what is the historical meaning behind the mark man degree and how did it separate from the master mason degree

The historical origin of the Mark degree rests upon the operative stonemason's custom of chiseling a personal, distinctive mark onto fashioned stones to identify his workmanship 1. This practice carried directly over into speculative lodges during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with Scottish lodge statutes from 1598 and lodge minutes from 1599 requiring that a fellow of craft or master have his name and mark registered in the lodge book 1. Speculative members—including nobility, ministers, and professional men—selected and registered their own personal marks alongside operative craftsmen 1.

The formal ceremonial working of the degree appears in English records from 1769, when it was worked within a Royal Arch Chapter in Portsmouth, as an article on Mark Masons' Hall's website records. Rather than existing as a separate branch prior to the Craft degrees, the workings of Mark Man and Mark Master were established to be conferred strictly upon brethren who were already Master Masons 1.

When the Articles of Union of 1813 defined the recognized Craft degrees in England, the Mark degree was excluded from the official Craft system 1. This exclusion led to the amalgamation of the Mark Man and Mark Master ceremonies under independent governance, resulting in the establishment of a dedicated Grand Mark Lodge 1. Today, this relationship persists within the degree's structure: the ceremony of advancement consists of two parts, wherein the candidate is first acknowledged as a Mark Man before being made a Mark Master Mason, as the Mark Masons' Hall website outlines.