The following presentation is resourced from –
‘A Reference Book For Freemasons’ – compiled by Frederick Smyth and published in 1998.
R.W. Bro. Robert South
COLUMNS, WARDENS’: The columns which are placed upon the Warden’s pedestals in an English Craft lodge can be traced back as far as the exposures Three Distinct Knocks(1760) and Jachin & Boaz (1762), believed respectively to represent the workings of the Ancients and the Moderns. Here we find that the Wardens, who in those days spent little if any time seated during ceremonies, each carried as an emblem of office a pillar, the two pillars representing those at the porchway of King Solomon’s Temple. It is noteworthy that, at the opening and closing of Grand Lodge, or of a Provincial or District Grand Lodge, the Wardens proclaim themselves as representing the persons whose names are constantly associated with the Temple pillars.
But nowadays it is usually found that the Junior Warden’s column is of the Corinthian order and that of the Senior Warden’s is Doric, with the terrestrial and celestial globes placed incongruously above their capitals (see Globes, Terrestrial and Celestial). In some installation workings, the Master refers to these orders of architecture when presenting his Wardens with their columns.
Masonic furnishers may well have been responsible for the change from the Temple pillars to the Greek columns. Since the candlestands by the Master’s and Wardens’ pedestals are generally of the Iconic, Doric and Corinthian orders respectively, symbolically to represent Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, it would seem entirely logical for the two Wardens’ columns to continue to remind us of King Solomon’s two great pillars and to be modelled upon the description familiar from the lecture on the second-degree tracing-board.