MARIE AND GEORGES MARTIN

Born in 1844, Dr. Georges Martin was a French Senator and advocate of equal rights for women; also a member of the Lodge Les Libres Penseurs. In 1893, together with Marie Deraismes and other male masons, he founded "La Respectable Loge, Le Droit Humain, Maconnerie Mixte" in Paris, in the process founding our Order as we know it today. This action was in part a response to the fact that Marie Deraismes, having been previously initiated 11 years earlier, had found herself a "mason without a lodge".

Georges Martin died in 1916. In recognition of his work, a school in Epinay has been named after him as well as the Centre Georges Martin for children - in the department of Seine, where he was Senator.

Marie Martin, his wife, was also a very prominent and active member of the Order in its earlier days. The picture to the right shows them both in their 33rd degree regalia.