Adolphus Frederick Alexander Woodford

[2] Just before his death, towards the end of 1887, he passed on a set of coded papers which resulted in the establishment of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

He took the customary three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason, and is known to have attended nine meetings of the lodge in total, before returning to England in the autumn, matriculating at the University of Durham to study Theology.

[1][4] In 1847 Swillington, to the south-east of Leeds, was still a rural community, although mining was starting to assert itself as the driving force of the local economy.

While still Rector of Swillington, his new masonic duties took him to the consecration of many new lodges, and saw him deliver the oration at the laying of the foundation stone for the new extension to Freemason's Hall in Great Queen Street, London, the next year.

[3] 1871 saw Woodford as one of the signatories of a remonstrance against the Privy Council for upholding a conviction of an Anglican Vicar, John Purchas, for the way in which he celebrated communion.

He is seen as a pioneer of the Authentic school of masonic research, applying proper historical methodology in place of carelessly repeated fable.

His lasting legacy may be seen in the continued activity and influence of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, and the rational approach to masonic history.

[1] Lastly, he played at least some part in the establishment of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, passing the cipher manuscripts from which it was founded to his friend William Wynn Westcott shortly before his death.

[8] He had already made a strong case that the mystic and philosophical elements which allowed Freemasonry to evolve from a purely operative to a speculative society were likely to have been imported from some aspects of the Hermeticism practised during the Renaissance.