why did the moderns set up the lodge of promulgation in 1809

The Premier Grand Lodge of England, known as the Moderns, established the Special Lodge of Promulgation on October 26, 1809, to revert to the Ancient Landmarks of the Order and pave the way for union with the Antients Grand Lodge 1. Earlier that year, on April 12, 1809, the Moderns resolved to repeal restrictive measures enacted around 1739 concerning irregular Masons, issuing a warrant for the express purpose of ascertaining and promulgating the Craft's ancient usages 1.

In a paper read before Quatuor Coronati Lodge, W. Bro. W. B. Hextall noted that the lodge was created to examine ritual differences and return the Moderns' ritual to regularity with the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland, as well as the Antients Grand Lodge, thereby enabling the Union of 1813.

Warranted under the Earl of Moira 1, the Lodge of Promulgation met regularly to reconcile ceremonial forms and ensure consistency across lodges 1. Its members systematically examined practices across the Three Degrees, establishing accepted standards for the installation of Masters, the form of the lodge, the arrangement and duties of officers, and the proper placement of words and passwords 1. By bringing together differing factions and agreeing upon standardized ritual forms, the lodge accomplished the preliminary work necessary to harmonize English Masonic practice before disbanding in March 1811 1.

Resolution of the ritualistic differences regarding the Installed Master ceremony occurred in 1810, when the Lodge of Promulgation formally adopted the practice in preparation for the Union of 1813.

As Robert Freke Gould noted in a 1903 paper published on Phoenixmasonry, the ceremony or degree of Installed Master had not been sanctioned by the Premier Grand Lodge until 1810, when the Lodge of Promulgation declared the installation ceremony to be one of the landmarks of the Order and summoned the Masters of London lodges to be formally installed. Henry Wilson Coil, Sr., writing in an article on Phoenixmasonry, recorded that the Lodge of Promulgation designated the ceremony of Installed Master as one of two landmarks, incorporating the installation into its work prior to the Union. In a further article on Phoenixmasonry, Harry Carr detailed that this effort resulted in the Moderns adopting the Antients' installation ceremony for Masters of lodges along with the concept of a Board of Installed Masters, thereby successfully resolving the issue ahead of the amalgamation of the two Grand Lodges.

Completion of the work of the Special Lodge of Promulgation occurred in 1811. In the Craft, the lodge had been warranted in 1809 by the Earl of Moira expressly to pave the way for union 1. In a paper read before Quatuor Coronati Lodge, W. Bro. W. B. Hextall noted that the lodge laboured from its creation in 1809 until it finished its work and closed down in 1811, after its warrant was extended to March 31, 1811.