A Jolly Masonic Mug
January 28, 2025
Over two hundred years ago, potters at the Sunderland Pottery, a firm owned by John Phillips, created this transfer print-decorated mug with the Masonic consumer in mind. Part of the collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library since the late 1980s, this drinking vessel is on view in “Looking Back, Moving Forward: 50 Years of Collecting.”
Starting in the mid-1700s and through the 1800s, English ceramics manufacturers produced mugs, plates, and pitchers decorated with transfer-printed images specifically designed to appeal to Freemasons. Sold in Great Britain and around the world, these goods were also popular in the United States. On this mug, enclosed by a border ornamented with swags of flowers, is an image of a monumental building, King Solomon’s Temple. Two columns topped with globes and figures personifying justice (holding scales) and prudence (with mirror in hand) flank the temple, along with depictions of Masonic symbols. Fundamental to Freemasonry, the story of building King Solomon's Temple is central to ritual of the first three Masonic degrees. The objects depicted on this mug, such as a square, compasses, a ladder, and beehive, are symbols used in Freemasonry.
An oval between the columns contains a verse of “The Entered Apprentice’s Song,” a well-known Masonic song. London-based actor and Freemason Matthew Birkhead (d. 1723) wrote the lyrics, probably in the late 1710s. Initially published in the 1720s, the song soon achieved widespread popularity and continued to be printed well into the 1800s. Instructions that accompanied the first published versions of Birkhead’s lyrics dictated that brethren could sing the song, with permission of the lodge’s Master, only once the thoughtful work of a meeting was complete.
To add to its appeal, the maker of this cup added a surprise—a lifelike green ceramic frog attached to one of the mug’s interior walls. This unexpected feature was intended to trick the unwary, and—with luck—prompt a hilarious reaction. Just as singing “The Entered Apprentice’s Song” signaled the end of serious lodge business, the frog within this mug indicated it was intended for the most social--and jolly--kinds of Masonic gatherings.
References:
John Hamilton, The Material Culture of the American Freemason (Lexington, Massachusetts: Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Inc., 1994), 217-218.
The 1723 Constitutions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, "The Endpiece--Masonic Songs."