When and Where did it start

When and Where did it Start?

Whilst many websites will give definitive answers to this question, the origins of Freemasonry are not well documented. The usual answer is that Freemasonry evolved from the craft guilds of stonemasons, and the tools of the operative masons where retained as symbols of morality. It is a matter of record that the Grand Lodge of England was formed in 1717 and this was followed in 1725 by the Grand Lodge of Ireland. As to who was the first speculative mason, this will in all probability never be discovered. This lack of information on the origins of speculative Freemasonry sometime leads to over zealous extrapolation on the part of Masonic scholars and it is little wonder that Ambrose Bierce, himself a Freemason, described Freemasonry thus:- Freemasons, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and the Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids -- always by a Freemason.