Robert Freke Gould

Gould was the son of the Rev. Robert Freke Gould, Rector of Stoke Pero in Somerset and a brother of the Countess of Strafford. The younger brother of Thomas Wentworth Gould, Robert Freke Gould was born in Ilfracombe in Devon He served in Gibraltar, Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, India and China. He commanded a company during the Second Opium War of 1860 and served on the Staff of General Staveley during the Taiping Rebellion of 1862. Gould was made Master of the Moira Lodge in 1874 and was appointed Senior Grand Deacon of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1880. He was a Member of the Board of General Purposes (1876–83) and of the Colonial Board (1876–79). In 1877, he gave up his Law career and devoted his life to writing and research. ==Quatuor Coronati Lodge==

Along with Charles Warren, William Harry Rylands, The Revd Adolphus Frederick Alexander Woodford, Walter Besant, John Paul Rylands, Major Sisson Cooper Pratt, William James Hughan and George William Speth he was one of the founders of Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1886. Dissatisfied with the way the history of Freemasonry had been expounded in the past they founded the lodge, obtaining a warrant in 1884. Due to the absence of the first Master Sir Charles Warren on a diplomatic mission in Southern Africa, the lodge was not formally inaugurated until two years later. They insisted on using an evidence-based approach to the study of Masonic history. As such, their approach was new and unusual, and they intended that the results should "replace the imaginative writings of earlier authors on the history of Freemasonry." This began what is now called the "authentic school" of Masonic research. Gould was the lodge's second Master. ==Later years==

In December 1913 Gould was made a Past Grand Warden in honour of the Centenary of the Union of the Grand Lodges of England. On his death he was buried in the nearby Brookwood Cemetery. He left a widow, Louisa Maria Gould who on her death in 1929 aged 79 was buried with him. ==Partial bibliography==

• The Four Old Lodges: Founders of Modern Freemasonry and Their Descendants, Spencer's Masonic Depot, London (1879) • The Atholl Lodge, Spencer's Masonic Depot, London (1879 • The Military Lodges: The Apron and the Sword, or Freemasonry Under Arms, Gale & Polden (1899) • History of Freemasonry: Its Antiquities, Symbols, Constitutions, Customs, Etc, Jack (London), (1883–7) • Volume I • Volume II • Volume III on archive.org • Concise History of Freemasonry Gale & Polden (1903) ==References==