The Career of Sir Charles Warren (part 1)

Originally published in 'Templar History Magazine', issue 12
Also in 'A Fourth Part of a Circle: The Journal of Freemasonry' Vol. 3, #2 (USA/Canada ISSN:1499-8521) as 'Warren Uncovered: the Career ot General Sir Charles Warren' (c) Gordon Napier

General Sir Charles Warren GCMG KCB FRS RE (1840-1927) looked the very model of a 'great Victorian'. He had a great Victorian moustache, and a uniform covered in great Victorian decorations. His career was as extraordinary as any from that eventful age, and although very much an establishment figure he remains somewhat enigmatic. Though his association with Jack the Ripper may tarnish his name, Warren was also a key figure in military and Masonic history, as well as an archaeological pioneer.


Freemasons share with the medieval Templars their identification with the ancient Temple of Solomon. The Temple in Jerusalem occupied the plateau of Mount Moriah, and housed the mysterious Ark of the Covenant. Later the Ark vanished, and the Temple itself was destroyed, rebuilt and then, in AD 70, mostly destroyed again. Eventually Islam took over the site, holding it sacred due to legends that Mohammad ascended to consort with God from the rock, which had formed the foundation of the Temple's altar. Around this outcrop Muslims built the sublime Dome of the Rock. Through subsequent centuries, they guarded the site against violation. After the First Crusade, though, Jerusalem fell temporarily into Christian hands and at length the first Knights Templar occupied parts of Temple Mount. The Templars' declared agenda was the defence of pilgrims, but many believe that the knights probed the site, searching for some ancient treasure, perhaps buried scrolls, or even the Ark itself.

The Knights Templar were suppressed two centuries later. Some have said, though, that Templar traditions were carried on by Freemasons. One such tradition, according to this speculation, may be what Graham Hancock calls a 'secret and never ending quest' for the Ark of the Covenant (which appears as the crest above the heraldry of the United Grand Lodge of England). James Bruce, the eighteenth-century Scot who explored Ethiopia seeking the source of the Blue Nile, was a Freemason, and may have had an undeclared agenda there in locating the Ark. The first westerner, meanwhile, to seriously examine Jerusalem's Temple Mount in modern times was also a Mason, and he may have had a similar ulterior motive.


Charles Warren, born in Bangor, Wales, joined the Royal Engineers as a young Subaltern in 1857. He had attended Cheltenham College, the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and finished his training at Woolwich. Freemasonry was quite common among officers in the British armed forces. Warren was initiated into 'the Craft' in Gibraltar, in 1859. Though also an evangelical Christian, Freemasonry would remain an important part of his life. Progressing through the grades of Freemasonry, he would have taken part in rites and learned of the mythical founder of the Brotherhood, Hiram Abiff, architect of Solomon's Temple 'who lost his life rather than betray the sacred trust reposed in him'. Warren would have come to know the tale of Hiram's murder by the three ruffians- apprentices named Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum, (collectively termed the Juwes). When Hiram refused to pass to them the secret knowledge of Masonry, the jealous trio had slain him with their tools.


Warren was a scholar as well as a soldier. In 1867 (released from military duties), he led an archaeological expedition to Jerusalem, for the London-based Palestine Exploration Fund. The Fund had been active since 1865, and this was to be its first major project. Palestine was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Warren secured the Turks' permission to survey and excavate around the old city and Temple Mount. For a Freemason, initiated in a lodge symbolically representing Solomon's Temple, the opportunity to penetrate the site of the original must have seemed alluring. Living up to his name, Warren soon found himself uncovering a considerable network of unknown passages and chambers. It became clear that an underground labyrinth lay beneath Jerusalem. He apparently named one Second Temple period chamber as the 'Hall of the Freemasons.'


Real trouble arose when Warren's team began to clear a tunnel passing north from the southern wall of the Temple compound, passing under the caverns known as 'the Stables of Solomon' and towards the heart of the plateau. The sound of the diggers disturbed the faithful at prayer in the al-Aqsa mosque above, and soon a violent riot broke out, with the Muslim worshippers assailing the workmen with stones and driving them out. The Turkish governor, Izzet Pasha, ordered the dig to be called off. Warren was thwarted, and failed in several subsequent attempts to re-enter Temple Mount. Needless to say he never found the Ark. (Later, the eccentric Montague Brownlow Parker, actively looking for the Ark in 1910, would provoke even bloodier riots by sneaking into the Dome of the Rock at night and trying to cut his way below the rock to a secret chamber where they believed the Ark lay hidden. He and his team were likewise forced to abandon their attempts).


Warren's survey work in Jerusalem was nonetheless of great value to archaeology. He accurately reconstructed the plan of Herod's Temple. He located many hidden vaults, drains, wells, aqueducts cisterns and secret passages. His expedition discovered the underground water conduits, reaching across the central valley to the spring of Gihone beyond the city walls (though not the spring itself, which were located by the Parker expedition). All this illuminated the topography of ancient Jerusalem. (Another objective of the project was to improve the water supply of the modern city).
Another officer of Engineers on Warren's expedition, meanwhile, Charles Wilson, recovered artefacts of possible Templar origin, some allegedly from the controversial tunnel running under Temple Mount- suggesting that Hugues de Payens and his brethren had indeed ventured there. The finds include spurs, a spear tip, a sword hilt and a leaden cross. (These items have passed to Robert Brydon, a Scottish 'Templar archivist' claiming descent from Wilson). Warren returned home in 1870, due to ill health. He held a command at Dover, and then at the school of gunnery at Shoeburyness in Essex. He also found time to write on archaeology, publishing 'The Recovery of Jerusalem' (1871), and later 'Underground Jerusalem' (1874) and 'The Temple and the Tomb' (1880). Clearly this topic was an abiding passion. His work fuelled public interest in the Bible lands, which made possible the famous Survey of Western Palestine (an ambitious topographic project carried out under Warren's military colleague Lord Kitchener).


Warren, meanwhile, in 1876, was posted to South Africa, as a special commissioner of the Colonial Office. His surveying skills were called for in establishing the exact boundary between the Orange Free State and Griqualand West. Warren soon returned to active service. He commanded the Diamond Field Horse in the 'Kaffir War' between 1877 and 78. An ongoing land conflict had arisen between white Cape colonists (British and Boers), and the native Bantu tribes to the northeast, (known disparagingly by the whites as 'Kaffirs' or infidels). This formed a prelude to the Zulu War. Warren was severely wounded in battle, and mentioned in dispatches three times for his bravery. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, before returning to England to convalesce. He was appointed to the school of Military Engineering at Chatham, in 1880, as chief instructor.

Two years later Warren went to Egypt, leading the search for the lost expedition of Professor Edward Palmer (an orientalist who had ostensibly gone there to procure camels, but who was actually engaged in espionage for the secret service). Warren discovered that Palmer and his companions had been murdered. It emerged that Palmer had been ambushed by Arabs, taken to the Wadi Sudr and shot on the edge of a gully. Warren located the remains of Palmer and two colleagues, Lieutenants Haynes and Burton (both fellow Royal Engineers). He also brought their murderers to justice. For this he was awarded a Knight Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, (KCMG- a knighthood for officials serving the crown in relation to foreign affairs). In 1883 he was also made a Knight of Justice of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to enter politics in England, Warren was back in Africa, as part of the second military expedition to attempt to relieve Khartoum, in the Sudan, where his doomed friend General 'Chinese' Gordon was besieged. Afterwards he was sent south to Bechuanaland, where he successfully restored order, earning the GCMG (Knight Grand Cross). He set up the land commission, which finalised the borders, and played a part in the founding of the town of Mafeking, on land given to the whites by the local native chief. (Mafeking became the capital of South Africa's North West Province, and was later made famous in the Boer War, for the 217 day siege, during which Badon Powell, another friend of Warren's, led the British defence, and used boys as messenger 'scouts'.)Warren was recalled to England, and in 1886 become the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London. The Metropolitan Police, founded in 1829, coverd all of London but for the central 'Square Mile' (which was covered by the City of London Police). The previous Commissioner, Sir Edward Henderson had been sacked for failing to prevent protests against unemployment turning into violent riots. Warren's appointment was welcomed by The Times which reported that he was 'precisely the man who sensible Londoners would have chosen to preside over the police of the Metropolis'. He was seen as a moderate but strong leader, who could bring order out of chaos. He had the support of Hugh Childers, Gladstone's home secretary. Unfortunately for Warren, the Gladstone government soon fell, and was replaced by the Conservative administration of Lord Salisbury. Salisbury replaced Childers with Henry Matthews, a man with whom Warren found it increasingly difficult to work. Warren began to lose popularity when, later in 1886, violent incidents occurred, miring the Lord Mayors parade. Later Warren was accused of mishandling things when a protest in Clerkenwell turned into a riot.

At about this time Warren was also finding time to continue his Masonic career. He was a key member of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge#2076, a lodge founded in 1884, dedicated to Masonic research. The Lodge had started to meet regularly in late 1885, when Warren had returned from Buchuanaland. He served as Founding Master. He also wrote an article for the Lodge On the Orientation of Temples. (Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Charles Wilson completed a second Ordinance Survey, publishing the results in 1886. He recorded the existence of a cave under the Dome of the Rock, and an ancient channel leading from it thought to have been dug to carry away the blood of sacrificial animals). Queen Victoria's Jubilee celebrations of 1887 passed off peacefully, but for when a constable wrongly charged a seamstress, named Miss Cass, with soliciting. Her employer sued the police. Warren behaved tactlessly, and managed to alienate both parties during the ensuing enquiry. Warren's approach to policing was summed up in his statement that London's safety and security depended on the 'efficiency of the uniformed police constable acting with the support of the citizen.' He favoured visible policing as a means of crime prevention, and believed that the police should be paragons of moral standards. He therefore came to quarrel with Monro, the head of CID and secret division, who favoured under-cover detective work and tackling criminals using whatever methods necessary. Warren's ideal soon proved to be unrealistic. Large-scale protests against unemployment and social injustice took place in Trafalgar Square throughout 1887. Warren repeatedly asked the Home Secretary for a ban on public gatherings. Things came to a head on Sunday 13 November, when some 40,000 protestors confronted 2,000 policemen. Violence erupted when Warren's men tried to clear the square. Warren, directing things personally, called for army reinforcements, including Grenadiers and mounted Lifeguards. Many were injured in clashes and allegedly one protestor died. The day came to be called 'Bloody Sunday.' The leader of the Dockers Union was arrested, while a radical MP named Cunninghame was among those injured in the fighting. Warren was vilified in the left-wing tabloid press after this, and had several subsequent riots to contend with. The events of the following year had the biggest impact on Warren's reputation.