John Hamill - Scottish operative lodges began in the seventeenth century to admit non-ope

Scottish operative lodges began in the seventeenth century to admit non-operative members as accepted or gentleman masons and that by the early eighteenth century in some lodges the accepted or gentleman masons had gained the ascendancy: those lodges became, in turn speculative lodges, whilst others continued their purely operative nature. The speculative lodges eventually combined to form the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736.

- John Hamill

source: John Hamill (1986). “The Craft: A History of English Freemasonry”, HarperCollins

topic: Scotland, Gentleman, Scottish, Lodges, Ascendancy