Henry Pelham Holmes Bromwell (August 26, 1823 – January 9, 1903) was an American lawyer, politician from Illinois, and prominent Freemason.

He was a lawyer and judge who served as a U.S. representative from Illinois from 1865–1869 and continued to practice law when he moved to Colorado in 1870 where he was appointed to compile the state's statutes.

He developed the Free and Accepted Architects, a new rite for Freemasonry which sought to teach its initiates the lost work of the craft embodied in Bromwell's Geometrical system.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Bromwell moved with his parents to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1824, and thence to Cumberland County, Illinois, in 1836.

[3] Henry Jr. caught typhoid fever and died in Denver at the age of nineteen; he was studying law at the time.

[10] In 1848 the family moved to Vandalia, Illinois, where Bromwell worked for his father's newspaper, The Age of Steam, and studied law.

[31] Bromwell was the originator of the Free and Accepted Architects,[12][32][33] a new branch of freemasonry "the object of which was to restore and preserve the lost work [rituals][34] of the ancient craft.

[35] These degrees were not innovations[12] introduced into freemasonry but rather "designed to impart to students of the Craft a knowledge of Masonic symbolism not otherwise obtainable.

[32][33] On February 20, 1959, the Grand Lodge of Architects met, elected a total of fifteen officers, and then turned the ritual over to the Allied Masonic Degrees and placed it in the custody of the Grand College of Rites; "there would be no initiations and the Rite would remain dormant as far as extension of its membership and authority would be concerned.

[2][12] This book, in a resolution passed by the Grand Lodge of Illinois, is described as "The most remarkable contribution, along the lines of which it treats, yet made to Masonic Literature."

[37] To write this "ponderous volume"[38] it is claimed that Bromwell spent "sixteen hours a day for six years and two months" working on what he described as "a dissertation on the lost knowledge of the Lodge.

"[12] This claim has been directly challenged by Coil, who argues that "there is not enough known or ascertainable about the working of ancient or medieval lodges, including those up to the middle of the 18th century to occupy an author more than a few days for the telling of the whole story.

"[34] The year that Bromwell died, the "Henry P. H. Bromwell Masonic Publication Company" was formed for the sole purpose of publishing Restorations of Masonic Geometry and Symbolry[2][40] The board of directors for this company was composed entirely of Past Grand Masters.