William Graeme was initiated in an unknown year in an unknown lodge. He was member of an “Antients” lodge in the London area when late 1785 he first visited and then joined the Kirkwall lodge. He returned after seven months with what was probably the Kirkwall Scroll.
Cooper (see “literature“) suggests that several degrees are depicted on the scroll which were at the time unknown in Kirkwall. Since there was no use for the scroll, it was preserved as well as it it. This unfamiliarity is doubtfull.
A point that Cooper missed is that more than one lodge in Scotland knew several degrees as early as the 1740’ies, not in the last place in the Stirling lodge from where the Kirkwall lodge was founded. Therefor there is a suggestion that both the Antient lodge of Graeme and the Kirkwall lodge knew a number of degrees. Therefor it is difficult to use that to pinpoint the location where the scroll was painted.
Cooper does make a good point that the scroll comes from English “Antient” circles and not from Scotland. Since Graeme came from such an English Antient lodge, it is tempting to think that it was there that Graeme got the scroll and took it with him to his new lodge in Kirkwall. The main argument is the presence of the “47th problem of Euclid” on panel 3, as this symbol never came in use in Scotland.
It may not be too likely that Graeme received the degrees depicted on the scroll (if he even did) in Kirkwall, returned to London, (had) painted the scroll and then came back to Kirkwall with the scroll within seven months. The travelling time along makes that quite unlikely.
Could that mean that Graeme already received the degrees in his mother lodge (or another one) and perhaps already had work done on the scroll and after visiting Kirkwall decided to give the Kirkwall lodge the scroll, rather than his mother lodge? Or maybe he didn’t even receive all these degrees, he just found a floor cloth that he liked?
A big question remains if Graeme painted or had painted the scroll himself or that he did perhaps simply buy the scroll somewhere?
If we take English “Antient” as likely source, it could help to find and date the degrees on the scroll and see when they first appeared in English “Antient” lodges. See the chronology for that.