Robert Thomas Crucefix, Redux
Issue: Vol 3 No. 1 (2012)
Journal: Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism
Subject Areas: Religious Studies
DOI: 10.1558/jrff.v3i1.72
Abstract:
Robert Thomas Crucefix (1788-1850) was a charismatic and polarizing figure in English freemasonry through the 1830s until his death. He is best remembered for founding the Freemasons’ Quarterly Review and as the primary force behind the establishment of the Asylum for Worthy, Aged and Decayed Freemasons. He was not only an active Craft mason and Junior Grand Deacon in the Grand Lodge, but he also joined, and often dominated, other degrees and orders in England, Scotland, Ireland, France and the United States. Though there has been no proper biography of Crucefix, much has been written about his masonic activities, and especially about his ongoing confrontations with the Duke of Sussex, who served as Grand Master for much of the time Crucefix was a freemason.
His private life has been virtually ignored, and this is especially true for his medical career, around which a cordon sanitaire seems to have been thrown, fending off inquiry. This study is a preliminary foray beyond that boundary, exploring both Crucefix’s medical career and its broader implications.
Author: Susan Mitchell Sommers
References :
Archives
London Metropolitan Archives
The National Archives, Kew
The Royal College of Surgeons, Museums and Archives
Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, Archives & Museum
United Grand Lodge of England, Library and Museum
University of St. Andrews, Library Department of Special Collections
Newspapers (all London unless indicated otherwise)
Atlas
Berrow’s Worcester Journal (Worcester)
Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh)
The Era
Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin)
The Freemason
Freemasons’ Quarterly Review
The Ipswich Journal (Ipswich, Suffolk)
London Gazette
The London Review
Masonic Observer
The Morning Chronicle
The Morning Post
Reynolds’s Newspaper
The Times
The Annual Register
Printed Sources
Archer, Thomas. The Terrible Sights of London and Labours of Love in the Midst of Them, London: S. Rivers, 1870.
British Medical Journal. ‘The German University Degree Trade’, British Medical Journal, London: British Medical Association (28 November 1863) 2, 581.
Burnett, Alexander. The Medical Adviser, and Guide to Health and Long Life, London: John Knight and Henry Lacey, 1824.
Carfrae, J.A. The Medical Times (London: McRitchie, 1842).
Clark, Peter. British Clubs and Societies 1580–1800, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Cordery, Simon. British Friendly Societies, 1750–1914, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230598041
Crucefix, Robert Thomas. Time versus life, an enigma: attempted to be solved by observation on … youth, manhood, age; the ill-concealed imprudence of youth, the irresolution of manhood, as prematurely heralding the advance of age; on indigestion and mental irritation … also on the moral command of the passions, and on … diseases of the urethra, etc., and other disqualifications to marriage, London: Sherwood, 1844.
The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Edinburgh: Printed by the heirs of D. Willison, 1824.
English, Henry. The Mining Almanack for 1849, London: The Mining Journal Office, 1849.
The Extractor; or, Universal Repertorium of Literature, Science, and the Arts, London: James Bullock, 1828.
Gosden, Peter Henry John Heather. The Friendly Societies in England 1815–1875, Manchester: The University Press, 1961.
General Medical Council. Medical Register, 1859–1959, London: General Medical Council.
Goss & Co. Ægis of Life: a Non-medical Commentary on the Indiscretions Arising from Human Frailty, London: Sherwood, 1818.
Goss & Co. Hygeina; Addressed Exclusively to the Female Sex, London: Sherwood, c. 1824.
Goss & Co. The Syphilist: a Familiar Treatise on the Nature, Symptoms and Effects of Lues Venerea, Gonorrhoea … and Incidental Diseases, London: Sherwood, 1830.
Goss & Co. Organic Health, London: Sherwood, 1843.
Goss & Co. Gynomia, or the Physiology of Woman, London: Sherwood, 1843.
Goss, Horace (pseud.), Woman; Her Physiology, and Functions, London: published by the author, 1853.
Green Hennis and Robert Streeten, eds. Provincial Medical & Surgical Journal, London: John Churchill, 1842.
Gould, Robert F. ‘The Medical Profession and Freemasonry’, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 7 (1894), 145-71.
Hart, Grace G., ed. Merchant Taylors’ School Register 1561–1934, vol. 1, London: Merchant Taylors’ Company, 1936.
Holden, W. Holden’s Annual London and Country Directory, of the United Kingdoms, and Wales, in Three Volumes, London: W. Holden, 1811.
James, P.R. ‘The Grand–Mastership of H.R.H. The Duke of Sussex, 1813–43’, in The Collected Prestonian Lectures, 1961–1974, Henry Carr, ed., London: Lewis Masonic, 1984.
Kelly, F. Post Office Directory, London: W. Kelly & Co., 1855 and 1859.
Knelman, Judith. ‘Nervous Debility: a Disorder Made to Order’, Victorian Review, vol. 22, no. 1 (Summer 1996), 32-41.
London Royal Blue Book, London: 1860.
Mackey, Albert. Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, New York: Masonic History Co., 1909.
Mackey, Albert. Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences, Philadelphia, PA: McClure Publishing Co., 1917.
McCormick, Ian. Sexual Outcasts: Onanism, London: Routledge, 2000.
The Medical Times, London: McRitchie (October 1841 to March 1842).
Moxon, Edward. The Englishman’s Magazine, London: Bradbury and Evans (1831).
Murray, John, ed. Quarterly Literary Advertiser, London: 1830.
Newman, Aubrey. ‘Masonic Controversy and the Freemasons’ Magazine in Mid-Victorian England’, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 122 (2009), 185-205.
Perry, R. & L. & Co., The Silent Friend: a medical work, treating on the anatomy and physiology of the organs of generation, and their diseases, with observations on onanism and its baneful results, including mental and sexual incapacity and impotence, and on the venereal and syphilitic maladies, with plain and clear directions for the removal of secondary symptoms, gonorrhea or clap, gleet, stricture, whites, and all diseases of the urinary organs, concluding with general observations on marriage and its impediments, from the evil consequences arising from early abuse and syphilitic infection, with the means for their removal: illustrated by coloured engravings, London: Published by the authors, 1847.
Pigot, J. and Co. Pigot’s Commercial Directory for London and Provinces…, London: J. Pigot and Son, 1822–23.
Pope, S.A. The Bank of England Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of England, No. 263, Its History and the Lifework of Its Members…1788–1931, London: 1932.
Report of the Second Anniversary Meeting of the Newspaper Press Benevolent Association, Held at Freemason’s Tavern, on Saturday, 18th July, 1839, Appendix II.
Robson, William. Robson’s London Directory, 23rd ed. London: 1842.
Royal Commission of Inquiry into the State of the Universities in Scotland. ‘On the Universities and Colleges of Scotland’, Reports from Commissioners: Four Volumes (14 June–20 October 1831).
Sandbach, Richard. ‘Robert Thomas Crucefix, 1788–1850’, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 102 (1989), 131-63.
Sandbach, Richard. ‘The Freemasons’ Quarterly Review 1835–1840’, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 106 (1993), 1-14.
Sandvall, Harriet. ‘Half a Penny a Day for Three Years—the Remarkable Story of Croydon’s Asylum for Worthy, Aged and Decayed Freemasons (Part 1)’, Library and Museum News for the Friends of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, issue 29 (winter 2010), 3-8.
Slater, Michael. Douglas Jerrold, London: Duckworth, 2002.
Smart, Robert N. The Biographical Register of the University of St Andrews, 1747–1897, University of St Andrews, 2004.
The Annual Register; a Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad, for the Year 1864, London: Rivingtons, 1865.
The Banker’s Magazine, ‘Clerical, Medical, & General Life Assurance Society Report and Proceedings’, vol. 7 (London Goombridge & Sons, April 1847 to December 1847).
The University Quarterly: Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and Professional Students, in the United States and Europe, New Haven, CT: Printed for the Association (1861).
Waite, Arthur Edward. A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, London: W. Rider & Son, 1921.
Wakley, Thomas, ed. The Lancet, London: John Churchill (1845), vol. 2, 564-65.
White, Francis & Co. History & Directory of Birmingham, Birmingham: John Burton, 1849.
Yeoman, Thomas Harrison, ed. The People’s Medical Journal, London: George Vickers, 1850.