Early history
The mediaeval orders of Knighthood were formed and developed in the Holy Land during the times of the Crusades.
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller, was a medieval and early modern religious military order. Early in the 11th century, merchants from Amalfi founded a hospital in Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist, to provide care for sick, poor, or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land. Blessed Gerard became its head in 1080.
After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, a group of Crusaders formed a religious order to support the hospital. The organization became a military religious order under its own papal charter, charged with the care and defense of the Holy Land. The Order was headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem until expelled in 1291, on the island of Rhodes from 1310 until 1522, in Malta from 1530 until 1798.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar, or simply the Templars, was one of the most wealthy Western Christian military orders. They were founded in 1119, headquartered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages. In 1312 the Order was dissolved by Pope Clement V after pressure by King Philip IV of France
Masonic chivalric Orders
There is no direct connection between Masonic Knights Templar and Knights of Malta, and the mediaeval orders of Knighthood.
Freemasons started developing chivalric degrees from the late 1730s. The earliest documented link between Freemasonry and the Crusades is the 1737 oration of the Chevalier Ramsay. This claimed that European Freemasonry came about from an interaction between crusader masons and the Knights Hospitaller.
By fifty years later formal structures started to be developed in Ireland, England, Scotland and other countries.
Masonic Knights Templar and Knights of Malta
In 1791 Thomas Dunckerley (1724 – 1795), a prominent English Freemason, took control of scattered Templar groups in England on being appointed Grand Master of the first national Grand Conclave of "The Royal Exalted Religious and Military Order Heredom, Kadosh, Grand Elected Knights Templar of St. John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta". His energy and organisational zeal contributed to the growth of the order until his death in 1795. After this activities declined in England until the 1840s when Grand Conclaves were reformed in London and Bristol. These two bodies merged in 1862.
South Australia
The first Preceptory in South Australia, then known as Percy Encampment, with an associated Chapter of Knights Rosae Crucis, was formed on 20th August 1858. It was named for Sir Knight F.T. Percy Wells, GCT. Percy Wells had been appointed in January 1858 as Provincial Grand Commander of Masonic Knights Templar for South Australia, by the Supreme Grand and Royal Encampment at Bristol.
By May 1862 differences between the Grand Encampment at Bristol and the Great Conclave in London were settled. Percy Encampment then came under the jurisdiction of the Grand Conclave (later Great Priory) of England and Wales. The degree of Knight Rosae Crucis was not worked after 1865.
In 1868 Sir Knight James Penn Boucaut was appointed as first Provincial Prior for South Australia. He remained in Office until 1912, being succeeded by Sir Samuel James Way, Bt.
Great Priory of South Australia
The Great Priory of South Australia was constituted as a sovereign great Priory on 25th August 1982, by decision of members of 8 Preceptories working in South Australia under the Great Priory of England and Wales.
Charles Angus Neil Jensen (1906~1984) P.Prov. Gt Prior, was the first ME & S Grand Master to be elected by the Great Priory of South Australia.
See Past Grand Masters page.
