FEATURE: Get to know how Freemasons came to Tanzania, East Africa

For many of us, history is a dry subject.  My professor at the University of Poona used to remind us that one has to develop a passion for history to the extent that you live in the times you are describing.  In some countries which have become self-governing in the last six/seven decades, there is a tendency to rewrite history.  For instance, the 1856/58 mutiny in India was firstly an industrial action.  In order to speed up the process of loading cartridges in a rifle, the British introduced a paper cartridge which, to help protect it from the elements, used to be coated in tallow made from beef or pork fat.  The sepoys were expected to bite open the paper cartridge to expose the powder. The sepoys refused to handle such cartridges. 

A mathematics professor in his bathing suit was standing near a swimming pool on the university campus, when an attractive young female accidentally dropped her camera in the deep end of the pool.  She asked the elderly professor for help and he said he would be glad to dive in after the camera, but first he wanted to know why she had approached him when there were so many younger men around who would have been eager to oblige her.  She answered: “Professor, you have apparently forgotten me, but I attend your large history class.  I have found that you can go down deeper and stay down longer and come up drier than anyone I know.”  I hope to dwell on my subject fairly deeply but would not be too long nor, I hope, too dry.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, European interest in East Africa, which had been largely dormant since the Omanis had driven the Portuguese out in 1729, was reawakened by explorers, evangelists and abolitionists. But the crusading zeal to free East Africa from slavery and native theologies was soon to be skewed by expansionist ideologies. The formation, in 1884, of the Society for German Colonisation by the legendary Carl Peters, and the almost immediate acquisition by Germany of East African territories that had nominally been in the possession of the Omani Sultan of Zanzibar, quickly became part of that great hurrah for European Imperialism.

This Scramble for Africa, as it soon became known, immediately added a fourth ‘C’— Conquest—to the three Cs of Christianity, Civilisation and Commerce that Livingstone had always seen as the only means of salvation for Africa. With that early European settlement of East Africa came dramatic social, economic and political change.  In East Africa, as it had before in North America, India and South Africa, Freemasonry followed the flag, becoming embedded in the societies being forcibly reshaped by European settlement.  Strangely enough, the craft did not follow the German flag into East Africa as it did into German South West Africa.

By 1886, the Berlin Conference and its Delimitation Commission had carved up so-called spheres of influence for Britain and Germany in East Africa, with the Germans taking most of what subsequently became Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi and with Britain asserting even tighter control over Omani-run Zanzibar while exercising rights over much of the future Uganda and Kenya. 

But the Berlin Conference was less of a final settlement than the prompt for further expansionism. Lord Salisbury, the then British Prime Minister, who had previously been lukewarm to the idea of British expansionism in East Africa developed a sudden taste for that sub-region, remarking to the French Ambassador to London at the time, “L’appetit vient en mangeant.”

Britain’s efforts to consolidate its grip on its putative East African possessions, most notably Uganda with its control of the headwaters of the Nile, quickly moved up a gear in the late 1880s, and was to be successfully concluded in 1890—with Bismarck’s departure undercutting Carl Peters’ continuing efforts to squeeze Britain out of Uganda. 

The British government then had unleashed the power of its merchant adventurers. In the august traditions of the Hudson Bay Company and the British East India Company, the government had, in 1888, granted a Royal Charter to the Imperial British East African Company (known simply as IBEA) as the main implementing body of British policy on the East African mainland, and IBEA was progressively to expand its remit for the next 20 years, while concurrently tightening its relationship with the British government—first in an agreement signed in 1895 with the Foreign Office, and then in 1905 with the recently established Colonial Office.

The IBEA played a central role in the early history of British East Africa, laying the foundations for the economic development of both Kenya and Uganda.  The company tapped the agricultural potential of the vast hinterland of British East Africa, and the starting point for that was to build a railway. The line that was built, which has since passed into legend as the “Lunatic Express”, created the framework for future settlement and economic development of both Kenya and Uganda. The railway also became the means by which Freemasonry took root on the mainland of East Africa.

The First Phase: Catching Up

IBEA began life operating out of Zanzibar, which had been of increasing importance to Britain since the 1840s—first as a post on the trading route to India and then, increasingly with the acquisition of the Suez Canal, as a strategic asset. In 1872, the first passenger and cargo service from Zanzibar to Europe, via Aden, was established. In 1879, following the laying of undersea cables by the Eastern Telegraph Company, the first telegraph links between Zanzibar and London—again via Aden—came into operation. 

By the 1880s, the British representative in Zanzibar, Sir John Kirk, had effectively consolidated Britain’s grip on the waning powers of the Sultanate. From then until the opening up of the Uganda Railway, the British community in Zanzibar continued to grow and flourish. By the beginning of the twentieth century, that community was sufficiently large and well-established to justify application for the granting of a warrant for a Masonic lodge.

This was very much in keeping with the traditions of past merchant adventures. In the eighteenth century, the chartered companies had settled in North America, India and Australia and initiated new Masonic lodges under the English constitution. The same had happened in the last century in Southern Africa.  With the nearest lodges being over 2,000 miles away, it was almost inevitable that the Masons in Zanzibar would wish to follow the path of their forbears elsewhere.

All this paved the way for the first seeds of freemasonry in East Africa to be sown. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the British community in Zanzibar was sufficiently large and well-established to generate a call for the granting of a warrant for a Masonic lodge.

This called for a leader and one was found in Brother J.T. Last, a distinguished explorer and naturalist and a former Commissioner for Slavery in Zanzibar. His first informal soundings of the Grand Secretary, taken when on leave in England, had made little headway. But he persisted, using further informal communications to bolster the case for a Lodge in Zanzibar—citing in particular the distance to the nearest lodge.

On his return to Zanzibar, he sent a formal petition to the United Grand Lodge of England in 1903, sponsored by Harlesden Lodge No 2098, in which a warrant for the establishment of a Lodge on the islands was sought.  Thanks to the early ground work that Brother Last had put in while on leave, this request was speedily granted. A Lodge was consecrated later that year, with Brother Last installed as the First Master of Lodge East Africa No 30—which was to remain in existence for some 40 years, sadly surrendering its warrant at the end of the Second World War when numbers had dwindled to insufficiency.

By then, though, Lodge East Africa had played a crucial role in helping to establish and consolidate Freemasonry on the East African mainland. The first phase of freemasonry in East Africa—catching up with and consolidating economic, commercial and political change—had started.  The focus soon switched to the mainland. Not to German East Africa but to Kenya, where the recently completed Uganda Railway was already having a profound effect on European settlement in the largest of the three British Protectorates in East Africa.

Zanzibar had made considerable advance in its efforts to harness agriculture, commerce and infrastructure in the meantime. 

In 1901, the first packet of tea made in East Africa was produced in Dunga.  The leaves were first products of the garden that was laid out in 1899.  It was manufactured with such appliances as were to hand, rolled on the deal table, sun-dried, and fired with ordinary charcoal stove.

Later in the year, the first bulk oil installation started in Zanzibar following the completion of tank and pier at Mtakuja.  The tank for reception of petroleum in bulk was erected by Messrs Smith Mackenzie and Co—the agent for Shell Transport and Trading Company Limited.  The installation also comprised a factory for the manufacture of kerosene tins.

In 1903, the first newspaper in Zanzibar “Samachar” was printed.  It was later reorganised as a daily paper, with the first edition appearing on August 21, 1905.  Several newspapers were published in Zanzibar later on.

In 1903, powerful light-houses were opened at Kigomasha in Pemba and Chumbe. The following year, Freemasons in Nairobi submitted an application to the Grand Secretary seeking approval to establish a lodge in the city.  Lodge Harmony No. 3084 came into existence on May 1, 1905.  Later on, I was privileged to be the Centenary Master of this lodge.  I am now an honorary member.

The Sultan of Zanzibar encouraged infrastructure growth.  The French established a post office which issued stamps of various denominations following those issued by the French Metropolitan Government between 1870 and 1900.  A school for the Royal family and upper class Arabs was established and seven miles of a three-foot gauge railway was built by an American firm, connecting Bububu and Forodhani, and sold to the government in 1911.  In 1905, electricity was supplied within a radius of five miles from the Sultan’s Palace.  The plant was installed by Mr J.A. Jones of New York. 

Interestingly, Zanzibar’s streets had electricity earlier than streets in London, where they were still using gas lamps.  An American company installed a telephone service at the Old Fort telephone service and a Post Office was built at Shangani.  Prior to that, the postal service which had started in 1873 was located in Mackenzie building and had joined the Postal Union. 

The Uganda Railway had opened the way for much larger scale British colonisation of the hinterland.  This brought about development in new settlements in Kenya and Uganda.  With time, these became important centres for the growth of Freemasonry across East Africa. 

Lodge Harmony No. 3084 played a key role in this endeavour.  The first priority of Freemasons in Nairobi was to raise their numbers. To achieve this, the Lodge was allowed to pass to higher degrees candidates all at one meeting—more than permitted by the constitution. 

The Lodge leased its premises from the Post Office in Victoria Street (now Tom Mboya Street).  It used an organ borrowed from St Stephen’s Church.  A Lodge under the Grand Lodge of Scotland, called Lodge Scotia No. 1008, was formed in 1906, with the first Master of Harmony Lodge officiating at the consecration ceremony. A relatively young member of Lodge Harmony became the first Master of Lodge Scotia.  But with Lodge Harmony helping the first Scottish Lodge with their ceremonies, incorrect rituals and irregular habits became ingrained in the system—giving rise to confusion among members of both lodges. 

For the next six years, Sir Charles Bowring, who served as acting governor of the protectorate on three occasions, played a key role in the development of Freemasonry in Kenya and Uganda.  He was appointed the first Grand Inspector of East African Lodges.

Two years, 1909 and 1910, were remarkable for two visits that provided external recognition of the growing vigour of Freemasonry in East Africa.  In September 1909, Lodge Harmony No 3084 was favoured with a visit by former US President Theodore Roosevelt—a distinguished Freemason who had just completed two successful terms in the White House. 

Roosevelt had come to Africa at the behest of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.  His visit was celebrated more for the large number of hunting trophies that he returned with than for anything in the way of academic findings.  He was elected an honorary member of the Lodge. A signed photograph of his still takes pride of place in the archives in Nairobi. 

His Royal Highness Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, visited the Lodge the following year.  He had become the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England on accession of his brother as King Edward the VII.  He was appointed Governor General of Canada when a delegation from Lodge Harmony paid a call upon him.

The silver rupee of British India was made the standard coin for the Protectorate and Zanzibar at this time and currency notes were issued.  The first German-made Daimler motor car was used by the Sultan.  Morris Cowley, Citreon and Fiat cars were introduced in both Zanzibar and the mainland.

In 1911—the year the Sultan visited England to attend the Coronation of King George V—the Victoria Nyanza Lodge No. 3492 was established. It was the first in Uganda.  Two years later, Lodge Menengai No. 3559 and Mombasa Lodge No. 3645 were consecrated.  At the start of the First World War in 1914, a total of seven lodges had been established under the English constitution, with a collective membership running into the hundreds.

The World War brought an end to the development of Freemasonry as young British men living in the protectorate enlisted in the services.  The petition sent in early 1918 by a number of Zanzibar-based Masons for a second lodge was approved on November 15 of that year.  The aftermath of the war did not allow the consecration of Lodge Zanzibar No. 3897 until March 29, 1920. 

Zanzibar had its first motor lorry then, a two-ton Daimler which was operated by the Public Works Department.  The International Maritime Bureau functioned from 1892 to 1920. 

The first standard measure of weight and capacity were introduced in 1923 and first Executive and Legislative Councils were constituted in 1926.

With the end of German rule on the Mainland came the revival of interest in Freemasonry.  A Lodge of Instruction came first in Tabora and was then moved to Dar es Salaam to serve British soldiers.