Antigua and Barbuda Freemasonry | American Freemasons
Freemasonry in Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda holds a singular distinction in the history of New World Freemasonry: Parham Lodge No. 154, warranted by the Premier Grand Lodge of England on January 31, 1738 to meet in St. John's, Antigua, is the oldest documented English-speaking Masonic lodge in the Caribbean. This places Antigua at the very root of organized Freemasonry in the British West Indies — a foundational claim no other island in the region can dispute, supported by primary records from the Grand Lodge of England itself.
That Antigua should have been this early center of Masonic activity is not surprising. St. John's was one of the principal British colonial ports of the Leeward Islands in the 1730s, and the island attracted merchants, planters, and officials who had been initiated into the Craft in Britain or New England. Robert Tomlinson, a Provincial Grand Master for New England with business connections to Antigua, is recorded as finding established Masons on the island when he visited in 1738. The lodge he helped constitute was the first of three Antigua warrants issued by the Grand Lodge in 1738 and 1739.
Today Antigua's Masonic lodges operate under the District Grand Lodge of Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean (English Constitution, UGLE) — the regional district that has administered English Freemasonry in these islands since the colonial era. The Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the Caribbean and Jurisdiction, which is headquartered in Barbados and recognized by UGLE, also maintains a lodge in Antigua, extending the island's Masonic tradition into the Prince Hall affiliated community.
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