Grand Lodge of All England

The Grand Lodge of All England Meeting since Time Immemorial in the City of York was a body of Freemasons which existed intermittently during the Eighteenth Century, mainly based in the City of York. It does not appear to have been a regulatory body in the usual manner of a masonic Grand Lodge, and as such is seen as a "Mother Lodge" like Kilwinning in Scotland. It met to create Freemasons, and as such enabled the foundation of new lodges. For much of its career, it was the only lodge in its own jurisdiction, but even with dependent lodges it continued to function mainly as an ordinary lodge of Freemasons. Having existed since at least 1705 as the Ancient Society of Freemasons in the City of York, it was in 1725, possibly in response to the expansion of the new Grand Lodge in London, that they styled themselves the Grand Lodge of All England Meeting at York. Activity ground to a halt some time in the 1730s, but was revived with renewed vigour in 1761. It was during this second period of activity that part of the Lodge of Antiquity, having quit the Grand Lodge of England in London, allied themselves with their Northern brethren and became, between 1779 and 1789, the Grand Lodge of All England South of the River Trent. Shortly after Antiquity's re-absorption into the London Grand Lodge she had founded, the Grand Lodge at York ceased to function again, this time for good.