The joint Conference on the history of Freemasonry held by Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 and Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge in England concluded Sunday. The Conference was dedicated especially to the 300th anniversary of the founding of the first Grand Lodge of England in 1717.
Mark Tabbert reports that a paper was presented by Drs. Andrew Prescott and Susan Mitchell Sommers that, in his words, "conclusively proved that the Grand Lodge of England was NOT founded in 1717, but in 1721."
The researchers have apparently discovered detailed minutes pertaining to the creation of the Grand Lodge of of London and Westminster (precursor to the Grand Lodge of England, and finally the UGLE) in 1721 at the back of one of London's Lodge of Antiquity No. 2's minute books. The minutes of that gathering describe a large and well organized event.
The Lodge of Antiquity is the descendant of the lodge that met at the Goose and Gridiron Ale-house in St. Paul's churchyard, and one of the four original founding lodges that formed the Grand Lodge.
In addition, the minutes apparently state that the founding Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge of England was actually John Montagu, the 2nd Duke of Montagu, and not Antony Sayer, as was stated in Rev. Anderson's 1738 Constitutions. Montagu has long been known as the first member of the nobility to serve as Grand Master, in 1721. But this paper upsets a rather substantial applecart of accepted Masonic history.
These newly discovered documents reportedly eliminate Sayer, George Payne, and John Theophilus Desaguliers from the lineup of first successive grand masters, along with moving the official founding date of speculative Freemasonry forward by four years.
There has always been very little written record of that early period, aside from Anderson's account. So this discovery is of major importance.
At the very least, UGLE may have to move their big banquet next year forward by four years...
There were some 160 delegates and guests in attendance at the Conference from around the world. The papers presented will be published next year, and members of the Q.C. Correspondence Circle will be able to purchase the book from Lewis Masonic at a substantial discount.
UPDATE 9/15/16:
Prof. Prescott presented sort of a prequel to this paper earlier this year in Ontario - Searching For the Apple Tree: What Happened in 1716?
Some of my takeaways from the Sankey Lecture: Apple Tree Tavern was established in 1728, not 1716. It just wasn't there. So, the first meeting described by Anderson in 1716 simply could not have happened then or in that way. But there's LOTS to digest, including the lives of men mentioned by Anderson in 1738. Prescott doesn't say Anderson simply "made it up," but that he was charged by the GL to piece together a founding story from the records available in 1738.
It's a fascinating presentation. It's about an hour long.
But then I went and looked at Pine's engraved lists of lodges. Pine's list of lodges as early as 1725 lists 8 active lodges (with two already notably missing numerically). By 1729, there are 12. While the dates and people and places probably were reverse-engineered by Anderson in 1738, there were nonetheless 8 years after Anderson's claim of GL's formal founding at least 8 active lodges working. SOMETHING was happening to spread them. And George Payne obviously held SOME kind of position of importance at the time of Anderson's first edition in 1723, because Payne was said to have drafted the regulations in the book.
So THIS first paper presents obviously way more questions than it answers. Once the more recent paper given last weekend can be read and considered with this earlier lecture, it will be interesting to see the whole picture it presents.
UPDATE 9/9/2017
The collected papers from the Conference are available in a 700+ page hardback edition as of Summer 2017 HERE: REFLECTIONS ON 300 YEARS OF FREEMASONRY
Price is £22.50 (approximately US$ 29.73 plus shipping)
The complete list of papers is as follows:
• Illustrations of Masonry
Yasha Beresiner: 300 Years of Masonic Caricatures
Martin Cherry: Illustrations of Masonry: the frontispieces of the Books of Constitutions, 1723 to 1819
Richard Burch-Smith: Early Freemasonry in the British Colony of Demerary Essequibo 1813-1835
Michael Allan: Freemasonry in Mauritius
• Freemasonry in the Colonies
Diane Clements: Masonic Yearbooks and the development of Provincial Identity
Aubrey Newman: The Evolution of the Province and the Provincial Grand Lodge in English Freemasonry
Gerald Reilly: The Urbanisation of Harwich 1832-1914: The Role of Freemasons in Particular.
John Cooper III: Freemasonry and Nation-Building on the Pacific Coast: The California Experience
Aimee E. Newell: British Freemasonry Comes to the New World: The First Ten Years of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts
Mark Tabbert George Washington, General Grand Master of Freemasons in the United States of America...or not?
• Other Degrees in Freemasonry
John Acaster: The Royal Arch before the Union and its particular adoption among the Moderns
John Belton: My Brother - Just One More Degree?
Richard Gan: The Full Spectrum of Freemasonry
• Freemasonry in the USA
Richard Berman: The Social Origins of Freemasonry in the Deep South
Brian W Price: Prince Hall Masonry
Hilary Stelling : English Transfer-Printed Presentation Pitchers in New England Lodges
The Sun is Always at its Meridian
Kent Henderson: The Origins of Australian Freemasonry
Mike Kearsley: Masonry in New Zealand
Kenneth Marcus: A Brotherhood of Constitutions - South and Southern Africa 1811 - 2017
Tony Baker: Freemasonry in the Encyclopedia Britannica
Robert Cooper :The impact of the formation of the Grand Lodge of England on Freemasonry in Scotland
Barry Hoffbrand: Portrait of the first Noble Grand Masterimages of John, second Duke of Montagu
• Masonry in Asia, China, and India
Anthony Atkinson: 250 Years of Freemasonry in Asia
Lisa Hellman: The first lodge in China: an international hub in 18th century Canton
Roeinton Khambatta Close Encounters of Different Kinds
• Masonry in Italy, Russia and Turkey
Maxine Gilhuys and Lucio Artini: Tuscany at the beginning of the XVIII Century: the English Lodge in Florence
Antony Lentin: A masonic utopia in the Russia of Catherine the Great
Emanuela Locci: The first English Lodge in the Ottoman Empire. The Oriental Lodge No. 687
• Dukes and Kings
Paul Calderwood: Royal Connection in the Twentieth Century
John Wade: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Rulers of the Craft
Andreas C. Rizopoulos: Focusing on less known aspects of the life of Augustus Duke of Sussex
• Anti-Masonry and Italy
David J Peck: 1940's - Hitler, the greatest threat to English Freemasonry
Fabio Venzi: Freemasonry and the Catholic Church
Demetrio Xoccato: Friendship and prejudice: the relations between the United Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Orient of Italy
David J Peck: 1940's - Hitler, the greatest threat to English Freemasonry
Fabio Venzi: Freemasonry and the Catholic Church
Demetrio Xoccato: Friendship and prejudice: the relations between the United Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Orient of Italy
• Red Aprons, Mathematics and War
Jonathan Dowson: Jerusalem Lodge No 197 ( f.1731)
Steven Smith: The early Eighteenth-century Masonic connections of Mathematical Instrumentmaker Jonathan Sisson (1692-1749)
Michael Beacham: Military visitors to Guernsey
Dr Brent Morris: The Impact of English Freemasonry on America and vice versa
Andreas Onnefors: The Freemasons' Magazine 1793-1798
Róbert Péter: Freemasonry in the eighteenth-century British press: unmapped sources and novel research methods
Susan Snell: The art of discovering Masonic history: how to find gems among the archives at the Library and Museum of Freemasonry
Jan Snoek: Preston's Harodim Lectures and the UGLE Craft Rituals
Susan Sommers and Andrew Prescott: James Anderson: a Child of His Times
Yoshio Washizu: English Freemasonry - A Product of Club Movement?
Professor Andrew Prescott: in association with Professor Susan Sommers Searching for the Apple Tree
