when is the earliest recorded working of the royal ark mariner degree

Claims exist that a Grand Lodge of Royal Ark Mariners was reconstituted in 1772, though the early history of the degree remains obscure, as Mark Masons' Hall notes. The same body records references indicating that the degree was being worked in Mark Lodges by 1790.

In print, an account published in the *London Monthly Magazine* in December 1798 treated the Royal Ark Mariner degree as one of the new degrees in Freemasonry 1. By that date, the body met at the Surry Tavern in London under Thomas Boothby Parkyns, Lord Rancliffe, who presided as Grand Noah 1. The degree originated among operative Masons in the eighteenth century as a practical self-help society intended to distinguish genuine operative Masons from speculative Masons 2.

The available source does not specify where the Royal Ark Mariner degree was worked in 1790. By December 1798, its principal place of meeting in London was at the Surry Tavern, located on Surry Street in the Strand 1.

Official records state that the early history of the Royal Ark Mariner degree remains obscure, and modern official sources do not explicitly state whether it was attached to a Craft lodge in its earliest recorded workings, as Mark Masons' Hall notes. Early accounts indicate that 18th-century side degrees like the Royal Ark Mariner originated among operative Masons and were often conferred informally in a side room following a Craft lodge meeting 2.

In late 18th-century practice in North America, degrees recorded as Royal Ark or Royal Ark Master were conferred within Master's lodges or in Chapters operating under the sanction of a Craft lodge warrant 3. This reflected Atholl (Antients) usage, in which Craft lodges assumed the right to work preparatory and higher degrees under their primary Craft lodge warrants 3.

Under current English governance, Royal Ark Mariner Lodges are not attached to Craft lodges; rather, they are attached ("moored") to Mark Master Mason Lodges and share their number on the Roll, as Mark Masons' Hall records. In the United States, the degree is governed under bodies such as the Sovereign College or Allied Masonic Degrees rather than directly by Craft or Mark lodges 1.