Masonic lectures are delivered every year but only one receives the official sanction and authority of United Grand Lodge of England. Every year Grand Lodge appoints a Prestonian Lecturer from among the most respected names in Masonic research who submit a paper on a subject of his own choosing and wherever these Lectures are delivered, they attract large audiences. The Lectures are named after William Preston (1742-1818) who made a bequest to Grand Lodge to fund an annual lecture, and except for a break during the War years (1940-1946), a Lecture has been given annually ever since. This fifth volume contains eleven of the twelve papers presented between 1997 and 2008 and is the first time they have appeared in collected form. Only one has been omitted because of its esoteric content. They cover a wide variety of subjects of broad interest and are mostly aimed at general Masonic audiences.