The formation of the first Grand Lodge

The 1723 Constitutions, an early publication of the London Grand Lodge. Reproduction by Christophe Dioux, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The formation of the first Grand Lodge brought several London lodges into an organisation which developed into a governing body for English Freemasonry. The United Grand Lodge of England dates its foundation to 24 June 1717, when four lodges are said to have met at the Goose and Gridiron tavern and elected Anthony Sayer as Grand Master.^[1] Historians have debated whether the surviving evidence supports that date or points instead to 1721.^[2]

The traditional account

The familiar narrative comes from James Anderson's expanded Constitutions of 1738. It describes preliminary meetings at the Apple Tree tavern in 1716, followed by the formation of Grand Lodge at the Goose and Gridiron in 1717. Anderson wrote this account more than twenty years after the reported foundation.^[2]

Sayer's successors in the traditional sequence were George Payne and John Theophilus Desaguliers. John Hamill argues that their recognition as former Grand Masters, including references in early records and correspondence, supports an organisation predating the Duke of Montagu's appointment in 1721.^[3]

The evidence and the dating debate

The regular Grand Lodge minutes begin in 1723. Hamill accepts that Anderson's 1738 account is the only surviving evidence specifically describing the meeting of 24 June 1717. He considers the absence of contemporary newspaper coverage unsurprising for a small association whose leaders initially lacked aristocratic status.^[3]

Prescott and Sommers challenge the reliability of Anderson's reconstruction. Their study argues that William Stukeley's records and a manuscript book belonging to the Lodge of Antiquity point to the establishment of Grand Lodge when the Duke of Montagu became Grand Master on 24 June 1721.^[2]

Ric Berman defends an earlier beginning. He draws attention to Desaguliers being described as a former general master in Edinburgh in 1721, and to Payne's identification as a past Grand Master in The 1723 Constitutions. Berman interprets 1721 as the point when aristocratic leadership brought a previously modest organisation greater publicity and standing.^[4]

Hamill also distinguishes an annual association of lodges from the more developed regulatory body that followed. The disagreement therefore concerns both the dating of the evidence and the stage of organisation that should count as the foundation.^[3]

Organisation and later development

The publication of the Constitutions in 1723 supplied a printed account of the fraternity, its Charges and its General Regulations. Anderson compiled the historical material, Desaguliers wrote the dedication and Payne was credited with the regulations. The book records the developing Grand Lodge's arrangements for government.^[5]

The older Grand Lodge later became known as the Premier Grand Lodge or the Moderns, distinguishing it from the rival Grand Lodge founded in 1751. Their union in 1813 created the United Grand Lodge of England.^[1]

The formation of a Grand Lodge is a different historical question from the origins of lodges themselves. David Stevenson's study of Scottish records examines institutions and members well before 1717, and places the London development within a longer history of Freemasonry.^[6]

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 United Grand Lodge of England, History of Freemasonry, entries for 1717, 1751 and 1813. Accessed 30 September 2026.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Andrew Prescott and Susan Mitchell Sommers, “Searching for the apple tree: revisiting the earliest years of organised English freemasonry”, in John Wade (ed.), Reflections on Three Hundred Years of Freemasonry: Papers from the QC Tercentenary Conference (Lewis Masonic, 2017), bibliographic record and abstract, University of Glasgow.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 ^3.2 John Hamill, 1717 and all that, Quatuor Coronati circulation paper, pp. 1–4. Accessed 30 September 2026.
↑ Richard Berman, ‘1717 and All That’: The Political and Religious Context, Quatuor Coronati circulation paper, especially pp. 7 and 12. Accessed 30 September 2026.
↑ Lionel Vibert, Anderson's Constitutions of 1723, reproduced by the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon. Accessed 30 September 2026.
↑ David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590–1710 (Cambridge University Press, 1988), introduction, pp. 1–5.