Charles A. Sankey Lectures n Masonic Studies with Brock U and Ontario Masons logo

2026 Lecture – Scenes from a Biography of James Anderson: Religion and Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century English Freemasonry

Susan Mitchell Sommers
Professor emerita of History, Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania

Prof. Sommers is an expert in eighteenth-century British history and the history of Fraternalism. She has contributed twice in previous years to the Sankey Lecture Series in Masonic Studies. Sommers was the 2015 Sankey lecturer and she contributed to Prof. Andrew Prescott’s 2016 lecture. For several years, she has been the organizer of an International Conference on Freemasonry, held in conjunction with the Grand Lodge of California. Additionally, she is the author of numerous printed contributions to scholarship on Freemasonry. These include:

  • The Siblys of London: A Family on the Esoteric Fringes of Georgian England (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism, 2018).
  • With Andrew Prescott, “James Anderson: A Child of his Time,” in Reflections on 300 Years of Freemasonry (Lewis Masonic, 2017).
  • “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Order of the Eastern Star in the Historiography of American Women’s Associations,” Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, vol. 4, no. 1-2, (2013), 146-59.
  • Thomas Dunckerley and English Freemasonry (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).

From 2015 to 2018 she was co-editor of the Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism. She is currently working on a biography of James Anderson; this is the subject of her 2026 Sankey Lecture.

Lecture Summary

James Anderson (1679-1739) has proved to be one of the most impactful figures of early Grand Lodge Masonry.

After all, he wrote the first and second editions of The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, published in 1723 and 1738 — one of the most famous and influential of all Masonic texts.  Many Masons have read his words and probably quote him often about the “Religion in which all men agree.” What did he really mean by those words, and what do we know about his life outside of the lodge? The story of his life is entertaining and (especially for Masons who know of Anderson’s importance) surprising.

Sommers’ lecture is based on deep historical research, and it enriches the early history of Freemasonry.