Emulation Working takes its name from the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, which meets at Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, weekly on Fridays from October to June. It first met 2nd October 1823 and was formed specifically for Master Masons to provide instruction for those who wished to make themselves ready for office and succession to the Chair. 

The Emulation Lodge of Improvement for Master Masons, to give it its full title, first met on 2 October 1823. it was formed specifically for Master Masons so as to provide instruction for those who wished to make themselves ready for Lodge office and succession to the Chair. The founders came principally from the Burlington and Perseverance Lodges of Instruction, the first formed in 1810 and the other in 1817, both of whom had taught the new ritual approved by Grand Lodge in June 1816 but who tended to concentrate on the work of the First Degree and to instruct candidates.

In 1830 the number of members of the Lodge of Improvement from the Lodge of Hope had dropped to one and the the sanction was undertaken by the Lodge of Unions, which has remained the sponsor ever since.

The ritual forms for use in the United Grand Lodge of England were produced by the Lodge of Reconciliation and were approved and confirmed by Grand Lodge in June 1816. These have formed the basis of Emulation Working since its inception in 1823. It has been the policy of the committee of the Emulation Lodge of Improvement to preserve the ritual as nearly as possible in the form in which it was approved by Grand Lodge, allowing only those changes approved by Grand Lodge to become established practice.

Due to the fact that Grand Lodge took the view that the ritual should not be committed to print, oral repetition formed the means of transmission. It was not until 1969 that the Emulation Lodge of Improvement sponsored publication of the first edition of the "Emulation Ritual".

On 11th June 1986, Grand Lodge resolved "that all references to physical penalties be omitted from the obligations taken by Candidates in the threee Degrees and by a Master Elect at his Installation but retained elsewhere in the respective ceremonies".

That resolution is mandatory in its terms, and represents the most momentous single change made to our ceremonies since they were approved by Grand Lodge following the Union in 1813. As a consequence, a new edition of the Emulation Ritual Book has become necessary less than a year after the publication of the Seventh Edition. The Committee has, however, in accordance with its established principle stated above, kept to a minimum the changes to the ritual wording necessary to comply with the method of procedure recommended by the Board of General Purposes in its Report to Grand Lodge on 11 June 1986.