Tracing Boards
In the days of early Speculative Masonry in England a considerable portion of the Ceremony was connected with a drawing on the floor of the Lodge Room.
In those days Lodges usually met in some well-known inn or tavern. The furnishings would be very plain, and the floor would consist of boards sprinkled with sand or rushes. When a Degree was being worked, a space in front of the Master's pedestal was swept clean. On this clear space it was the Tyler's duty to draw with chalk and charcoal a design in the form of an oblong square, representing a building, with various Masonic Symbols and Emblems such as the Square, Level and Plumb Rule, and possibly other designs representing King Solomon's Temple and the Tomb of Hiram. After the Symbols and Emblems had been explained to the Candidate, he was given a mop and a pail of water and ordered to wash out the drawing on the floor.
It was the Tyler's duty to make this drawing with chalk and charcoal, for which he was paid a special fee, often two shillings and six pence (2/6d). The drawing was an important part of the Ceremony and a Lodge would not be held to initiate a Candidate without it.
A framework of board or canvas, on which the emblems of any particular Degree are inscribed, for the assistance of the Master in giving a lecture. It is so called because formerly it was the custom to inscribe these designs on the floor of the Lodge-room in chalk, which were wiped out when the Lodge was closed. It is the same as the Carpet, or Tracing-Board. The washing out of the designs chalked upon the floor is seen in the early caricatures of the Craft where a mop and pail are illustrated.
These would soon be put aside when Lodges met in carpeted rooms. Then the symbols were shown by marking out the Lodge with tape and nails or shaping the symbols in wood or metal to be laid upon the floor or table or pedestal as the case might be in the Lodge. Such use of separate symbols we have seen in English Lodges, as at Bristol, where the ancient ceremonies are jealously and successfully preserved.
An easy development would be to picture the designs on a cloth to be spread out on the floor when in use or folded up for storage. Then there would be the further movement to the stereopticon slides of a similar character, and which find frequent use in the United States. Brother John Harris in 1820 designed and made a set of Tracing Boards for the Three Degrees. These designs were never authorized by the Grand Lodge of England, the individual Lodges employed their own artists and the results varied accordingly, though the influence of Brother Harris tended to the uniformity that practically now prevails among Tracing-Board makers.
Articles of much interest and value on the subject are "Evolution and Development of the Tracing or Lodge Board," by Brother E. H. Dring (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1916, volume xxix, pages 243 and 275), and "Some Notes on Tracing Board of the Lodge of Union, No. 38" by Brother O.N. Wyatt (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1910, volume xxiii, page 191). The latter article refers particularly to the work of Brother Josiah Bowring, a portrait painter of London, who painted the One Ritual says: "Some Lodges use tape and nails to form the same thing and so keep the world ignorant of the matter".
This method was used first on account of the introduction of carpets. It was thus impossible to draw on the floor with chalk and charcoal. Also Tylers who were able to draw these designs with the necessary accuracy and some regard to fidelity of type were not always easy to obtain.
Later the custom was gradually introduced of using templates, that is, pieces of metal cut to the desired shapes and placed on the squared design.
Later still floorcloths were introduced. The drawing was made up on a large piece of cloth which could be placed on the floor and rolled up and put away when not in use. For the sake of convenience these cloths were placed on boards and held up by two trestles and known as Trestle Boards. Gradually the custom seems to have arisen of drawing emblems on the Board itself, and as the drawing on the floor was known as "The Lodge" the Board was generally known as "The Lodge Board" though still sometimes called "The Lodge", For example, in the Book of Constitution of the year 1784 there is an account of the dedication of the Freemasons Hall, London, in which it states "About half past twelve the processions entered the Hall in the following order: Grand Tyler with drawn sword four Tylers carrying the Lodge covered in white satin".
No dates can be given for the various changes. There seems to have been no uniformity. Some Lodges appear to have had boards before they had cloths, and some to have had both at once, and some to have gone straight from the drawing on the floor to the Lodge Board. Although undoubtedly there were Lodge Boards in existence before 1800, they did not come into general use until about that time.
The Tracing Board will thus be seen to have passed through 5 stages.
In the 1st Tracing Board Lecture there are two inconsistent statements regarding the Tracing Board:
The first implies a plain and clear drawing board, the second something more. The explanation is that two separate boards are referred to. The first, the real Tracing Board, is a plain drawing board depicted on the First Degree Board in front of the Pedestal, and the second, the Lodge Board, is what is usually known to us as the Tracing Board with the various Symbols and Emblems painted on it.
Transactions, Masters' and Past Masters' Lodge 130, Christchurch, New Zealand)boards for the Chichester Lodge in 1811, himself being initiated in 1795.