Some Well Known Names from all walks of life who were Freemasons
Salvador Allende
President of Chile from 1970, overthrown and killed in 1973. Had been a Mason since 1935.
Sir Edward Appleton
English physicist whose work led to the discovery of the Ionosphere. Won the Nobel Prize in 1947.
Louis Armstrong
American jazz musician.
Thomas Augustine Arne
English composer, best known for Rule Britannia and for his setting of the British National Anthem.
Elias Ashmole
English antiquarian. Donated his remarkable collection to Oxford University in 1677 to found the Ashmolean Museum. Made a Mason in 1646.
Mustapha Kemal Ataturk
President and 'Father' of modern Turkey.
Gebhardt Lebrecht Blucher
Prussian Field Marshal, drove Napoleon out of Prussia, crossed the Rhine and entered Paris. Came to the aid of fellow Mason the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo.
Simon Bolivar
Led the twenty year struggle to liberate South America from Spanish rule. Became a Mason in Cadiz, Spain, and in 1807 entered the Scottish Rite and the Knights Templars in Paris. In 1824 he founded the Lodge Order and Liberty No. 2, in Peru.
James Boswell
Scottish writer whose biography of Dr Johnson is one of the great classics of English literature.
Joseph Brant
Chief of the Mohawks, the first Native American to enter the Craft, he was initiated in 1776.
Henry Peter Brougham
Scottish statesman and reformer. Worked for the abolition of slavery, and by his famous speech ensured the passage of the Reform Bill in 1831.
Robert Burns
Scottish poet and enthusiastic Mason.
Sir Malcolm Campbell
Land speed record holder.
Casanova
Italian adventurer.
Marc Chagall
Russian artist who spent most of his working life in Paris.
Sir Winston Churchill
Wartime leader and statesman.
'Buffalo Bill' Cody
American frontiersman and showman.
Nat 'King' Cole
American singer and pianist.
David Crockett
American frontiersman and folk hero.
Jim Davidson
British entertainer, presents 'Big Break' and 'Generation Game', founder of the British Forces Foundation, set up to provide entertainment to British Forces worldwide.
Cecil B De Mille
American film pioneer. Many of the early studio bosses, and their stars, were Masons.
'Jack' Dempsey
American heavyweight boxing champion - world champion for seven years from 1919.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
English novelist and creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Jean Henri Dunant
Swiss humanist, founder of the Red Cross.
'Duke' Ellington
American jazz musician.
W C Fields
American comedian.
Sir Alexander Fleming
Scottish bacteriologist, discovered penicillin.
Henry Ford
American motor pioneer. Founder of the Ford Motor Company.
Benjamin Franklin
American statesman, scientist and philosopher.
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Italian patriot and hero.
Richard Gatling
American inventor of the Gatling Gun.
Sir William S Gilbert
English poet and playwright, worked with fellow Mason Sir Arthur Sullivan.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German poet and greatest figure in all German literature.
Joseph Guillotin
French physician, invented the Guillotine.
Earl Haig
English soldier.
Prince Hall
The first black American Freemason. Initiated in an Irish military lodge in 1775.
Oliver Hardy
American comedian, best known as half of Laurel and Hardy.
Franz Joseph Haydn
Austrian composer.
Josiah Henson
American Methodist minister, his escape from slavery in Kentucky and his journey to Canada inspired the novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Charles Hilton
American hotelier, founder of the Hilton chain.
William Hogarth
English painter and engraver.
J Edgar Hoover
American law enforcement officer. Head of the FBI for almost 50 years.
Harry Houdini
American conjurer and escapologist.
Edward Jenner
English physician whose discovery of the principle of vaccination led ultimately to the complete eradication of smallpox.
Kings of England & Scotland
Edward VII
Edward VIII
George VI
Rudyard Kipling
English writer, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907.
Lord Kitchener
English soldier. As Secretary of State for War during World War One, his face became famous to generations through the "Your Country Needs You" poster.
William Hesketh Lever
English industrialist and philanthropist.
Charles Lindbergh
American aviator, made first non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1927.
Franz von Liszt
Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist.
John Macadam
Scottish engineer. Developed the macadamising process for making roads waterproof. Think of Freemasonry every time you drive along a stretch of tarmac!
Jacques Etienne Montgolfier
French inventor, with his brother developed the hot-air balloon.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Austrian composer.
Alexander Pope
English poet and satirist.
Presidents of the USA:
George Washington
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson
James Polk
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
James Garfield
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William H Taft
Warren G Harding
Franklin D Roosevelt
Harry S Truman
Lyndon B Johnson
Gerald Ford
Aleksander Pushkin
Russian poet. His greatest works, Evgene Onegin and Boris Godunov, have been widely translated and also presented as both opera and ballet.
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
English colonist. Founder of Singapore and, on his return to London, of the Zoological Society.
Paul Revere
American revolutionary war patriot.
Edward Rickenbacker
American aviator and much decorated air ace in both World Wars.
the Ringling Brothers
Famous circus family - all seven brothers and their father were Masons.
'Sugar Ray' Robinson
American boxer.
Roy Rogers
American cowboy and screen star.
Nathan Rothschild
Anglo-German financier. He established the London branch of the famous bank founded by his father, his brother, also a Mason, established the Paris branch.
Claude Joseph Rouget De Lisle
French composer. Most famous work is now known as La Marseillaise. Interesting to note that Arne, who composed Rule Britannia, and John Philip Sousa, the famous American composer of patriotic music were all Masons.
Antoine Joseph Sax
Belgian instrument maker, inventor of the Saxhorn and Saxophone.
Robert Falcon Scott
English polar explorer, perished in Antarctica.
Sir Walter Scott
Scottish novelist and poet.
Peter Sellers
English comic actor.
Sir Earnest Shackleton
English polar explorer.
Jan Sibelius
Finish composer. Prolific composer of Masonic music.
John Philip Sousa
American composer and bandmaster. His marching tunes became world famous and he exerted an enormous influence on martial music.
Charles S Stratton
American midget, toured with P T Barnum as 'General Tom Thumb'.
Sir Arthur Sullivan
English composer. Worked with fellow Mason W S Gilbert, but also composed much well known church music, such as Onward Christian Soldiers.
Jonathan Swift
Irish poet, satirist, and Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. Best known for Gulliver's Travels.
Alfred von Tirpitz
German naval officer and creator of the modern German navy prior to World War One.
William Travis
American commander of the Alamo. Many frontiersmen, such as Davy Crockett and Kit Carson, were Masons, as was Stephen Austin the 'Father of Texas'.
Anthony Trollope
English novelist.
Swami Nerendramah Datta Vivekananda
Indian ascetic who became the leading exponent of both Hinduism and Yoga in the west.
Voltaire
French writer and philosopher. On 7 April 1778, two months before his death, Voltaire was escorted by Benjamin Franklin into Lodge Les Neuf Soeurs in Paris, and was initiated into the Craft.
Booker T Washington
American educator and author, highly influential both through his works on the American black and as a promoter of racial harmony.
John Wayne
American film star.
the Duke of Wellington
Anglo-Irish soldier, statesman.
Oscar Wilde
Anglo-Irish wit and dramatist.
This information is taken in heavily abridged form from the book "Freemasonry: A Celebration of the Craft." Editors: John Hamill and Robert Gilbert. Publisher: Greenwich Editions. ISBN 0-86288-210-9.