Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario
Grand Lodge in Canada
The Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Canada in the Province of Ontario is a Grand Lodge with jurisdiction over 571 masonic lodges located in the province of Ontario in Canada with around 46,000 members. The Grand Lodge is in full amity and recognition with the United Grand Lodge of England. The Grand Lodge publishes an annual magazine Ontario Mason.
History
Provincial Grand Lodge
The Provincial Grand Lodge of Upper Canada was formed at the request of Alexander Wilson by the Grand Lodge of England in 1792. Its first Provincial Grand Master was William Jarvis. However, unlike Prince Edward, the Provincial Grand Master for the Provincial Grand Lodge of Lower Canada, William Jarvis was not endowed by the Grand Lodge of England with the power to grant warrants for new lodges.
Formation
Growing dissatisfaction within the members of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Upper Canada with the slow responses of the Grand Lodge of England in forwarding warrants, certificates and the like led to the question of whether it was time to create an independent grand lodge in Canada. After a Provincial Grand Lodge meeting in which the idea was ruled out of order by the Deputy Grand Master, the officers met and formed the Grand Lodge of Canada on 10 October 1855. Its officers were elected the next day, with William Mercer Wilson being elected the first Grand Master of the newly created Grand Lodge, and installed on 2 November.
Growth, split and name change
Over the next few years the Grand Lodge went about petitioning the lodges of Canada West to come under the fold of their newly created Grand Lodge.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario” as grand Lodge in Canada. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as grand Lodge in Canada. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5594751. Authority coordinates are 43.260, -79.880. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1792 and 1855.
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This entry incorporates text from “Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.