The Origin and Spread of Freemasonry

Masonic ceremonies teach that Freemasonry was in existence when King Solomon built the Temple at Jerusalem and that the masons who built the Temple were organised into lodges.

The first evidence of a lodge completely made up of non-operative masons is found in the diaries of Elias Ashmole, the Antiquary and Founder of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, who was made a Freemason in a lodge held for that purpose at his father-in-law's house in Warrington in 1646.

However, documents written in 1598 and 1599 (the famous Schaw statutes) state that a Lodge in Scotland, Kilwinning Lodge, was already long-operational by that time. William Schaw, the " Maister o' Work and "Warden o'er a' the masons", wrote in the Schaw statutes that Kilwinning was the "Heid ( Head ) Ludge o' Scotland" at the end of the sixteenth century. The Lodge itself claims to have been started in 1140, the year that Kilwinning Abbey was constructed.

Organized Freemasonry in the modern sense dates from 24 June 1717 when four London lodges came together, formed themselves into a Grand Lodge and elected a Grand Master and Grand Wardens. Indeed, this Lodge -- the United Grand Lodge of England -- is the oldest Grand Lodge of Freemasons in the world.

Thereafter, the spread was rapid. The first American Lodges were founded by authority of the Grand Lodge of England in Boston and Philadelphia in 1733. By the time of the American Revolution, about 150 lodges existed in colonial America. American Freemasons today make up about three-fourths of the total number of all members throughout the world; world membership exceeds 6 million.

Masonry in Asia

Three years before the first American Lodges were founded in 1733, the first Lodge in India was established by the British in Calcutta in 1730.

The first known Masonic meeting in South East Asia took place in 1759 when a ship of the Swedish East India Company reached Canton (now Guangzhou) in China, although there are no written records of these meetings. The Premier Grand Lodge of England has records of Amity Lodge #407 meeting in Canton in 1768.

A Lodge was founded in Bencoolen, Sumatra in 1765. The first Malay Lodge was founded in Penang in 1809.

Two Lodges were established in Hong Kong immediately after it was ceded to the British following the opium wars. The first was Royal Sussex Lodge #501 warranted on 18 September 1844 and the second was Zetland Lodge #525 warranted on 21 March 1846 and named after the Marquis of Zetland, Grand Master 1844 to 1870. At about the same time, the Zetland in the East Lodge #508 was established on 26th February 1845 in Singapore.

More recently, the Lodge St John No 1702 was warranted in Bangkok, Thailand in 1911.

The Grand Lodge of the Philippines was established in 1912.