Post by Tamrin on Jun 24, 2009 8:38:35 GMT 10
Founding of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717
[Excerpt - Article, Masonic Sourcebook - Linked Above]
[Excerpt - Article, Masonic Sourcebook - Linked Above]
The history of accepted masonry in England in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries cannot, as the previous chapter has shown, be traced as any sort of continuous process of development. It is known that non-operative Lodges were in being during those periods, but evidence of a governing body, or indeed of anything like the nucleus of a controlling organization, central or local, is tantalizingly vague, or even lacking altogether. The establishment of a Grand Lodge in London in 1717 therefore marks not only the starting-point in the story of organized Freemasonry in England, but is also a turning-point in the development of speculative Freemasonry, by way of accepted masonry, from the operative craft.
The recorded history of Grand Lodge dates only from 1723 when the first Minute Book was commenced, and so for a contemporary account of the formation of Grand Lodge, and of the first six years of its existence, we have to depend almost exclusively on Dr. James Anderson, the author-compiler of the Constitutions[ii] of 1723. The historical portion of Anderson’s Constitutions consists in essence of a digest of the legendary history of the building craft from the 'Old Charges'. Anderson (and later editors of the Constitutions in the eighteenth century, following him) copied this feature and brought his own fertile imagination to bear on it. In his second edition, the New Book of Constitutions of 1738, he brought this history up to date by continuing it down to the year of publication. It is this chronicle, in a style very like minutes of the actual meetings of Grand Lodge, with Anderson’s own comments on the development of the Craft in the period, that provides the only connected story of Grand Lodge until official records begin in 1723.
The recorded history of Grand Lodge dates only from 1723 when the first Minute Book was commenced, and so for a contemporary account of the formation of Grand Lodge, and of the first six years of its existence, we have to depend almost exclusively on Dr. James Anderson, the author-compiler of the Constitutions[ii] of 1723. The historical portion of Anderson’s Constitutions consists in essence of a digest of the legendary history of the building craft from the 'Old Charges'. Anderson (and later editors of the Constitutions in the eighteenth century, following him) copied this feature and brought his own fertile imagination to bear on it. In his second edition, the New Book of Constitutions of 1738, he brought this history up to date by continuing it down to the year of publication. It is this chronicle, in a style very like minutes of the actual meetings of Grand Lodge, with Anderson’s own comments on the development of the Craft in the period, that provides the only connected story of Grand Lodge until official records begin in 1723.
Anthony Sayer, first Grand Master
