The Question of Light Blue Aprons in Scottish Ritual Lodges

From time to time I get quizzed why Lodge St George wears aprons of a Scottish style but in light blue (same colour as regular UGLQ ritual lodges). Did our founders simply default to a standard Craft colour? Couldn’t they make their mind up about a tartan? And surely light blue is not a traditional regalia colour for a Scottish Lodge?

Well I happened to be reading a 1904 copy of the Grand Lodge of Scotland’s Constitution courtesy of David Cook and in that wonderful tome was a list of all Scottish lodges around the world from the inception of the GLS to 1904. Not only were the lodge names, numbers and locations listed but also what they wore!

As would be expected the first lodge on the roll, Mother Kliwinning #0, wore and still wears green and gold (the colours adopted by the GLS itself). However the next two, The Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary’s Chapel) #1 and The Lodge of Melrose St. John #1² both selected and wore light blue (and still do). All three lodges have foundation dates pre-1598. Light blue, as a well as variety of interesting colours, appears over and over again as you read through the list.

So it would appear that not only the name Lodge St George is well known and accepted in Scotland (see a previous post) but also the wearing of light blue is as well. I’d say this choice of the colour well and truly predated other usages of it for Craft aprons in other jurisdictions.