                                The First Grand Lodge

                     The early years of 'Organized' Freemasonry
                            date back to England in 1717

         The following account is an excerpt from the newly released book,
         Freemasonry: A Celebration of the Craft, edited by John Hamill and
         Robert Gilbert, with a forward by HRH, the Duke of Kent.  The book
         was prepared to coincide with the 275th anniversary of the first
         Grand Lodge in England.

           With the founding of the premier Grand Lodge in London on June
         24, 1717, organized Freemasonry was born.,  The four "Old Lodges"
         that met at the Goose and Gridiron  ale house in St. Paul's
         Churchyard elected one  of their number, Anthony Sayer ("Oldest
         Master Mason and then Master of a Lodge") as Grand Master and
         agreed to hold a Grand Feast once a year.  Sayer also appointed
         Grand Wardens and " commanded the Master and Wardens of Lodges to
         meet the Grand Officers every Quarter in Communication," although
         there is no evidence that these meetings ever took place.  For the
         first three years of its existence Grand Lodge simply provided an
         opportunity of an annual social gathering of London lodges.  There
         was no attempt, nor apparently any intention, to exercise control
         over provincial lodges.  But the casual state of affairs was soon
         to change.

         The Grand Master who succeeded Sayer - George Payne and the Rev.
         Dr. Theophilus Desaguliers - were men of a different stamp who,
         with the help of the astute and inventive Rev. Dr. James Anderson,
         remodeled and revitalized the craft.  Following the codification
         of Grand Lodge regulations by Payne in 1720, and the election of a
         grand Secretary in 1723 (with the consequent establishment of
         official minutes), Anderson compiled and published the first
         official Constitutions of the Free-Masons (1723), which set out
         those regulations, together with a history of the craft derived
         partly from the Old Charges but expanded an embellished by
         Anderson's fertile imagination.  Fanciful though this history was,
         the effects of Anderson's Constitutions was to establish the idea
         of Freemasonry firmly in the public eye - to such an extent that
         contemporary writers seized upon it as worthy object of satire.
           This did not mean the craft was inimical to the intelligentsia
         of the time - far from it - and for this, much of the credit must
         go to Dr. Desaguliers, among whose many achievements was his
         invention of the planetarium.  Associate and friend of Isaac
         Newton, Desaguliers was the archetypal speculative Mason.  As the
         child of Huguenot refugees he was deeply committed to the ideal of
         tolerance, while as a natural philosopher (or what we should now
         call a physicist) he was an eager student of the 'Hidden Mysteries
         of Nature and Science.'  There seems little doubt that the many
         Fellows of the Royal Society who became Free masons were
         influenced by Desaguliers' example, and it is surely no accident
         that no less than 12 Grand Masters where also Fellows of the Royal
         Society during the 20 years following Desaguliers.
           It is also significant that, after 1720 every Grand Master was
         of either noble or royal rank.  By this time a subtle shift had
         taken place.  The old operative element - such as it was - lost
         control of the craft, while Grand Lodge, the governing body,
         became increasingly associated with the upper echelons of society.
         This was to have a profound effect on the development of English
         Freemasonry.  But the history of the craft is not simply the
         history of Freemasonry in London.  By the mid-1720's many
         provincial lodges began to accept the jurisdiction of Grand Lodge;
         others, however, denied its authority - notably at Your, where an
         independent Grand Lodge sprang up.

           During the early days of the craft there were no permanent
         Masonic Halls or Temples, and lodges were usually held in taverns
         or coffeehouses.
           From the latter part of the 17th century the following pattern
         was followed.  First, the candidate took an obligation on the
         Bible to preserve the mysteries of the craft.  The word and sigh
         were then communicated and the charges and legendary history were
         read.  By 1700 a two-degree system, of entered Apprentice and
         Fellow Craft, was in place, and in the 1720's a third degree, that
         of Master Mason, made its appearance.

           Gradually, the ceremonies became more elaborate.  The
         obligation, accompanied now by a physical penalty, was followed by
         the communication of the sign and word of the degree in question,
         while in the second part of the ceremony there was a short
         catechism, using a simple symbolism based on the stonemason's
         tools, in which the ceremony and the purpose of the degree were
         explained.  From the 1770's these explanations began to be
         expanded, incorporating additional working tools as symbols of
         particular virtues and symbolical explanations of the candidate's
         preparation for each degree, as well as of the lodge furniture and
         members regalia.  today the basic framework of the craft in
         England is effectively the same as it has been since a standard
         for of ritual was introduced in 1816.
           Given the existence of active operative lodges in Scotland, it
         is surprising that a Grand Lodge did not arise there until 1736.
         When it did, it was - as in England - the result of four old
         lodges combining.  Their initial gathering led to a meeting of 33
         lodges on November 30, 1736.  However , a considerable operative
         element remained in Scottish Masonry; new lodges did not
         proliferate to the same extent as in England, and to dissension
         between operatives and non-operatives was added argument over
         historical precedence.  In 1743 the latter controversy led to the
         Canongate Kilwinning Lodge resuming its independence, which lasted
         for almost 70 years and during which it chartered lodges both in
         Scotland and in North America.  It was also involved in the even
         greater disruption of Scottish Masonry caused by Jacobite
         Rebellion of 1745.

           There is no certain evidence that operative lodges existed in
         Ireland, and there is only a single literary allusion to a
         speculative lodge at Dublin in 1688.  The first certain date is
         June 26, 1725, when a meeting of the Grand Lodge at Dublin elected
         the earl of Rosse as its "New Grand Master."  The Dublin Grand
         Lodge, however, was not the only one in Ireland.  Just as in
         England, provincial lodges were wary of submitting to a central
         authority.  Many of them paid little attention to directives from
         Dublin, while in Cork an independent Grand Lodge of Munster
         survived for seven years until 1733.  For the rest of the 18th
         century the Grand Lodge of Ireland had no rivals and, except for
         the brief emergence of a grand Lodge in Ulster in the early 19th
         century, it has continued to act as the sole Masonic authority in
         Ireland.

           In Masonic terms, Ireland was also a model of religious
         tolerance.  Protestants and Catholics came together in the craft,
         and for many years the statesman and patriot Daniel O'Connell
         played the active part in Irish Freemasonry, resigning from the
         craft only when a misguided belief that Freemasons were to blame
         for the excesses of the French Revolution led the Roman Catholic
         hierarchy to enforce the anti-Masonic Bulls of 1738 and 1751.
         This foolish action led to a great exodus of Catholics from the
         craft.
           But despite such setbacks, Irish Masonry flourished.  Lodges
         under the Irish Constitution were founded overseas and from 1732
         it was the Grand Lodge of Ireland that issued the first traveling
         warrants to regiments of the British Army.  While this had little
         impact on English Freemasonry, a later influence in English
         Masonry was to create an upheaval in the craft that would have
         dramatic and far-reaching consequences.
           Little more than ten years after the founding of the premier
         Grand Lodge of England, changes in both custom and ritual began
         appearing which some members of the craft viewed with alarm.
         Becoming increasingly concerned with what they saw as unwarranted
         interference with the "landmarks" of the Order, they eventually
         threw in their lot with a group of  Irish Masons who had been
         denied entry to London lodges - primarily because they were
         artisans, and because their ritual did not conform to English
         usage.
           In 1751 these disaffected Masons formed themselves into six
         lodges and set up a Grand Committee that within two years had
         transformed itself into a vigorous and wholly independent Grand
         Lodge.  Through the efforts of one remarkable man this "Antients"
         Grand Lodge - so called because it claimed to have restored
         ancient usages - went from strength to strength until it became a
         formidable rival of the earlier, and now paradoxically nicknamed,
         "Moderns" Grand Lodge.
           Laurence Dermott, was an Irish journeyman painter (later he
         would prosper as a wine merchant) who came to London in 1748.
         Dermott supported the "Antients" and for 20 years acted as their
         Grand Secretary.  In this role he wrote, and published in 1756,
         the curiously titled Ahiman Rezon; or A Help to a Brother, in
         which the Constitutions of the 'Antients' were set out.
         Successive editions soon followed that were increasingly hostile
         to the Moderns and, by virtue of Dermott's polemical but engaging
         style, highly influential within the craft.  Within 20 years of
         its foundation the "Antients" Grand Lodge had founded some 200
         Lodges in London, the provinces, and overseas (almost half the
         number of lodges under the authority of the much older premier
         Grand Lodge).  Even more galling to the 'Moderns' was the fact
         that the 'Antients were also recognized as the legitimate Masonic
         authority in England by the Grand Lodges of both Ireland and
         Scotland.
           In spite of its quarrel with the 'Antients' and its problems
         with more recent rival grand Lodges, the 'Moderns' Grand Lodge
         also flourished - due mainly to the work of William Preston whose
         Illustrations of Masonry remained in print for almost a century
         after its first appearance in 1772.  Preston's book undoubtedly
         helped to reassure ordinary Masons that the principles of the
         craft were more important than the petty squabbles in which their
         hierarchy indulged.  But for all their feuding, the two Grand
         Lodges still offered notable examples of tolerance and harmony.
         In the overwhelmingly Protestant country that still proscribed
         Catholicism, it was a salutary example, both to the craft and to
         the nation as a whole, to see Freemasonry ruled by Roman Catholic
         Grand Masters - Thomas Mathew for the 'Antients' in 1767 and, five
         years later, Lord Petre for the 'Moderns'.

           As the 1800's drew to its close Freemasonry was increasingly
         seen as an institution dedicated to the benevolence and the moral
         good of mankind; the image of the carousing Freemason established
         in the 1740's by the satirical engravings of William Hogarth
         (himself a mason and Grand Steward) had become a thing of the
         past.  The craft was avowedly non-political, and the political
         repercussions of the American Revolution had very little effect on
         the institution as a whole.  The effects of the French Revolution,
         however, were to be very different.
           Initially, the events of 1789 were greeted in England with a
         degree of sympathy.  Many saw the removal of an absolutist tyranny
         and its replacement by a  constitutional monarchy and elected
         government as a desirable political end.  But with the coming of
         the "Terror" sympathy was replaced by revulsion and hostility
         toward those who professed "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity."
         The superficial similarity between the revolutionary slogan and
         the basic principles of Freemasonry was seized upon by detractors
         who hysterically blamed the craft for unleashing the violence of
         the Revolution.  Luckily, common sense prevailed and it was
         generally recognized that English Freemasonry - which from 1782
         onward, could point to a succession of royal Grand Master - was in
         no way a subversive organization; in fact when the Unlawful
         Societies Act (for the suppression of seditious organizations) was
         passed in 1799, Freemasonry was specifically exempted.
           The trauma of the French Revolution and its aftermath led to a
         general desire to heal national and social divisions, and within
         the craft a new generation of Freemasons sought to close up the
         rift in their own ranks.  The firs move came from the 'Moderns' in
         1798, and slowly, in 1813 the 21 Articles of Union were drawn up
         and agreed upon, and the United Grand Lodge of England was born.

         The year 1813 was a watershed in English Freemasonry.  On December
         27 the rival "Modern" and "Antient" Grand Lodges came together to
         form the United Grand Lodge of England under the Grand Mastership
         of Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, a son of King George III.
         The Duke was a student of theology and Hebrew, and to scholarship
         he united unusual religious and political tolerance.  In an age
         when religious bigotry was still rife in public affairs. the Duke
         of Sussex was an outspoken supporter of Catholic emancipation and
         went out of his way to associate himself with a number of Jewish
         causes.
           In reorganizing the craft after the union, the duke was
         determined to make the Antient Charge "Of God and Religion" the
         centerpiece of the reconciled fellowship.  It was intended that
         the craft would become truly universal and open to men of all
         faiths.  And so when the craft ritual was being revised in 1814-
         16, the process of de-Christianization that had been steadily
         occurring since the late 18th century was accelerated, resulting
         in the removal of all overt Christian referenced from both sets of
         rituals.

         As a result non-Christians could now participate in Freemasonry
         without compromising their principles, while Freemasonry itself
         could demonstrate that, although it supported religion in general,
         it was not attempting to replace or challenge any particular
         denomination.  In short, the revisions made clear that while
         Freemasonry had an archaic religious basis, it was not in any
         sense a religion in itself.
           The revisions of the English craft rituals also has a profound
         effect on the nature of English Freemasonry itself.  In the 18th
         century the rituals, while attempting to instill in members a
         simple moral code, had been basically a means of gaining admission
         into what was essentially a social society.  The new rituals,
         which exemplified the there great Masonic principles of brotherly
         love, relief and truth, and emphasized the centrality of God in
         human existence, became the whole basis of Freemasonry, not simply
         entrance ceremonies for a club whose main purpose was social.
           The Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland had carefully observed
         the negotiations that let to the formation of the United Grand
         Lodge of England  The Three British Grand Lodges, while retaining
         their individual sovereignty and developing differences in
         practice, maintained a close rapport that has continued to the
         present day.  In all three jurisdictions, Freemasonry was
         becoming part of the fabric of social life.  As Britain was
         rapidly transformed into a major industrial power, Freemasonry
         grew on an unprecedented scale.  With this social upheaval when an
         explosion of new ideas, especially in the field of science.  What
         had been regarded as fundamental, inviolate truths now began to be
         questioned.  In the midst of such social and intellectual ferment
         Freemasonry appeared to many to offer a haven of calm and
         certainty with its core of unchanging principles, and within the
         Masonic lodge men from all sections of society, who might be
         separated by class and political ideology in their daily lives,
         came together as equals.

         From: The Northern Light, Volume 23 No. 3 pp 8-9, 18. August 1992













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