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Liber XXV · Secret Societies

Liber XXV · Secret Societies · Chapter II: Freemasonry

The Premier Grand Lodge of London (1717) and Its Origins

The Premier Grand Lodge of London, founded in 1717 at the Goose and Gridiron: the four old lodges, first Grand Masters, debate over dates and legacy.

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The Premier Grand Lodge of London was the first Grand Lodge of Freemasons, traditionally founded on 24 June 1717, St John the Baptist's Day, when four London lodges met at the Goose and Gridiron alehouse in St Paul's Churchyard and elected Anthony Sayer as their Grand Master. By bringing independent lodges under a central body with officers, regulations and, from 1723, printed Constitutions, it began organised speculative Freemasonry, the form of the fraternity that spread across Europe and the world in the eighteenth century.

Lodges Before 1717: Operative and Accepted Masons§

Freemasonry did not begin in 1717. Medieval stonemasons had their own customs and traditions, preserved in the manuscript "Old Charges", the earliest of which, the Regius Poem and the Cooke manuscript, date from around 1400. These texts give a legendary history of geometry and masonry and rules of conduct for craftsmen. In Scotland, the Schaw Statutes of 1598–1599 regulated lodges as permanent institutions, and Scottish lodge minutes survive from 1599 onward, showing that gentlemen with no connection to building were being admitted as members by the early seventeenth century.

In England the evidence is thinner. The diary of Elias Ashmole records his admission at Warrington in 1646 and a meeting in London in 1682 at which gentlemen were "accepted" into the fellowship. By the early eighteenth century several London lodges met in taverns, attracting tradesmen, gentlemen and professionals rather than working masons. These lodges, sometimes called "accepted" or "speculative", used the language and tools of building as a moral allegory, and they were the raw material from which the Grand Lodge was formed.

The Four Old Lodges and the Meeting of 24 June 1717§

According to the account later printed by James Anderson, the lodges that came together were those meeting at the Goose and Gridiron alehouse in St Paul's Churchyard, the Crown alehouse near Drury Lane, the Apple Tree Tavern in Charles Street, Covent Garden, and the Rummer and Grapes Tavern in Channel Row, Westminster. Feeling neglected after the supposed retirement of Sir Christopher Wren from Masonic leadership, they met at the Apple Tree in 1716 and resolved to revive the quarterly communications and annual feast of the fraternity under a Grand Master.

On St John the Baptist's Day, 24 June 1717, they assembled at the Goose and Gridiron, chose Anthony Sayer, described simply as a gentleman, as Grand Master, and appointed two Grand Wardens. They agreed to meet quarterly and to hold an annual assembly and feast on St John's Day. The details are modest: a handful of tavern lodges in London, not a national body, and certainly not the grand founding moment that later Masonic history made of it.

How reliable is the 1717 story?§

No minutes survive from 1717. The Grand Lodge's own records begin only in 1723, and the story of the founding was first told in the second edition of Anderson's Constitutions, published in 1738, more than twenty years later. Anderson was not a member of the original lodges and is known to have embellished Masonic history; his claim that Wren had been Grand Master, for example, has no support in contemporary evidence. In 2017 the historians Andrew Prescott and Susan Mitchell Sommers argued that the Grand Lodge may in fact have been formed later, around 1721, and that Anderson projected its beginnings back to an earlier date. Their view is debated, but it has made historians more careful about treating 1717 as a firm fact.

The First Grand Masters: From Sayer to the Duke of Montagu§

Sayer was followed in 1718 by George Payne, a civil servant in the tax office, who is credited with collecting old Masonic manuscripts and drawing up the General Regulations later printed in the Constitutions. In 1719 the Grand Master was John Theophilus Desaguliers, a French-born Huguenot clergyman, Fellow of the Royal Society and popular lecturer on Newtonian experimental philosophy. Payne served a second term in 1720.

The decisive change came in 1721, when John Montagu, second Duke of Montagu, became Grand Master. From then on the office was held almost always by noblemen, and the Grand Lodge gained social prestige and public visibility. Processions, feasts and newspaper notices followed. Membership grew quickly in London and the provinces, and lodges began to apply to the Grand Lodge for warrants, which gave them recognised status.

Freemasonry, the Enlightenment and the Hanoverian Establishment§

Historians have long asked why this form of Freemasonry appeared in London at this moment. Margaret C. Jacob linked early Grand Lodge Masonry to the Newtonian circle of the Royal Society and to the Whig supporters of the Protestant Hanoverian succession; Desaguliers and several other early leaders were natural philosophers. Ric Berman has traced in detail how magistrates, courtiers and scientific lecturers used the Grand Lodge to build networks of patronage and loyalty to the new regime. Lodges offered a space in which men of different religious views could meet under rules of politeness, sociability and mutual help.

The intellectual programme of the Grand Lodge was set out in Anderson's Constitutions of 1723, which required Masons only to hold "that religion in which all men agree" and to be peaceable subjects. This combination of moral religion, loyalty and good fellowship became the model for lodges throughout Europe and the colonies.

Rival Grand Lodges and the Union of 1813§

The London Grand Lodge was soon imitated. A Grand Lodge of Ireland is recorded from 1725, and the Grand Lodge of Scotland was formed in 1736. In England, a rival body was organised in 1751 by mainly Irish Masons in London, who accused the original Grand Lodge of altering the traditional ritual. They called themselves the "Antients" and labelled the older body the "Moderns"; their energetic secretary, Laurence Dermott, published their own book of constitutions, Ahiman Rezon, in 1756.

For sixty years the two Grand Lodges competed, each warranting lodges at home and abroad. In 1813 they united as the United Grand Lodge of England, under the Duke of Sussex, and agreed a common ritual. The United Grand Lodge still regards itself as the successor of the 1717 body and celebrated its tercentenary in 2017.

Legacy of the Premier Grand Lodge§

The Premier Grand Lodge created the institutional form of modern Freemasonry: a sovereign Grand Lodge with an elected Grand Master, regular communications, written regulations and the right to warrant lodges. Within decades Freemasonry had reached France, the Netherlands, the German states, Sweden, Russia and the American colonies, often through British merchants, diplomats and soldiers. On the continent the new fraternity developed many additional "high degrees", including those that later became the Scottish Rite, and esoteric orders drew on its ritual and symbolism. The broader landscape of fraternal and initiatory bodies is surveyed in What Are Secret Societies?.

Frequently asked questions§

When was the first Grand Lodge of Freemasons founded?§

According to tradition, the Premier Grand Lodge of London was founded on 24 June 1717 at the Goose and Gridiron alehouse in St Paul's Churchyard. The only detailed account dates from 1738, and some historians argue the body was actually organised a few years later, around 1721.

Who was the first Grand Master of Freemasons?§

Anthony Sayer, described as a gentleman, was elected the first Grand Master in 1717. Little is known about him, and he was succeeded by George Payne in 1718 and John Theophilus Desaguliers in 1719.

Which lodges formed the Grand Lodge of London?§

Four lodges took part: those meeting at the Goose and Gridiron in St Paul's Churchyard, the Crown near Drury Lane, the Apple Tree Tavern in Covent Garden, and the Rummer and Grapes in Westminster. Some of these lodges still exist under other names.

Is the Premier Grand Lodge the same as the United Grand Lodge of England?§

Not exactly. The Premier Grand Lodge, known later as the "Moderns", merged with the rival "Antients" Grand Lodge in 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of England, which regards itself as the continuation of the 1717 body.

Sources and further reading§