Biography of F.G. Irwin

Major F.G. Irwin (1828–1892) was born on 19 June 1828. On 8 November 1842, he enlisted in the Royal Sappers and Miners Corps when he was fourteen years old. Heparticipated in the Great Exhibition in 1851 and received a bronze medal. Irwin was made a mason on 3 June 1857 in the Gibraltar Lodge no325. Irwin remained in Gibraltar until 1862 and from there went to Malta. In 1866 he moved to Bristol. Having served in the ranks for almost twenty-four years, on 7 May 1866 Irwin was appointed Adjutant of the 1st Gloucestershire Engineer Volunteer Corps with the rank of Captain. He was to remain at Bristol until his death in 1893.

A noteworthy Freemason and friend and correspondent to A.E. Waite, Wynn Westcott, Kenneth Mackenzie and William Woodman, Irwin also became Chief Adept of the Bristol College of the Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia. Most importantly, Irwin was a member of Kenneth MacKenzie’s “Fratres Lucis,” the Britainic branch of the Rosicrucian esoteric order that MacKenzie had been charged with founding, that later became the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1888. This is clearly shown in the progression of Temples. MacKenzie’s temple was Temple number one, F.G. Irwin’s Hermanoubis Temple in Bristol number two, and Isis-Urania founded in 1888 by Woodman, Wescott, and MacGregor Mathers was number three, The Isis-Urania temple was founded, moreover, based on MacKenzie's Cipher Manuscripts, that had been obtained by Wescott from MacKenzie's widow following MacKenzie's death.