Miners, Mariners & Masons: The Global Network of Victorian Freemasonry - Hardcover

by Roger Burt (Author)

Freemasonry played a major role in the economic and social life of the Victorian era but it has received very little sustained attention by academic historians. General histories of the period hardly notice the subject while detailed studies mainly confine themselves to its origins in the early eighteenth century and its later institutional development. This book is the first sustained and dispassionate study of the role of Freemasonry in everyday social and economic life: why men joined, what it did for them and their families, and how it affected the development of communities and local economies.

Author Biography

Roger Burt is Professor Emeritus of Economic History at the University of Exeter. He has been a consultant to mining companies and government departments and contributes to radio programmes on mining related issues.