The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the…
June 1717 CE
The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the first Masonic Grand Lodge to be created, is officially founded on June 24, 1717, as the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster when four existing Lodges gather at the Goose and Gridiron Ale-house in St. Paul's Churchyard in London and constitute themselves a Grand Lodge.
The four lodges had previously met together in 1716 at the Apple-Tree Tavern, "and having put into the Chair the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a Lodge), they constituted themselves a Grand Lodge pro Tempore in due form."
It was at that meeting in 1716 that they had resolved to hold the Annual Assembly and Feast and then choose a Grand Master from among themselves, which they did the following year.
The first Grand Master was a Mr. Anthony Sayer, Master of the lodge at the Apple Tree, of whom little else is known.
The basic principles of the Grand Lodge of England are inspired by the ideal of tolerance and universal understanding of the Enlightenment and by the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century.
While the three London lodges are mainly operative lodges, the Rummer and Grapes, by the Palace of Westminster, appears to have been primarily a lodge of accepted and speculative gentlemen masons.
The early history of Grand Lodge is uncertain, since no minutes will be taken until 1723.
At this stage, it is unlikely that the members see themselves as anything more than an association of London lodges.
This perception is to change very rapidly.