 39 (29 in the 1225 Charter) was the key provision in Magna Carta, curbing the crown’s power to pursue individuals beyond the law. Chapter 37, found only in the 1225 Charter, contained a clause important for the perpetuity of Magna Carta’s liberties, ‘and if anything contrary to this [charter] is procured from anyone, it shall avail nothing and be held for nought’.

Despite this legislative assault on Magna Carta, the Whig historical interpretation of its place in British history had become orthodoxy, the semi-official presentation by the Victorian era. For Whig historians, the 1215 baronial rebellion marked a major step in England’s long march toward limited monarchy and parliamentary supremacy; and the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 marked further advance toward the orderly growth of parliamentary democracy, religious toleration and bourgeois values. This interpretation fostered the ‘idea of progress’, presenting history as modernisation, slow but steady evolution toward higher civilisation. It also generated enormous pride among nineteenth-century Britons, convincing them of their island-kingdom’s destiny to be a model for other nations seeking freedom and unity as well as justification for their rule over a colonial empire. By the mid-nineteenth century, a rising scientific and materialist world-view brought with it new notions of the nature of history that challenged this mythic version of the past and heralded drastic changes in the nature of history.

The later Victorian age was a time when ‘a truly historical consciousness’ developed, and the discipline of history fell into the hands of professionals and specialists, many of whom were ‘debunkers’ of hallowed historical myths. The Charter’s importance was seen differently across the Atlantic. As the Great Charter’s relevance receded in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, it remained fundamental for the new nation growing in North America. Today, Magna Carta seems to enjoy greater prestige in the United States than in the United Kingdom. Indicative of this is the monument at Runnymede erected in 1957 by the American Bar Association to commemorate the Charter. Edward Coke and other opponents of the Stuarts had resuscitated it at the very moment that the first English settlements were being founded in the Americas, and the settlers in the thirteen colonies had held themselves to be fully English, possessing all rights guaranteed to their compatriots at home by the Great Charter and the common law. The charter of each colony, beginning with James I’s charter for the Virginia Company in 1606, included protection for colonists’ rights as free English subjects.

The colonists held Magna Carta to be fundamental law, standing above both king and Parliament and unalterable by statute. Americans’ dedication to fundamental law increased in the years after 1688, an age when British political thinkers were discarding it in favour of parliamentary sovereignty. Their commitment to such higher law as Magna Carta fortified their inclination toward written constitutions. The 1225 version of the Great Charter was published in Philadelphia as early as 1687, part of a tract authored by William Penn, founder of the Quaker colony. Sir Edward Coke’s interpretation of the Charter influenced these Americans. Subscribing to Coke’s anachronistic views, they held it to be the guarantor of their ancient English liberties, including rights to trial by jury and the writ of habeas corpus. They saw the seventeenth-century struggle against the Stuart kings as part of their own history, and they accepted the Great Charter as part of the ancient constitution, providing them with the same protections enjoyed by their cousins in the mother country. In the decade before the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, colonial lawyers and pamphleteers turned to Magna Carta for support against the government across the Atlantic.

The first Continental Congress adopted a resolution in October 1774 claiming that the colonists were doing ‘as Englishmen their ancestors in like cases have usually done, for asserting and vindicating their rights and liberties’. In 1775, Massachusetts adopted as its state seal an image of an American patriot holding a sword in one hand and Magna Carta in the other. After the United States won independence, the federal Constitution became the new nation’s fundamental law. The Founding Fathers, faithful to seventeenth-century doctrine placing the Great Charter above statute law, accorded the Constitution a similar lofty position as fundamental law that can be overcome only by a Supreme Court ruling or a constitutional amendment, invulnerable to acts of Congress. By the eighteenth century, with Britons sure of Parliament’s superior place in the government and ideas of fundamental law fading, the British constitution consisted of a series of statutes that parliamentary majorities could abolish or alter, so long as they were supported by public opinion.

As the states considered ratifying the federal Constitution, anti-federalists objected to its lack of an enumeration of citizens’ rights, such as Magna Carta or the 1689 Bill of Rights; and to win ratification by the states, the first ten amendments to the federal Constitution were adopted. Among the amendments, ratified in 1791 as the Bill of Rights, was an article promising that no person shall be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law’, paraphrasing the Charter’s thirty-ninth chapter. Americans today accord Magna Carta semi-religious veneration, citing it constantly in political debates, judicial opinions and newspaper editorials. The United States Supreme Court first cited the Charter in an 1819 opinion, and American jurists still cannot resist citing it in their decisions. Supreme Court citations of the Charter now number over a hundred. A federal district judge even cited it in Paula Jones’ sexual harassment suit in 1994 against President Clinton.

She ruled against delaying the suit during the President’s term of office, stating: It is contrary to our form of government, which asserts as did the English in the Magna Carta and the Petition of Right, that even the sovereign is subject to God and the law. Whatever the hyperbole and distortions of history, jurists’ references to the Charter indicate its lasting place as a symbol of limited government in American legal and political thought. Ralph V. Turner is distinguished research Professor of History Emeritus, Florida State University, and the author of Magna Carta published by Pearson Education. Related articles Prescription Act 1832 Prescription Act 1832 There are currently no known outstanding effects for the Prescription Act 1832. Changes to Legislation Revised legislation carried on this site may not be fully up to date. At the current time any known changes or effects made by subsequent legislation have been applied to the text of the legislation you are viewing by the editorial team. Please see ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ for details regarding the timescales for which new effects are identified and recorded on this site. E+W+N.I.

1832 CHAPTER 71 2 and 3 Will 4 An Act for shortening the time of prescription in certain cases. [1st August 1832] Whereas the expression “time immemorial, or time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” is now by the Law of England in many cases considered to include and denote the whole period of time from the Reign of King Richard the First, whereby the title to matters that have been long enjoyed is sometimes defeated by shewing the commencement of such enjoyment, which is in many cases productive of inconvenience and injustice; Annotations: Annotations are used to give authority for changes and other effects on the legislation you are viewing and to convey editorial information. They appear at the foot of the relevant provision or under the associated heading. Annotations are categorised by annotation type, such as F-notes for textual amendments and I-notes for commencement information (a full list can be found in the Editorial Practice Guide). Each annotation is identified by a sequential reference number. For F-notes, M-notes and X-notes, the number also appears in bold superscript at the relevant location in the text. All annotations contain links to the affecting legislation. Modifications etc.

(not altering text) C3Words of enactment and certain other words repealed by Statute Law Revision (No. 2) Act 1888 (c. 57) and Statute Law Revision Act 1890 (c. 33) C4This Act is not necessarily in the form in which it has effect in Northern Ireland [1.] Claims to right of common and other profits a prendre,not to be defeated after thirty years enjoyment by merely showing the commencement; after sixty years enjoyment the right to be absolute, unless had by consent or agreement.E+W+N.I.

No claim which may be lawfully made at the common law, by custom, prescription, or grant, to any right of common or other profit or benefit to be taken and enjoyed from or upon any land of our sovereign lord the King, or any land being parcel of the duchy of Lancaster or of the duchy of Cornwall, or of any ecclesiastical or lay person, or body corporate, except such matters and things as are herein specially provided for, and except tithes, rent, and services, shall, where such right, profit, or benefit shall have been actually taken and enjoyed by any person claiming right thereto without interruption for the full period of thirty years, be defeated or destroyed by showing only that such right, profit, or benefit was first taken or enjoyed at any time prior to such period of thirty years, but nevertheless such claim may be defeated in any other way by which the same is now liable to be defeated; and when such right, profit, or benefit shall have been so taken and enjoyed as aforesaid for the full period of sixty years, the right thereto shall be deemed absolute and indefeasible, unless it shall appear that the same was taken and enjoyed by some consent or agreement expressly made or

 given for that purpose by deed or writing.

2 In claims of right of way or other easement the periods to be twenty years and forty years.E+W+N.I.

No claim which may be lawfully made at the common law, by custom, prescription, or grant, to any way or other easement,or to any watercourse, or the use of any water, to be enjoyed or derived upon, over, or from any land or water of our said lord the King, or being parcel of the duchy of Lancaster or of the duchy of Cornwall, or being the property of any ecclesiastical or lay person, or body corporate, when such way or other matter as herein last before mentioned shall have been actually enjoyed by any person claiming right thereto without interruption for the full period of twenty years, shall be defeated or destroyed by showing only that such way or other matter was first enjoyed at any time prior to such period of twenty years, but nevertheless such claim may be defeated in any other way by which the same is now liable to be defeated; and where such way or other matter as herein last before mentioned shall have been so enjoyed as aforesaid for the full period of forty years, the right thereto shall be deemed absolute and indefeasible, unless it shall appear that the same was enjoyed by some consent or agreement expressly given or made for that purpose by deed or writing.

3 Claim to the use of light enjoyed for 20 years. E+W+N.I. When the access and use of light to and for any dwelling house, workshop, or other building shall have been actually enjoyed therewith for the full period of twenty years without interruption, the right thereto shall be deemed absolute and indefeasible, any local usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding, unless it shall appear that the same was enjoyed by some consent or agreement expressly made or given for that purpose by deed or writing. Annotations: Annotations are used to give authority for changes and other effects on the legislation you are viewing and to convey editorial information. They appear at the foot of the relevant provision or under the associated heading. Annotations are categorised by annotation type, such as F-notes for textual amendments and I-notes for commencement information (a full list can be found in the Editorial Practice Guide). Each annotation is identified by a sequential reference number. For F-notes, M-notes and X-notes, the number also appears in bold superscript at the relevant location in the text. All annotations contain links to the affecting legislation. Modifications etc. (not altering text) C5S. 3 explained by Rights of Light Act 1959 (c.

56) , s. 4(2) 4 Before mentioned periods to be deemed those next before suits. E+W+N.I. Each of the respective periods of years herein-before mentioned shall be deemed and taken to be the period next before some suit or action wherein the claim or matter to which such period may relate shall have been or shall be brought into question and that no act or other matter shall be deemed to be an interruption, within the meaning of this statute, unless the same shall have been or shall be submitted to or acquiesced in for one year after the party interrupted shall have had or shall have notice thereof, and of the person making or authorizing the same to be made. Annotations: Annotations are used to give authority for changes and other effects on the legislation you are viewing and to convey editorial information. They appear at the foot of the relevant provision or under the associated heading. Annotations are categorised by annotation type, such as F-notes for textual amendments and I-notes for commencement information (a full list can be found in the Editorial Practice Guide). Each annotation is identified by a sequential reference number. For F-notes, M-notes and X-notes, the number also appears in bold superscript at the relevant location in the text.

All annotations contain links to the affecting legislation. Modifications etc. (not altering text) C6S. 4 amended by Rights of Light Act 1959 (c. 56) , s. 3(6) and Commons Registration Act 1965 (c. 64) , s. 16(2) 5 In actions on the case, the claimant may allege his right generally, as at present. In pleas to trespass and certain other pleadings, the period mentioned in this Act may be alleged. Exceptions, &c. to be replied to specially.E+W+N.I.

In all actions upon the case and other pleadings, wherein the party claiming may now by law allege his right generally, without averring the existence of such right from time immemorial, such general allegation shall still be deemed sufficient, and if the same shall be denied, all and every the matters in this Act mentioned and provided, which shall be applicable to the case, shall be admissible in evidence to sustain or rebut such allegation; and that in all pleadings to actions of trespass, and in all other pleadings wherein before the passing of this Act it would have been necessary to allege the right to have existed from time immemorial, it shall be sufficient to allege the enjoyment thereof as of right by the occupiers of the tenement in respect whereof the same is claimed for and during such of the periods mentioned in this Act as may be applicable to the case, and without claiming in the name or right of the owner of the fee, as is now usually done; and if the other party shall intend to rely on any proviso, exception, incapacity, disability, contract, agreement, or other matter herein-before mentioned, or on any cause or matter of fact or of law not inconsistent with the simple fact of enjoyment, the same shall be specially alleged

 and set forth in answer to the allegation of the party claiming, and shall not be received in evidence on any general traverse or denial of such allegation.

6 Presumption to be allowed in claims herein provided for.E+W+N.I. In the several cases mentioned in and provided for by this Act, no presumption shall be allowed or made in favour or support of any claim, upon proof of the exercise or enjoyment of the right or matter claimed for any less period of time or number of years than for such period or number mentioned in this Act as may be applicable to the case and to the nature of the claim. 7 Proviso for infants, &c.E+W+N.I. Provided also, that the time during which any person otherwise capable of resisting any claim to any of the matters before mentioned shall have been or shall be an infant, idiot, non compos mentis, feme covert, or tenant for life, or during which any action or suit shall have been pending, and which shall have been diligently prosecuted, until abated by the death of any party or parties thereto, shall be excluded in the computation of the periods herein-before mentioned, except only in cases where the right or claim is hereby declared to be absolute and indefeasible. 8 What time to be excluded in computing the term of forty years appointed by this Act.E+W+N.I.

Provided always, that when any land or water upon, over, or from which any such way or other convenient watercourse or use of water shall have been or shall be enjoyed or derived hath been or shall be held under or by virtue of any term of life, or any term of years exceeding three years from the granting thereof, the time of the enjoyment of any such way or other matter as herein last before mentioned, during the continuance of such term, shall be excluded in the computation of the said period of forty years, in case the claim shall within three years next after the end or sooner determination of such term be resisted by any person entitled to any reversion expectant on the determination thereof. [ F1 8A.Exclusion of time because of mediation in certain cross-border disputesE+W+N.I.

(1)In this section— (a) “Mediation Directive” means Directive 2008/52/ EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters; (b)“mediation” has the meaning given by article 3(a) of the Mediation Directive; (c)“mediator” has the meaning given by article 3(b) of the Mediation Directive; (d)“relevant dispute” means a dispute to which article 8(1) of the Mediation Directive applies (certain cross-border disputes).

(2)Where a period is prescribed by this Act in relation to the subject of the whole or part of a relevant dispute, any time after the start of a mediation in relation to the relevant dispute is to be excluded in the computation of that period, but only if— (a)the time when the period must end by virtue of section 4 falls before the mediation ends or less than eight weeks after it ends, or (b)a further mediation in relation to the relevant dispute starts less than eight weeks after the previous mediation ends, and the time when the period must end by virtue of section 4 falls before the further mediation ends or less than eight weeks after it ends. (3)Any time excluded under subsection (2) is also to be excluded in the computation of the second period of three years mentioned in section 8 (period within which claim is resisted). (4)For the purposes of this section, a mediation starts on the date of the agreement to mediate that is entered into by the parties and the mediator.

(5)For the purposes of this section, a mediation ends on the date of the first of these to occur— (a)the parties reach an agreement in resolution of the relevant dispute; (b)a party completes the notification of the other parties that it has withdrawn from the mediation; (c)a party to whom a qualifying request is made fails to give a response reaching the other parties within 14 days of the request; (d)the parties, after being notified that the mediator’s appointment has ended (by death, resignation or otherwise), fail to agree within 14 days to seek to appoint a replacement mediator; (e)the mediation otherwise comes to an end pursuant to the terms of the agreement to mediate. (6)For the purpose of subsection (5), a qualifying request is a request by a party that another (A) confirm to all parties that A is continuing with the mediation. (7)In the case of any relevant dispute, references in this section to a mediation are references to the mediation so far as it relates to that dispute, and references to a party are to be read accordingly.] Annotations: Annotations are used to give authority for changes and other effects on the legislation you are viewing and to convey editorial information.

They appear at the foot of the relevant provision or under the associated heading. Annotations are categorised by annotation type, such as F-notes for textual amendments and I-notes for commencement information (a full list can be found in the Editorial Practice Guide). Each annotation is identified by a sequential reference number. For F-notes, M-notes and X-notes, the number also appears in bold superscript at the relevant location in the text. All annotations contain links to the affecting legislation. Amendments (Textual) This Act shall not extend to Scotland . . . F2 Annotations: Annotations are used to give authority for changes and other effects on the legislation you are viewing and to convey editorial information. They appear at the foot of the relevant provision or under the associated heading. Annotations are categorised by annotation type, such as F-notes for textual amendments and I-notes for commencement information (a full list can be found in the Editorial Practice Guide). Each annotation is identified by a sequential reference number. For F-notes, M-notes and X-notes, the number also appears in bold superscript at the relevant location in the text. All annotations contain links to the affecting legislation. Amendments (Textual) 10, 11.. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F3 E+W+N.I. Annotations: Annotations are used to give authority for changes and other effects on the legislation you are viewing and to convey editorial information. They appear at the foot of the relevant provision or under the associated heading. Annotations are categorised by annotation type, such as F-notes for textual amendments and I-notes for commencement information (a full list can be found in the Editorial Practice Guide). Each annotation is identified by a sequential reference number. For F-notes, M-notes and X-notes, the number also appears in bold superscript at the relevant location in the text. All annotations contain links to the affecting legislation. Amendments (Textual) A Full History of Freemasonry | Freemasons SA & NT A Full History of Freemasonry Moonta Masonic Hall In 1984 RW Bro. Jeremy Pemberton, President of the Board of General Purposes of the United Grand Lodge of England, gave an address at the Centenary Conference of the Grand Lodge of South Australia.

It covered so completely the history of Freemasonry that it is reproduced here in full: There is a much used Masonic expression, "time immemorial", which has become almost meaningless, but has some convenience, enabling us quickly to gloss over many gaps in our history. As a lawyer I cannot resist recalling that in English law time immemorial means time before 1189 - the beginning of the reign of King Richard I. In Masonry it was customary to state that the Craft had existed from time immemorial, meaning that we do not know when it originated, and the use of that expression "time immemorial", has enabled many Masonic writers to give full rein to their imagination when writing on our origins. Dr. James Anderson, when compiling the first official Constitutions of 1723, prefaced the Regulations with a purported history of Masonry tracing it back to Adam in the Garden of Eden, and going on from there to include many biblical, historical and some purely legendary personalities as protector, promoters or Grand Masters of the Art.

Many later writers followed Anderson's example and, without providing factual evidence, attempted to prove that Freemasonry descended from the Ancient Mysteries of classical times, the Egyptian pyramid builders, King Solomon himself, the Roman Collegia, the Comacine Masters, the German Steinmetzen, the French Compagnionage, the Mediaeval Knights Templar or the Rosicrucians. The most durable and probable theory is that we are descended directly or indirectly from the mediaeval operative stone masons who built the great cathedrals and castles. While much evidence exists which apparently demonstrate a link between operative and speculative Masonry, yet like Darwin's theory of evolution, there are missing links which need to be found before theory becomes proven lineal descent. Those who advocate the theory of a direct link between operative and speculative Masonry base their claims on a combination of evidence from England and Scotland. In England the operative mason's lodge was simply a wooden hut in which he took his refreshment and kept his tools. In Scotland the Mason's Lodge was a geographically defined unit controlling the wages and working conditions of the stone masons.

These Scottish lodges had a brief initiation ceremony for apprentices, and had a secret word, which enabled their members to gain work and sustenance when they travelled from one site to another. In the 17th century these Scottish lodges began to admit local gentry as "non-operative" members or "gentleman masons", and the claim is that these non-operatives gradually began to gain ascendancy over the operatives in the transition period, until they dominated the lodges and turned them into lodges of purely speculative Freemasons. Unfortunately for the supporters of this theory, there is no firm evidence of a similar development in England; indeed in England there is no evidence of the existence of operative lodges or of a Mason word. In the 17th Century the first evidence we have of a purely speculative initiation in England is that of Elias Ashmole at an occasional lodge held in Warrington in 1646, none of those present having anything to do with the operative craft. From that event until the formation of the premier Grand Lodge in 1717 all the evidence in England occurs in a purely speculative context.

Those on the other hand, who support an indirect link with operative Masonry, claim that it arose as a result of the religious and political divisions of the 16th and 17th Centuries. They suppose that the founders of speculative masonry were men of goodwill, but of differing opinions, who wished to join together to promote a way of life based upon the principles of brotherly love, relief and truth, without the intrusion of divisive argument over religious or political dogma. In the tradition of their time they promoted their philosophy by means of allegory and symbolism, and as their central idea was the building of a better world, in which mankind could be better prepared for life eternal they took as their allegory the building of King Solomon's Temple, the only building described in detail in the Bible; and adopted the forms and working implements of operative stone masons on which to build their increasingly elaborate symbolism. If, then, our origins remain shrouded in mystery what are the facts? On the 24th June 1717, four London lodges, which possibly had been in existence for thirty years, came together to form a Grand Lodge, the first in the world.

At their meeting they elected Anthony Sayer, one of the Senior Masters present, to be the first Grand Master and resolved to meet together annually. Initially this was all that was done. The Annual Assembly was simply a Festival, and not in any sense a regulatory body. Within a few years, however, the Lodges had increasingly begun to attract men of intellectual ability, who transformed the Annual Feast into what we would now recognise as a Grand Lodge. By 1730 the original four London Lodges had increased to 76 spread over England and Wales and the Grand Lodge was meeting quarterly as a regulatory body. It issued an official Book of Constitutions, set up a Central Charity Fund, appointed provincial Grand Masters to act for the Grand Master in the more distant parts of the country, and began to export the Craft abroad by granting deputations, which we would now call Warrants, to constitute lodges in Gibraltar and India. The Craft in general at this period was a very convivial society. Lodge meetings usually took place in a private room in a tavern.

The ceremonies were fairly short and simple and much of the evening was spent round a long trestle table at which the normal business of the lodge was transacted, and the ceremonies were explained and expounded by means of lectures in the form of questions and answers. Refreshments and tobacco were available throughout the meeting, which was often rounded off by the singing of part-songs and glees. With regular newspaper reports of meetings, public processions in regalia, and the staging of special theatrical performances, at which the brethren wore their regalia, the Craft attracted public attention. To cash in on public curiosity, purported exposures of the ritual began to appear, followed by satires and cartoons. One result of the actions taken by the premier Grand Lodge to counter this adverse publicity was the formation in 1751, of a rival Grand Lodge in London, now known as the Antients Grand Lodge from their claim to be the only practitioners of Freemasonry "according to the Antient Institutions".

Despite serious rivalry, and the fact that neither regarded the other as regular, the two Grand Lodges existed side by side, both at home and abroad, for some sixty years until under the Grand Mastership of the two Royal Brothers, the Duke of Sussex as Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge and the Duke of Kent as Grand Master of the Antients Grand Lodge, the two were brought together to form the United Grand Lodge of England on 27th December, 1813 with the Duke of Sussex as Grand Master. The Union brought about many changes in English Freemasonry, not least in the manner in which meetings were conducted. The Duke was a great universalist, and while the Craft had always been open to men of all faiths, there was much in the 18th century ritual and lectures that was overtly Christian. A Lodge of Reconcilation was set up immediately after the Union to determine the ritual to be followed by all Lodges.

In fact, this special lodge completely reorganised the ritual, removing nearly all the Christian symbolism, greatly extending the simple ceremonies of the 18th century to those we practice today, including material from the catechetical lectures, and bringing about a complete break between the actual meeting and the convivial after-proceedings. The formation of the premier Grand Lodge in 1717 was followed by that of Ireland in 1725 and that of Scotland in 1736. In no sense rivals, the three Grand Lodges developed on individual lines, having a tacit understanding that, whilst overseas territories were open to all three they would not warrant Lodges within each other's territories. The history of the spread of British Freemasonry closely parallels the development of the British Empire; wherever settlers or British Regiments went, Freemasonry soon followed. The spreading abroad of British Freemasonry was greatly facilitated by the granting, particularly by the Antients Grand Lodge and the Grand Lodge of Ireland, of so-called ambulatory warrants to Lodges in the Army.

These Warrants permitted the Lodge to be held wherever the Regiment was stationed, and although the intention was originally that Lodge membership was to be limited to members of the Regiment, if they were stationed in one town for any length of time they soon began to take in local civilians. When the Regiment moved on, the local Brethren then applied to one of the home Grand Lodges for a warrant to hold a Lodge within the town. As a result, the two Grand Lodges of England appointed some twenty-two provincial Grand Masters for various parts of America between 1730 and 1783, made similar appointments for parts of India from 1729 and Canada from 1750, and even warranted a Lodge to meet in Canton in China in 1767. The Irish and Scottish Grand Lodges were no less active, and by the close of the 18th century, British Freemasonry had been introduced into the Americas, Canada, the West Indies, South America, India and certain African ports. The American Lodges gradually declared their independence during the war which created the United States, forming State grand Lodges which in turn spread Freemasonry across the nation as it expanded westwards. Nor was Europe neglected.

The premier Grand Lodge introduced English Freemasonry into France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the German States, Holland, Scandinavia and Russia. Europe was to be a fertile ground for the development not only of the Craft but of many additional degrees. It was, unfortunately, also to be a fertile ground for the perversion of genuine Freemasonry for political ends, and many pseudo-Masonic organisations grew up which were in fact political clubs. It was for this reason, as well as on account of the taking of oaths and our Masonic secrets, that the Vatican issued the first Papal Bull against Freemasonry in 1738, a Bull which was to be reinforced on a number of occasions in the following hundred and fifty years. These continental pseudo-Masonic political and anti-clerical societies also inspired the great conspiracy theory of Freemasonry; the theory of its being an international organisation working for world domination in a political sense; and this led to the many attacks on the integrity of Freemasonry in the 19th and 20th centuries, many of them deliberately fabricated by their authors to achieve political ends.

The 19th century saw the opening up of Africa, Asia, the Far East and of course, Australia and New Zealand, and the 18th century pattern of the Craft following the colonists and the Army was repeated. But just as the older parts of the Empire were beginning to strive for political freedom from the Mother country, so the older colonial Lodges began to look towards separation. The 1850's was not a happy period for the United Grand Lodge of England. A major crisis arose in 1855 when the Lodges in what is now the Province of Ontario, Canada, complained of neglect by the Grand Lodge, letters going unanswered, petitions and fees going unacknowledged. Matters were patched up for a little while but soon slipped back, causing the Lodges in Ontario to set up their own Grand Lodge. When it became clear that independence was the only solution, the Ontario Lodges were granted their freedom and the Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario was formed. Valuable lessons were learnt from this experience, and the system was developed by the home Grand Lodges of holding a plebiscite of the lodges in a particular area when they wished to form their own Grand Lodge.

Provided that a majority was in favour, that the new Grand Lodge would be the sovereign Masonic Craft governing body in the whole state or country, and that any English, Irish or Scottish lodge within the territory which wished to remain under its parent Grand Lodge was permitted to continue working without interference from the new Grand Lodge, the home Grand Lodges gave their blessing to the formation of the new Grand Lodge and granted formal recognition once it was established. The Craft was introduced into Australia in 1803 when a number of Ship's Officers and residents of Sydney held a meeting, but not having the approval of the Governor, the prime mover, H. Brown Hayes was exiled to the new British Settlement in Van Diemen's Land. It was not until 1816 and the arrival of the 46th Regiment with its travelling Lodge of Social and Military Virtues, No.227 under the Grand Lodge of Ireland, that Freemasonry took lasting root. This resulted in the first Australian Lodge, the Australian Social Lodge No.260 of the Irish Constitution being formed in New South Wales in 1820. The Craft was introduced into South Australia by the United Grand Lodge of England and in a most unusual way.

A number of Brethren who were planning to come out to Adelaide in 1834 petitioned for the grant of a Warrant. This was readily agreed to, and the Grand Master issued Warrant No.613 on 22nd October 1834, sanctioning the formation of the South Australian Lodge of Friendship. Hardly was the ink of the Grand Master's signature dry when the Warrant was taken that same day from Freemasons' Hall in London for a distance of less than a mile to No.7 John street, Adelphi, off the Strand, where the Lodge was formally constituted, and met on a number of occasions. It was to be almost four years before the Lodge reached South Australia. On 11th August 1838, it first met at Black's Hotel, Franklin street, Adelaide. Now, of course, it is the Lodge of Friendship, No.1 on the Register of the Grand Lodge of South Australia and I had the great pleasure of attending a meeting of this your oldest Lodge yesterday evening.

The formation of the Lodge of Friendship was to be followed by the granting of more warrants for Lodges in South Australia, and the appointment of Henry Mildred as provincial Grand Master, under the English Constitution, on 22nd November, 1847. Ireland and Scotland followed suit and the three constitutions worked together in amity. When the desire for self-determination grew, the Brethren who formed the Executive Committee for the Masonic Union in South Australia, showed great tact and foresight in not rushing matters, and in making sure that they had the full support of the Lodges. As a result, when the event whose Centenary we are now celebrating, the formation of the Grand Lodge of South Australia, took place on 17th April, 1884, the new Grand Lodge was quickly recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England followed by those of Scotland and Ireland. The final seal of approval came in 1888 when The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) who was then Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, and Grand Patron of the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland, accepted the title of Patron of the Grand Lodge of South Australia.

Such, my friends, is a very brief account of the origin and development of the Masonic Craft, and of the events leading to the establishment of the Grand Lodge of South Australia on 17th April, 1884. Left Panel Info:

Question: The term 'Time Immemorial' was set as the period before the reign of which English king ?
Answer: RICHARD I