Freemasonry is one of the oldest social and charitable organisations in the world. Organised freemasonry began in1717, when freemasons from four London lodges met to form the world’s first Grand Lodge. During this time there was a boom in periodicals (magazines and daily newspapers) emerging from London’s busy city culture. Coffee houses and taverns were places of discussion and gossip most frequently conducted by men. So it was no surprise that several periodicals aimed specifically at freemasons eventually appear towards the end of the century. Few complete series of these periodicals have survived in libraries and they have only limited indexes. Masonic Periodicals Online enables the most significant masonic periodicals from the period 1790 to 1900 to be searched.

