Above:
Douglas Knoop, after whom
the new Centre is named
Above:
Artist’s impression of the new
Centre for Masonic Research
Andrew Prescott is director of the
Centre for Research into Freemasonry
at the University of Sheffield
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The development of the Centre for Research
into Freemasonry (CRF) at the University
of Sheffield, the first Centre devoted to
academic research into Freemasonry in
a British university, will enter an exciting
new phase in early 2006, when it moves
into new premises at the University’s
Humanities Research Institute (HRI).
Since its establishment in 2000, the CRF
has been based in the offices of the HRI in the
1960s Arts Tower building which dominates
the University’s campus.
One of the reasons why the study of
Freemasonry is such an exciting area of
academic research is that it connects with
a wide range of different subject areas, and
the CRF has benefited greatly from being
based in a unit such as the HRI, which enables
the Centre readily to make contact with
academics in many different disciplines.
In the first half of 2006, the CRF will move
into splendid new facilities in a renovated
early Victorian villa on the site of the former
Jessop Hospital for Women at the heart
of the University’s campus.
The Jessop Hospital opened in 1878 and
was closed in 2001. The acquisition of the
former hospital site is enabling the University
to create a more integrated campus and to
replace existing cramped accommodation
for a number of University departments.
With the aid of a generous charitable
donation, a dramatic and beautiful extension
is being built in the former gardens of the villa
which will provide a new home for the CRF.
The new building will provide expanded
office space for the Centre, space for visiting
Masonic scholars, and special storage for the
Centre’s growing collection of Masonic
research resources.
The new building will also provide
beautifully appointed new facilities for the
Centre’s programme of conferences, seminar
and study days. There will be a lecture
theatre, seminar room and break-out space,
all equipped with state-of-the-art audio
visual equipment. It is hoped that there
will also be space for small exhibitions
of books and artefacts.
Above all, the new building will provide
an attractive setting for the Centre’s teaching
activities, and the technical facilities of
the new building will assist in making the
activities of the Centre available to those
who cannot get to Sheffield.
The new premises will provide a perfect
environment to showcase the work of the
Centre and the exciting academic work
which has been funded by United Grand
Lodge of England, Supreme Grand Chapter,
Yorkshire West Riding Province and
Lord Northampton.
The new building has been designed by
the Sheffield firm of Bond Bryan, whose
other works includes the new South Stand of
Hillsborough football ground, the Shropshire
campus of the University of Wolverhampton,
and part of the English Sports Institute at the
University of Loughborough. Contractors
for the project are the long-established York
construction and civil engineering firm,
William Birch and Sons.
The new extension will be named after
Douglas Knoop (1883–1948), who was
Professor of Economics in the University
of Sheffield from 1920 to 1948 and Master
of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, the
premier Lodge of Masonic research. Knoop
was the inspirational leader of the ‘Sheffield
school’, whose other members were
Professors Gwilym Jones and Douglas
Hamer and which produced the largest
and most influential single body of research
by British scholars into the history of
Freemasonry. Knoop’s background in
economics and his collaboration with literary
scholars in works which remain standard
references for historians, prefigured the kind
of interdisciplinary outlook which the HRI
and the CRF seek to develop. The programme
which the CRF will offer in its new home is
still being finalised, but details of initial events
will be given in the next issue of MQ.
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