where did the office of senior warden come from in craft masonry and what are his duties

The office of Senior Warden in Craft Freemasonry derives historically from the governance structures of medieval English trade guilds, where Wardens served as presiding officers as early as the fourteenth century 1. The title does not appear in the earliest English Masonic manuscripts 1. In seventeenth-century Scottish operative lodges, governance was typically conducted by a Deacon and a single Warden who managed lodge funds 1. By 1663, regulations recorded in the Harleian Manuscript explicitly required lodges to be governed by a Master and Wardens 1, adapting a system that had become standard in English craft guilds during the preceding decades 1.

As the second officer of a lodge, the Senior Warden assists the Worshipful Master in governance and directly presides over the Craft while at labor 123. Under the Master, he is responsible for the conduct of the lodge during working hours 2. In the Master's absence, the Senior Warden assumes the duty of presiding over the lodge, appointing another brother—other than the Junior Warden—to occupy his own station 13. He also holds the privilege of appointing the Senior Deacon 3. Under the Old Charges, serving as a Warden is a general prerequisite for election as Worshipful Master 2.

Symbolically, the Senior Warden sits in the West and represents the column of Strength 1. His jewel of office is the level, signifying equality among brethren at labor 1. Positioned at his station is a replica column representing the right-hand pillar of Solomon's Temple, which stands erect while the lodge is at labor and is laid recumbent when the lodge is called to refreshment 12.