Gormogons Freemasonry's only Formidable Rivals

[Legend]

The Gormogons

The Antient Noble Order of the Gormogons was a short-lived eighteenth
century society; leaving no records or accomplishments to indicate its
true goal and purpose. From the few published advertisements and
notices, it would appear that its sole objective was to hold up
Freemasonry to ridicule.

The Gormogons are first heard of in a notice published in the London
Daily Post for September 3, 1724:

"Whereas the truly ANTIENT NOBLE ORDER of the Gormogons,
instituted by Chin-Qua Ky-Po, the first Emperor of China (according to
their account), many thousand years before Adam, and of which the
great philosopher Confucious was Oecumenicae Volgee, has lately been
brought into England by a Mandarin, and he having admitted several
Gentlemen of Honour into the mystery of that most illustrious order,
they have determined to hold a Chapter at the Castle Tavern in Fleet
Street, at the particular request of several persons of quality. This
is to inform the public, that there will be no drawn sword at the
Door, nor Ladder in a dark Room, nor will any Mason be reciev'd as a
member till he has renounced his Novel Order and been properly
degraded. N.B. — The Grand Mogul, the Czar of Muscovy, and Prince
Tochmas are entr'd into this Hon. Society ; but it has been refused to
the Rebel Meriweys, to his great Mortification. The Mandarin will
shortly set out for Rome, having a particular Commission to make a
Present of the Antient Order to his Holiness, and it is believ'd the
whole Sacred College of Cardinals will commence Gormogons. Notice will
be given in the Gazette the Day the Chapter will be held.2 .

Letters appeared in the Plain Dealer for Monday, September 14, 1724
(No. 51) attacking Freemasonry and referring to the Gormogons; and
then in the British Journal for December 12, 1724: "We hear that a
Peer of the first Rank, a noted Member of the Society of Free-Masons,
hath suffered himself to be degraded as a member of that Society, and
his Leather Apron and Gloves to be burnt, and thereupon enter'd
himself as a Member of the Society of Gormogons, at the Castle-Tavern
in Fleet Street." This is presumed to be a reference to Philip, Duke
of Wharton.
Little is heard again of the Gormogons until the editions of the Daily
Journal for October 26 and 28, 1728: "By command of the Vol-Gi. A
General Chapter of the Most August and Ancient Order, GOR-MO-GON, will
be held at the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street, on Saturday, the 31st
Inst., to commence at 12 o'clock ; of which the several Graduates and
Licentiates are to take Notice, and give their Attendance." The same
year a letter by Wharton appeared in Mr. Mist’s Journal lampooning the
British royal court in a similar Persian style as the Gormogon
literature of 1724.
Nichols and Stevens, editors of Hogarth’s Works(1810) claim that the
order was frequently advertised between October 1728 and 1730 but no
records remain extant. The Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer for
April 18, 1730 stated that John Dennis, poet, political writer and
critic, had renounced the Gormogons and joined the Freemasons.
Wharton died on May 31, 1731, and the Gormogons were not heard from
again. There is no evidence of any other members other than Wharton
and Dennis. Dennis was a Whig so his alleged membership was probably a
hoax. Unlike the Scald- Miserables4 ., and contrary to Hogarth’s
print, the Gorgomons never actually held public processions. The
fullest account of the Gormogons is given in the letters of Verus
Commodus, published in an appendix to the second edition of The Grand
Mystery of the Freemasons Discover'd, (28 October, 1724).
There is some evidence that the Gormogons, in some fashion, lingered
on:

When exactly the Gormogons died out is not known, but two
considerations seem to render untenable Gould's theory that "the Order
is said to have become extinct in 1738." In the first place the
existence of a Lancashire Gormogon in the person of John Collier,
better known as Tim Bobbin (1708-86) was revealed by the chance
stumbling upon a poem of his, The Goose, by one of the present
authors. The first appearance of the poem known to the authors is in
Tim Bobbin's Collected Poems of 1757 and in any case very little of
his verse is ascribed to a period before the last forty years of his
life. The Goose has a dedication :-

" As I have the honor to be a member of the ancient and
venerable order of the Gormogons, I am obliged by the laws of the
great Chin-Quaiw-Ki-Po, emperor of China, to read, yearly, some part
of the ancient records of that country.

The poem describes, in part, the spinning of a coin to settle a
dispute about the payment for a goose :

" No sooner said than done-both parties willing
The Justice twirls aloft a splendid shilling ;
" While she, (ah nature, nature,) calls for tail,
And pity 'tis, poor soul, that she should fail
But chance decrees-up turns great Chin-Quaw-Ki-Po,
Whose very name my belly sore doth gripe-oh ! "

Secondly, Gould's theory is further stultified by the existence of
some very rare but undoubtedly Gormogon medals which bear every
evidence of having been minted as late as 1799.10 .

There exists in the British Museum what may well be the only surviving
specimen of a Gormogon medal which is exceedingly closely related to
the very beautiful one of which a number of examples are known, and
which has often been reproduced.5 .
Philip, Duke of Wharton
Although various theories have been offered as to who the Gormogons
were: that the Oecumenicae Volgi was the Chevalier Ramsey, then at
Rome in attendance upon the Young Pretender; that the movement was an
undefined Jesuit scheme; or that the Gormogons were the precursors of
the Ancient Grand Lodge of England6 . — nothing is known for fact, but
all evidence suggests an attempt by Philip, Duke of Wharton, to
establish a Jacobite or Catholic Club.
Silver collar jewel, reverse shows sun radiating sixteen alternating
straight and wavy lines.9 .
Philip, Duke of Wharton (b. December, 1698) 7 . a Jacobite sympathizer
zealous for the Hanover Settlement and one-time president of one of
the three Hell-Fire Clubs in London, was a colourful figure of the
period. As publisher of True Briton from June 3, 1723 until February
17, 1724, his writings resulted in his printer, Samuel Richardson,
being tried for libel and his own self-exile to the Continent where
his service for the King of Spain in the siege of Gibralter lead to a
charge of High Treason. With his estates frozen, he was living in
Rouen when he was outlawed on April 3, 1729 for not appearing on the
charge of High Treason. He died in indigence at a Bernadine convent in
Catalonia, May 31, 1731.8 .
His masonic history is equally colourful. While there is some question
if he ever served as Master of his lodge — the Lodge at the King’s
Arms, near St. Paul’s — he arranged to be elected the sixth Grand
Master on June 24, 1722, when he also appointed Dr. Desaguliers his
Deputy Grand Master and James Anderson a Grand Warden. The following
year, at the Grand Festival of June 24, 1723, he attempted,
unsuccessfully, to deprive the Grand Master of the privilege of
appointing his Deputy by making the office subject to election in
Grand Lodge. Unsuccessful in his attempt, the minutes of Grand Lodge
record that "The late Grand Master went away from the Hall without
Ceremony."
From that date he had nothing further to do with Grand Lodge, although
he did constitute the first lodge in foreign parts on the rolls of the
Grand Lodge of England, the Madrid Lodge, Madrid, Spain on February
15, 1728.

[Sir.Mike]

Bro. Hodapp put together an interesting list that includes this
strange society.
http://freemasonsfordummies.blogspot.com/2008/04/ten-secret-societies-with-goofiest.html