TESSIN, HANS EWALD [SSNE 6600]

Surname

TESSIN, TESSINE

First name

HANS EWALD, EDUART

Text source

Hans Ewald Tessin was a military architect who came to Scotland in the early 1650's. On St John's Day 1652 he joined a lodge of Freemasons in Edinburgh, Mary's Chapel, and thus became the first recorded foreign initiate of British speculative Freemasonry. At his initiation his name was recorded as Mr Eduart Tesine and indeed there is some confusion as to his identity. Murray-Lyon did not know where he came from and Stevenson believed him to be Dutch by birth. Scuchard believes him, probably correctly, to have been a Swede. In any case, he had arrived in Scotland to work for the English army of occupation where he built the citadel at Leith. He was made a burgess of Edinburgh in 1659 and the following year was admitted to the Incorporation of Wrights and Coopers of the Canongate. After the Restoration in 1660, Tessin worked for Charles II in Dunkirk. It is not clear if Tessin was aware or cared about the Scottish, pro-Stuart lodge established in Gothenburg in the late 1650s. That lodge was known as "St Magnus" and its charter came from Edinburgh, although its privileges were later established by Karl X. Sources held in the National Archives in London show that he was still producing military maps for the Stuart government in Tangier (Morocco) until 1683.

 

Sources.

The National Archives, Kew, MPH 1/1/5 (1665) & 1/1/54 (1683); D. Murray-Lyon, The History of Freemasonry in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1873), p.86; D. Stevenson, The First Freemasons; Scotland's Early Lodges and their Members (Aberdeen, 1988), p.30; M. K. Scuchard "Leibniz, Benzelius, and the Kabbalistic Roots of Swedish Illuminism" in A. P. Coudert et al (eds), Leibniz, Mysticism and Religion (Dordrecht, 1998), pp.90 and 103.

Service record

SWEDEN, ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, EDINBURGH, LEITH

Departed 1661-12-31

Capacity MILITARY ARCHITECT, purpose MILITARY

ENGLAND, DUNKIRK

Capacity MILITARY ARCHITECT, purpose MILITARY

ENGLAND, TANGIER, MOROCCO

Departed 1683-12-31

Capacity MILITARY ARCHITECT, MAP, purpose MILITARY, ARCHITECT, MAPS