First Grand Lodge

The early history of Grand Lodge is uncertain, since no minutes were taken until 1723. It is known that the four lodges mentioned above held an assembly at the Goose and Gridiron, in St Paul's Churchyard, on, 24 June 1717 (the Feast of St John the Baptist).

They agreed to restore their "Quarterly Communications", four meetings a year for the transaction of masonic business, and an annual assembly to elect the next Grand Master.

At this meeting, they elected Anthony Sayer, Master of the lodge at the Apple Tree, of whom little else is known, and the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster was born.

At this stage, it is unlikely that they saw themselves as anything more than an association of London lodges. This perception was to change very rapidly.

The next year, George Payne became Grand Master. He was a career civil servant with the commissioners of taxes. In 1719, they elected John Theophilus Desaguliers, a clergyman, an eminent scientist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The last commoner to serve as Grand Master was George Payne in his second term of office in 1720/21, when he wrote The General Regulations of a Free Mason [sic] which were later incorporated in Anderson's Constitutions.

Thereafter, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to raise the profile of the organisation, all the Grand Masters have been members of the nobility.[26] Desaguliers is often described as the "father" of modern freemasonry.

It was Desaguliers who inscribed the dedication to Anderson's Constitutions,[4] headed the committee which directed and approved them, and supplied the "Gothic Constitutions" from which they were formed.

Although he only served one term as Grand Master, he was twice Deputy Grand Master under figurehead Grand Masters, and at other times behaved as if he was Grand Master, forming irregular lodges to conduct initiations.

It seems to have been Desaguliers who insisted that ritual be remembered rather than written down, leading to a dearth of material on the development of English ritual until after the formation of United Grand Lodge.

hese considerations cause many masonic historians to see him as the guiding intelligence as the new Grand Lodge embarked on an era of self-publicity, which saw the sudden expansion of speculative masonry, with a corresponding rise in anti-masonic groups and publications. Initiations began to be reported in newspapers.

The noble grand masters were often fellows of the Royal Society, but the Duke of Wharton (1722–23) had just had his Hell-fire club shut down by the government, and joined, or possibly formed, an anti-masonic group called the Gormagons almost as soon as he left office.

From 1721 the installation of the new Grand Master was the occasion for a parade, originally on foot, later in carriages. This became the subject of some ridicule, until starting in 1740 there were also mock processions by anti-masonic groups, leading to the discontinuation of the practice in 1747.

The rapid expansion of freemasonry also led to many new lodges failing after only a year or two. In addition to attacks from outside the craft, there were now disillusioned ex-masons willing to make money out of "exposures" of freemasonry

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