When is a friendly society not a friendly society

What we now call 'Friendly Societies' are in by far the most parlous condition of the 3 strands of benefit society as far as self-knowledge and on-going scholarship are concerned. Quite apart from claimed 'biblical' origins, all the 'real-time' histories of the largest of these, the Affiliated Orders [AO's] or 'Affiliated Friendly Societies' [AFS's], are, by-and-large, useless as far as their earliest days are concerned. They are rarely internally consistent, they are based on very little primary research, they have neglected critical questions and they, like other 'insider' histories, have more often than not been written with the intention of appearing squeaky clean, and/or superior, usually more 'modern', to their competitors.

The state of 'friendly society' scholarship can be gauged from the fact that reliable pre-1830 information is sparse and pre-1800 practically non-existent. Though clearly celebrating something new, the SF literature does not claim that 1717 was the establishment date for a new 'Order', indeed it ambiguously emphasises the opposite, it claims that it was a beginning which already had a very long history. Later, 'trade unionists' have wrangled internally over the claims of tradition versus modernity for their 'Orders'. Both have been moderately successful in their myth-making. 'Friendly societies' have been roundly denigrated by advocates of the other two 'strands' of benefit society whether they claimed to be a 'modern' invention or claimed an unbroken heritage back to Roman 'burial clubs'. In their myth-making they have failed dismally.⁴¹⁹

'In-house' historians of the AFS's, comparatively numerous in the 19th century, did often admit to finding the question of 'their' origins very difficult. This didn't encourage much primary research, but rather a glib recitation of assertions culled from earlier, in-house 'scholars' who had justified their claim to be authorities by sounding authoritative. If they were from an SF source, so-called 'facts' were even more likely to be parroted rather than investigated.

One assertion has been that the whole era of 'friendly societies' began in 1739 when some Freemasons left Grand Lodge's aupices to form a new lodge and were called 'Odd Fellows' for doing so.⁴²⁰ Another has made the singing of 'odes' the reason for that 'odd' name.⁴²¹ Spry's 1858 explanation for 'friendlies' also began with the 18th century clubs, established, he said, for 'literary men'

to meet periodically to eat beefsteaks, tripe, etc, and enjoy one another's company, and call their officers by high sounding titles, and style themselves Brothers.⁴²²

In such 'clubs', he asserted, rituals were formed 'to imitate the usages' of Freemasonry and club titles chosen to reflect an interest in ancient times - Orders of Romans, Britons, Druids, Ivorites, Foresters, Shepherds, Alfreds, Knights of the Golden Fleece, Noble Mechanics, the Ark, Knights of Burgundy, 'and many others of purely local character.' No primary evidence of any kind has been adduced to bolster 'borrowing' claims, and, some at least of the societies Spry named, eg, that of the 'Ancient Britons', pre-date 1717. Many of the claims made subsequently in the literature can be shown to start with Spry's History or from an anonymously-published Manual of Odd Fellowship which quoted Spry's work approvingly, and which Spry, in later versions of his History, claimed to have written.

Hardwicke, MUIOOF Past Grand Master, laid down a rhetorical trail in 1862, which served at the time to boost MUIOOF but which may strike readers of this account as familiar:

This, now the most extensive self-governed Provident Institution in the world, was established at Manchester in the year 1812. For some time previously, isolated lodges of Odd Fellows existed in various parts of the country, but they possessed no regularly organised sick and funeral fund. They were merely secret fraternities - humble imitations of Freemasonry - instituted chiefly for social and convivial purposes, although they occasionally afforded charitable assistance to members in distress. The presumed antiquity of these Provident Institutions of the operative classes, I have demonstrated...to be unsupported by evidence and opposed to known historic facts. I have been unable to obtain the slightest trace of a modern Friendly Society of this class prior to the publication of Daniel De Foe's work entitled 'An Essay on Projects' in 1696.⁴²³ [My emphases]

Scholars of 'American' odd fellowship, by which was meant the IOOF in the USA, were asserting towards the end of the 19th century the uniqueness of 'their' Order in a manner which appeared to turn back the clock. Since, MUIOOF 'although greatly improved, is chiefly a life and health insurance company'

(in) ours alone we find stirring appeals to the higher nature, and those moral and divine principles which elevate it almost to the dignity of a religion...Thus we have no common ritual, no affiliation and nothing of the same form of government.⁴²⁴

In truth, both arguments as 'labour' and 'masonic' historians have done, mix assertions about 'newness' in with claims about having a heritage, albeit borrowed in this case. The confused approach has been by-and-large accepted by 20th century 'objective' scholars of 'friendlies', such as Fuller⁴²⁵, whose otherwise very useful 1964 thesis insists on a Webbian distinction between 'pure' friendly societies and 'trade unions', dating the emergence of the former around 1751 when societies with mixed functions supposedly began to remove restrictions limiting membership to just one trade:

To the true friendly society there was a definite advantage in mixed trade membership for the society as a whole was not then so severely vulnerable to fluctuations or accidents in any one industry.⁴²⁶

One would love to know what her evidence for the pre-1750 situation was. Fuller finishes quite strongly, arguing that the social life in which fraternal associations formed must be seen as a whole for the societies to be understood. What a pity she didn't begin at that point.

Many of the accounts of 'friendly' history inadvertently show that the largest Affiliated Friendly Societies such as MUIOOF went through the same evolutionary process as SF, that is, tradesmen at their place of work or at their 'local', establishing 'benefit societies', one of which they label a 'Grand Lodge' and on the basis of which they begin establishing 'sub-branches'. And as with SF, none of these 'official' establishment stories is able to either confirm or deny any previous history, continuous or fractured.

George concluded in her 1930 study of London life in the 18th century:

Friendly Societies are not a new development of the eighteenth century; apart from the friendly society functions of the early guilds, often continued in their later phase of city companies, box clubs and benefit societies are to be found in the seventeenth century, but as the eighteenth century went on they multiplied.⁴²⁷

She quoted a 1742 London gazeteer:

There are in this city and suburbs another sort of societies, both of men and women (which are very numerous) denominated box-clubs, for the relief and mutual support of the poorest sort of artisans during sickness or other incapacity.

The report included references to the low but steady contributions, the weekly meetings with 'orders for their better regulation', and the 'strong box or chest with divers locks':

Tho' these societies consist of the meanest and rudest of the citizens, yet by their admirable regulations and constitutions (of their own making) they are kept in best order and decorum...Those of these societies which are of long standing and have amassed a considerable sum of money for a fund, oblige every member at his admission into the club, to pay five shillings entrance money and in some ten shillings.⁴²⁸

It was, she said, 'one of the most deeply-rooted principles' of the benefit society that it should provide its members - and usually their wives - with a funeral:

It was also the rule in most clubs, perhaps inherited from the ancient tradition of the guilds, that the members should attend the funeral of a fellow-member or pay a fine for absence.

These 'box clubs' or 'sick clubs' have been dismissed by just about all 'modern' authors as negligble except perhaps in total numbers. Yet a writer in 1789 believed 'there was hardly a village, no matter how small, that had not a sick club,' often separate ones for males and females, but carrying out similar functions.⁴²⁹ One such, begun at a Derbyshire village pub in 1736 (!) had just 3 Rules, introduced as follows:

An Account of the Orders to be observed and kept by all and every one of the members of the Amicable Society of the club held at the house of Alice Frith in Hathersage, commencing the twenty ninth day of January, 1736, and in the tenth year of the Raign of our Sovereign Lord George the 2nd by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the faith, etc.

1st This Society is to be governed by one Master, two Wardens, & 6 Councell, which are to be chosen out of the whole body.

2nd And whoever shall enter into this Society shall give sixpence entrance and fourpence every club night into the Box, towards the maintaining and upholding of so good a design, and none shall be admitted into it under sixteen years of age nor above the age of forty.

3rd And to every one that shall belong unto it after they have been in it one whole year, if sickness should come on them they shall have given unto them three shillings a week so long as it shall continue on them, and if their sickness be judged to be incurable they shall have two shillings a week while they live, and at their death shall have twenty shillings for to bury them if so required, and every member or at least those that are bidden shall convey their brother's corpse to the grave, & upon neglect of not coming, notice being given them, they shall forfeit sixpence to the box without good & just reasons be given to the Master and Wardens and they approve thereof.⁴³⁰

With rarely more than twenty members, this club/friendly society/insurer/educator/social lubricant and adhesive shows both guild-like features and 'modern' features such as age-restrictions. However long its life, it effectively protected 'industrial' conditions by preventing a pool forming of totally-impoverished unemployed willing to work at any price. It is therefore logical to perceive these 'humble' institutions in the same light as the other societies mentioned and as part of the same long historical continuum, even if any particular 'society' had only a relatively short life.

Ludlow argued in 1872 that if the numerous 'friendly societies' known to be in existence in the 18th century had appeared suddenly such an outburst would have been noted by social commentators, and no such remarks have been found:

I feel convinced that there is no historical gap between the gild of old times and the modern friendly society; that if we knew all, we could trace the actual passage from the one to the other; and I think it by no means impossible that the records still exist...⁴³¹

Ludlow was arguing that the often-quoted contemporary references to 'friendly societies', perhaps the earliest is by Defoe in 1696, were support for making compulsory⁴³² something already in existence, not something yet to be born.⁴³³ In 1872 he computed that 'three years before the first Friendly Society Act was passed (in 1793) there must have been a good 600 societies in existence.' The Webbs claimed 'sick and funeral clubs' had spread all over England by then, but Ludlow's point is their age. He held records showing that a single, Scottish seaport, Borrowstounness, 'possesses five [benefit] societies, one 238 years old, (ie established in 1634) one 213, (established in 1659) one 134, one 115, and one 91.'⁴³⁴ (My emphasis)

This 1634 'club' and others of similar, even greater age have been noted by other authors, including Beveridge. He referred to 191 established before 1800 and surviving until 1905 after which date National Health Insurance began. Beveridge listed six of the oldest, including that 1634 'club', still active as he wrote in 1949, and the oldest known which claimed foundation in 1555. It cannot be accidental that these dates are from the same period when guild scholars like Unwin suggested the journeymen combinations were going underground, when SF scholars argue that non-operative 'masonic' lodges were being instituted, nor that the supposedly newly-emergent 'club' names show clear trade connections.⁴³⁵ The oldest, of course, also coincide with the time when, as we have seen, craft/trade combinations from even the smallest 'burghs' were being incorporated and encouraged to exercise control of 'their' brethren.

SF scholar Wonnacott has analysed documents of the 'Friendly Society of Free and Accepted Masons' established in 1737 to show a benefit society with a highly developed form of administration which some would call 'modern' and some would call 'gild-like'. It did not confine itself to stone-masons, an additional reason for re-appraising insider claims about SF. That is, SF probably began as just one example among many of 18th century societies forced by exigencies into acceptance of initiates from wherever they could be found, not just from a preferred, titular occupation.

The 66 pages of Rules and Regulations in clear if wordy and very organised form show the lodge positions were not 'Warden', 'Master', 'Guardian', etc, - but 'President', 'Secretary', 'Treasurer' with the assistance of 'Clerk', 'Steward' and an 'Assistant' who acted as would a Tyler or Door Guardian. There is direct lodge involvement with health professionals. Elections were quarterly, meetings weekly and contributed funds were invested or lent to members, the executive was chosen specifically to represent 12 different trades and membership could not include more than 3 members of any one trade. The Society's Objects were clearly trade-oriented:

We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do unanimously agree to erect and establish a Beneficial Society of FREE and ACCEPTED MASONS for the mutual benefit and Support of each other, as well in respect to do Our utmost to promote the Interest and Advantage of the Members in their respective Trades, as to Provide for and Support those under such Misfortunes, and Sickness, which they may be visited or afflicted with from the HANDS of ALMIGHTY GOD.⁴³⁶ [Emphases in original]

This is a 'benefit society' which is clearly SF, a 'friendly society' and a 'trade union' all at the one time. In its spread of trades it is also what is later called a Trades Hall Council. And the executive, at least, wore ceremonial regalia. It beggars belief to suggest this was a 'spontaneous' eruption in the 18th century, someone's 'bright idea.' It invites comparison with the 'Operative Stonemasons Friendly Society' referred to already, but that will have to wait.

Wonnacott provided no information as to how these tradesmen and small masters initially came together, but members were already 'made' SF's. Shortly after inauguration, an attempt to establish a new SF lodge as a complement to and within this 'Society' caused disputes apparently because of the different entry qualifications for each. The arguement 'resolved', the titles of the lodge officers became the more obviously 'gildry' 'Master', 'Warden', etc. 'Masons' were made and raised as appropriate and the benefit system continued. What also continued was the landlord's concern that the brethren were not drinking enough, though each appears to be consuming a gallon of porter each per meeting.⁴³⁷

The 'Friendly Society of Free and Accepted Masons' was not alone in not being restricted to a single trade even when the society name appears to assert just that. The Newcastle-on-Tyne Glass Makers Friendly Society, founded in 1755, had in 1800 a rule which said 'no pitman, collier, sinker or waterman to be admitted this society' and a society of clothworkers in Halifax declared itself open to all trades except stonemasons, miners and delvers. Another, established among the 'tradesmen and other persons residing in the town and neighborhood' of Heptonstall near Halifax insisted in 1812 that:

No person shall be a member of this society who is not of that ancient and honorable society of Free and Accepted Masons and a subscriber to some regular lodge in some one of the five degrees of Masonry.⁴³⁸ [My emphasis]

A number of benefit societies clearly restricted membership on a basis not-indicative of a craft, trade or misterie but the title alone does not mean these were not also trade-based combinations, eg, 'The Protestant Refugees from High and Low Normandy Friendly Society',⁴³⁹ and 'The Kidderminster Provident Society of Protestant Dissenters'. Similarly with those clearly for women, or those often classified as 'ambiguous', viz, the 'Old Free and Easy', the 'United Brothers' and the 'Friendly Union'.⁴⁴⁰ One author claims the 'Order of the Golden Fleece', for example, to have been a club founded by German workmen who introduced the stuff [woollen fabric] trade into England.

Harry Carr (above) suggested that as they lost control of the trade in 'their' area, craft guilds turned from being trade unions into 'benefit societies' by which he meant 'friendly societies.' A Scottish observer in 1821 claimed the following were 'friendly societies' deriving from the 'opening up' of 'trade clubs':

in almost every town we have the Weavers' Society, the Wrights' Society; the Shoemakers' Society, etc, although very few of them have any connection now with the trade from which they derive their name..⁴⁴¹

Authors seeing the reverse process in play - that 'friendlies' eventually matured and became 'Trade Unions' - are on very shaky ground. They often claim as 'friendly societies' what others list as 'particular trade combinations', eg, in the 18th century, the Fraternity of Dyers, the Friendly Society of Shoemakers [Cordwainers] and the Society of Weavers, with only an arbitrary definition of one or the other category to support the claim. Remember the Webbs (above) claiming as 'trade unions' if not 'Trade Unions', a long list of 18th century, apparently trade-based societies. These remain un-researched as to actual membership, as does the wonderfully-named 'Independent United Order of Mechanics Friendly Society' established, or re-invented, in Lancashire in 1757.

In 1988, David Neave took up Hobsbawm's suggestion about studying UK 'friendly societies' at the local level, but he took 'local' to mean single societies named after a village or town, such as the 'Otley Friendly Society'.⁴⁴² Using records extant in the 1980's his list included, for example, the 'Patrington Amicable Society', 'Pocklington Royal Brotherly Society' and the 'Kilham Unanimous Society'.

He also listed 'Union' Societies which, by his reckoning, operated from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. Most interestingly, these appear in other records, as early 19th century reform vehicles. That is, Neave has the 'Howden Union Society' (he noted its existence in 1764 and again much later), and the 'Worksop Union Society' (his reference 1849), while he seems unaware that between these two dates, eg, at the 1819 Peterloo rally, there were a number with this 'Union' name, including the 'Rochdale Union Society', whose banners showed lodge/fraternal emblems. The possibility that this naming similarity ('Union') indicated a federation or network has apparently not been followed up.⁴⁴³

Having avoided specifically named 'trade societies', Neave's material nevertheless included a number composed of members of one trade, eg, fishermen, while for the rest he says only that 'the bulk of the membership of the urban societies were craftsmen and tradesmen'. He records cases of better-off persons joining some of the village societies as 'patrons', eg, attorneys, clergymen, surgeons and so on.⁴⁴⁴

Most potentially-interesting of all may be the societies whose peculiar names and anecdote-driven 'memoirs' have eroded the capacity of many historians to focus on their content.⁴⁴⁵ As newspaper notices of their coming events did, many 18th and 19th century 'clubs' used code or some other means to disguise venue, participants and/or purpose. The 'Antigallic Hicks' was made up of Master Peruke [wig] Makers and was in fact a trade-based 'friendly society.' The 'Ancient Society of Codgers' was devoted to

the promotion of the liberty of the subject and the freedom of the press; the maintenance of loyalty to the laws, the rights and claims of humanity, and the practice of public and private virtue.⁴⁴⁶

A 'Friendly Society of Cockneys', in addition to being a benefit society for its members and following the guild pattern with regard to annual sermon, meeting and dinner, raised money to educate, clothe and apprentice poor children. Influential antiquarians some of whom were Freemasons, such as William Stukely, are credited with founding groups to host their studies, eg, the Society of Roman Knights in 1722.⁴⁴⁷ Boswell,⁴⁴⁸ Hogarth,⁴⁴⁹ and other well-known persons attended a number of societies with funny or ambiguous names deliberately disguising serious intentions, secretive practices and benevolent activities. Uglow concluded her account of one, the 'Beefsteak Society':

It was a site of education, a means of mutual protection like the old trade guilds, another, better, club (and it) took over the St Luke's Day feasts celebrating the artist's patron.⁴⁵⁰

Uglow avoids asserting the club ritual was 'Masonic' or modelled on the newly-publicised Grand Lodge practices. Other authors have not been so perceptive. After-hours meeting places in 18th century London have even been reported as 'pseudo-masonic' clubs, as though someone at the time could have said such-and-such-a-one was the 'correct' SF, and the others mere copies.⁴⁵¹ When SF was in low repute and irregular 'makings' were common, a tavern advertised on one occasion 'Masons made here for 2/6d'.⁴⁵² Such 'brothers' would certainly have been 'irregular' by Grand Lodge's definitions, but by whose definition were they even within coo-ee of being 'Masonic.' Presumably, only because the word was being used as shorthand for any initiation ceremony suffered by new arrivals into a 'club' which might be as silly or as rowdy as the particiapnats cared to make it.

Beside the more-or-less 'official' 'Friendly Society of Free and Accepted Masons' (above) there were 'regular' SF organisations that could reasonably be seen as equivalent to, if in competition with, Premier Grand Lodge. 'Free Union Masons' - an Order started by SF men for women - a 'Social Order of Freemasons' and a 'Society of Honorary Freemasons' are known to have existed. The five 'Grand Lodges' of English SF known to have operated in the 18th century were 'official' if not 'regular'.⁴⁵³

But there were others again whose relationship to SF, if it can be clarified, may well provide answers to some of our most pressing questions. After 'the '45', ie the rising in favour of 'Bonny Prince Charley', an active network of Jacobite societies and 'lodges' were said to be flourishing in London, Liverpool, Preston, Norwich, Bristol, Manchester, and in Wales, where the reference is to the 'renowned Sea Serjeants' and the 'legendary Cycle of the White Rose.' The same author has claimed in a typically uncontextualised throwaway remark that '(even) the Newcastle colliers proclaimed their mass allegiance to King Charles III in 1750.'⁴⁵⁴ The 'Sea Serjeants of Carmathenshire and Pembrokeshire' allegedly had as headquarters 'the Carmarthen Masonic Lodge at the Red Lion' public house, while Jacobite Societies supposedly nestled behind titles such as the 'Beaufort Hunt CLub', the 'Crosby Bowling Society', 'Jemmy's Men' and the 'Oyster & Parched Pea Club.' An end-of-century journalist, Reid claimed 'a revolutionary freethinking underworld' centred largely on London's debating clubs had become, in McCalman's paraphrase, 'the principal institutional form' for Jacobinism:

Reid distinguished two types: relatively genteel, formal debating groups which met in independent premises to disseminate rationalist-republican ideas; and more numerous alehouse convivial clubs, atttended by artisans and a scattering of marginal middle-class intellectuals, which voiced a melange of ribald blasphemy, millenarianism and political treason, and plotted insurrection in secret.⁴⁵⁵

McCalman is far too quick to imply stratagems by the participants rather than allow them genuine beliefs but he does note that fraternal ritual was important in the 'rough male republic' of the 'alehouse club':

Nicknaming, toasting, chanting, singing and linking hands helped to differentiate them from rival radical groups and to maintain morale in difficult times.⁴⁵⁶

Out of this thicket of disconnected 'research' appear the Odd Fellows.

the odd fellows ⁴⁵⁷

Attempting to ground the original 'odd fellow' impulse is extremely difficult. The early reaches of the alleged 'record' of this collection of over 30 separate 'Orders', including what became the largest AFS in the world, 'Manchester Unity' [MUIOOF], contain huge gaps, there are very few undisputed 'facts' and, as one can imagine in such a situation, the quality of historical research, up to the very recent past, has often been poor indeed.⁴⁵⁸ Later 'scholars' have often adopted the unscholarly approach of repeating what the first authors into the field have stated rather than checking, let alone interpreting it. As with SF and 'trade unions', the most basic questions still require answers: what are we actually talking about when we use the term 'odd fellow'? when, where and why did these particular combinations form? and what, if anything, can be retrieved from past attempts to chronicle them?

At least in Commonwealth countries, too much weight has been accorded to MUIOOF as though it alone explained and described 'benefit societies.' Strictly speaking, it isn't even an Order in its own right but one branch only of the 'Independent Order of Odd Fellows', itself a breakaway from an earlier Order, probably what is now called the 'Grand United Order of Odd Fellows.' Most of MU's in-house authors have glossed this early history and adopted a smug, triumphalist tone which has impeded understanding and serious research. In the USA, the strongest strand of that colony's OF history, actually called the 'Independent Order of Odd Fellows', has been represented as the only Odd Fellow history, to the exclusion of even MUIOOF history. This competitive ploy has led many non-lodge authors into admitting defeat and referring simply to 'the Oddfellows', or, what's worse, to lumping all 'friendlies' together as 'Masonic.'

Comparing the UK and US 'official' OF histories has yeilded some progress, as has bringing the literature of the 3 strands of benefit society history together. There are, for example, a number of curiously overlapping dates and sequences of dates, especially in the 18th century and early 19th century, in the official histories. I'm not suggesting borrowing from one strand to another is likely or even possible at these times, rather that placing one account over another, as it were, at these dates demonstrates the feasibility of the close habitation arguement, even that the separate 'official histories' are discussing the same groups and the same events but by different names, certainly from different perspectives. 'Overlapping' of friendly societies with SF and with trade societies appears a very likely explanation when we focus on the OFs but not of the sort asserted by the Webbs.

An inventory of the earliest claimed OF 'facts' would read as follows (my comments interpolated):

Sheffield 'Odd Fellows' (actually Sheffield MUIOOF) claim (1999):

that a 'Grand Lodge of the Ancient Order of Odd Fellows', was established in Sheffield under a Dispensation granted by the City of London in the 17th century.

There is no known supporting evidence for this claim.

In 1696 Daniel Defoe supposedly mentioned a 'Society of Odd Fellows'.

I have yet to see this verified.

The London SF Grand Lodge in Feb, 1724, changed its Rules to:

prevent brethren being members of any other societies/clubs. This supposedly forced 'Odd Fellows' to form their own 'club' by 1736.

There is no supporting evidence for the second part of this claim.⁴⁵⁹ Gould has the 1724 SF resolution, and with it further evidence showing it lapsed for want of support, but was revived in 1742.

Moffrey (1910), among many others has claimed that the OF's were 'founded in imitation of Freemasonry'.

There is no evidence for this claim, which I address further below.

Spry suggested the 'Order of Gregorians' was the source for the odd fellows.

There is no known evidence for this claim.

Stillings asserts the 'Ancient Order of Bucks' was the source.

There is no supporting evidence for this.

Neither an alleged 1745 reference in the Gentleman's Magazine about an 'Odd Fellow's Lodge' in London where a 'comfortable & recreative evening' could be had, nor even the alleged secondary reference in the 1842 Bentley's Magazine, can now be found. It seems to have come from an 1846 book by a Glaswegian, Burns, a participant at the time of his writing in a crucial struggle for the heart of 'MU'. His scholarship appears no better founded than those who have recycled his 'facts'.

Also in 1745, the London 'Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows' supposedly split into a 'Patriotic Order', supporting William of Orange, based in London & southern England, and an 'Ancient Order' strong in the north of England & Scotland, supporting the Stuarts.

No primary evidence has been cited or is known by me for any of this claim. Mentions of 'ancient odd fellows' occur in various writings in 19th and 20th literature, but always unreferenced and unexplained.

Smith & Roberts, following others,⁴⁶⁰ have asserted that the 'Odd Fellows' were suppressed after seceding from the 'Ancient Order of Bucks'.

No date nor any useful references have been given for the claim.

In 1748, the 'Odd Fellows' supposedly excluded from their 'club' the last of 'working men' members, in favour of professional men and 'the better off'.

No evidence is known for this claim.

Minutes of a 'Loyal Aristarchus Lodge' of 'Odd Fellows' for 12/3/1748, and the 'Rules of Loyal Aristarchus Lodge, No 9, Order of Oddfellows' have been cited but their present whereabouts is unknown.

A 1745 split of a society's membership along Protestant-Jacobite and north-south geographic lines is possible, as is the notion that the losers of the struggle would be suppressed and any lingering supporters expelled after the dust cleared. The alternative SF, the 'Antient's', predominantly Irish and working class, being established shortly after seems too much of a coincidence, as does the Jacobite 'network' also referred to above, while an Odd Fellow's Club wherein could be had a 'comfortable and recreative evening' appears totally out of place in such a context.

I have seen no attempt to explain who, what or why 'Aristarchus'. The word doesn't appear in any reference book I have, nor does it appear in any list of 18th century clubs and societies. Nor have I seen any attempt to explain of what it was 'Lodge Aristarchus' was the ninth.

That some 'lodges' were not genuine SF, from the London Grand Lodge's point of view, was perhaps first claimed in Dermott's (1750's) injunction to those who desired to become 'Freemasons' to shun 'Mason-clubs', that is to say 'lodges' formed without authority

for you may rest fully assured that such clubs are generally composed of excluded members, or persons clandestinely made by them, and consequently incapable of giving proper instruction to their pupils...Several of these Clubs or Societies have, in imitation of the Freemasons, called their Club by the name of Lodges and their presidents by the title of Grand Master or Most Noble Grand.⁴⁶¹

The 'Most Noble Grand' here is very curious, as it is not a 'modern' SF title, but 'Noble Grand' is used by OF's. SF authors assert it derives from the Bucks. Dermott is not necessarily any more objective than anyone else, here presupposing that the SF was the first with the terms 'lodge' and 'Grand Master'. He seems to have been very early in the queue of authors assuming that any society using the same or similar words to those SF used must be copying SF. Spry, a key 19th century example, thought it obvious because of common symbolism and the use of an oath and a degree structure. Such claims reflect the ignorance engendered by the lack of research. It should not be necessary to point out that SF was, and is, in exactly the same position as those other societies - after nearly 300 years it cannot yet explain from where it 'borrowed' its rites, symbols, etc, or when it did so.

At the same time, an argument could be mounted on the basis of just the information given in the last few paragraphs that what became the various Orders of Odd Fellows began with a group of discontented, perhaps rebellious working class Irish, one-time SF members, or perhaps rejected would-be members. And that such a group of London artisans established a network of lodges only to find their organisation rent by conflict over the '45 Rebellion and subsequent government repression. Thus the establishment of 'the Antients' and the Grand Lodge of England within SF is probably very relevant.

Whether such a situation would make it more or less likely that artisan/rebels disregarding 'the Antients' and establishing 'the Odd Fellows' would 'borrow' SF rites, strategically or not, is moot. It seems to me that any borrowing at all is unlikely, but that, if it occurred, it would be of what SF had given up of pre-1717 custom, not what SF 'created.' We will see that SF rites themselves were far from stable or uniform across the UK until well into the 19th century, making even the idea of borrowing very problematic.

Very little is known about either the 'Order of Bucks' or the 'Order of Gregorians' or why any name change, to 'Odd Fellow' would have been appropriate or necessary. Both 'Orders' have been regarded by SF's as their 18th century competitors, neither are known to have been associated with a trade. A third 'Order' the 'Gormogons', of similar date and described by SF's as an 'obscure anti-Masonic and probably Jacobite club', also gets a mention, again without sufficient explanation.⁴⁶²

Many pieces of relevant information are still in transit to their place in the larger puzzle. As exemplar straws in the broad fraternal wind, Durr, in a Brighton (UK) exhibition in 1989, spotlighted and dated the following items: a medallion from the 'Society of Bucks', 1770c, snuff boxes from the 'Order of Bucks', 1760c, a mug from the 'Society of Bucks', 1760c, a summons from the 'Society of Bucks Euphrates Lodge', 1778, a certificate from the 'Royal Hanoverian Lodge of the Society of Bucks', 1812, and a certificate from the 'Order of Bucks, Ancient Lodge of Assyria', which he dated at 1826. The same exhibition claimed an 'Oddfellows' snuff box, 1810c, medallions from 'Oddfellows', 1760 and 1802, and an 'Oddfellows' apron, dated 1790c, all of which provides much food for thought and serious research.

Many or all of the contemporary references may turn out to have been accurately and honestly made, but it is not possible to be sanguine about them at present. A sorting out will depend partly upon an understanding of the reasons behind the name 'odd fellows'. My current sense is that the title should be seen in the context of, and perhaps as reaction to 'the Fellows' of the Royal Society and their 'club'. In more general terms, it seems to me that only a much closer understanding of 18th century 'club' history will provide answers to many of the questions being asked in this review.⁴⁶³

In brief, while the SF claims about 'the Bucks' and the others are suggestive, no primary evidence has come to light substantiating any 'borrowing' suggestions, let alone any involving odd fellows and/or these other 'clubs.' Other claims about OF origins and 'trade unions', which we will now need to consider, cannot easily be assimilated into this story.

the liklihood of borrowing bt trade combinations from sp

When the general tenor of the 'borrowing from SF' claims for trade-based societies is considered the weakness of the case becomes obvious:

The working of a fixed ritual obviously suggests an analogy - the possibility of a derivation....But the adoption of such terms as 'Lodge' and 'Grand Lodge', a separation into 'degrees', the use of a secret cypher, the wearing of aprons, the inclusion of the 'All Seeing Eye' as a symbol, all seem to point conclusively to an intentional copying of features prominent in Freemasonry.⁴⁶⁴

1: This sort of generalised claim cannot be sustained against even a moderately well-informed awareness.

The second half of the 18th century has been seen as the time of the greatest proliferation of secret societies in Europe. It is mainland Europe which the particular authors usually have in mind, and the societies to which they attach the label are not usually seen in lists of artisinal 'benefit societies'. Groups like the Illuminati, the Strict Observance and the 'Order of the Gold and Rosicrucian', which proved to have elements intent on subverting authorities, have been commonly associated with SF, sometimes by individual members, more often by their hysterical targets. But to the degree they partook of 'the lodge idea' they must be included here, if only briefly.

Claims made by a Jesuit priest, Barruel, in the 1790's about SF's involvement, along with the Illuminati, in the French revolutionary conspiracies and 'the Terror' have been repeatedly recycled without necessarily being understood.⁴⁶⁵ During ferment around the possibilities of Vatican support, Robespierre did champion a civic religion on a Rousseauesque model he called the 'Cult of Reason, of the Supreme Being and Theophilanthropy'. Intended to attract religious-minded revolutionaries who were not fanatics about detail, it vanished with its founder, but it was located theologically where Freemasonry was, by one interpretation, attempting to centre itself - on the idea of a 'supreme being' which was flexible and non-specific.⁴⁶⁶ The substance of Barruel's claims, which did not mention this cult, I leave until I can consider their application to Ireland and Britain.

The Order of the Illuminati (or Enlightened Ones) was an avowed secret society among bourgeois and gentry circles dedicated to fighting against religious and secular tyranny and for the reformation of society on democratic lines. In 1784-85 Bavarian authorities specifically banned both it and Freemasonry. Hamill and Gilbert claim that it is this association that continues to feed the papacy's hostility to Freemasonry, first articulated in 1738. It requires only that SF be seen as secretive and liberal to explain the other attacks by government on it in its first decades, 1735 (Holland), 1737 and 1744 (France), 1744 (Geneva) and 1745 (Berne).⁴⁶⁷

The Strict Observance, though Catholic, has been said to have deliberately mimiced SF, which seems unlikely on a number of grounds, including the enormous turmoil over much smaller doctrinal questions than the huge issues also separating Rome from London. However, outsiders at the time, let alone those at a greater distance like the Webbs, could know little about the internal reality of such an Order, or those of SF, so what does the label 'masonic borrowing' actually indicate?

In the large majority of cases, as already suggested, it indicates only that the combination being alluded to, had or appeared to have what were regarded as basic 'lodge' essentials, namely, an oath of secrecy for members and indications of ritual, however sparse, to distinguish 'brothers' from outsiders. These 'essentials' would appear to be the sine qua non of benefit societies from the guilds to the 19th century, at least.

2: Specific claims about transmission of rites and oaths via the weavers and the odd fellows into Owen's 'trade unions' require for their support specific evidence, for example, that at a certain identifiable time the basic or 'Craft SF', ie the 3-Degrees only, was highly regarded by the erstwhile borrowers and seen by them as having the best model. The insistence on prior SF membership by the 1812 Rules of a tradesmen's society (above) is the sort of lead in need of urgent follow-up but in the absence of such follow-up....

The numerous exposes and satires published on SF from before 1717 and throughout the 18th century, and other evidence including that of the Antients, do not support the idea that the English artisinal classes were mightily impressed with what gentry in SF were doing to operative traditions. At a time when workers were trying to hang on to what they understood to be custom, SF was increasingly seen as a plaything of alien forces. The 1820's publication of SF ritual by reformer Richard Carlyle may be thought to have provided a 'text book' into which Owenite artisans could dip at leisure. Unfortunately, it appeared just before the repeal of the Combination Acts made conspiratorial trade organisation less necessary and only a few years before the Morgan Affair in the US made such 'dipping' most unappealing.

This event, involving the disappearance of a knock-about stonemason and a journalist both apparently black-balled from SF and their attempts to expose SF practices in north-eastern USA, obtained its emotional weight not from an idea of revolutionary politics being carried on behind an SF facade, but from the strange idea that secrecy equals power and secrecy exposed equals disgrace and impotence.⁴⁶⁸

3: There has been no credible reason advanced for artisans to adopt SF procedures.

SF in the UK was not easily given exemption from proscriptive legislation at the end of the 18th century when trade combinations and 'friendly societies' were both being targeted by a fearful establishment. LH's claims that 'trade unions' were disguising themselves, not as 'Freemasons' but as 'friendly societies', is especially droll.

SF's do not welcome and SF scholarship has down-played its 'benefit society' past, especially the tramping networks and functional secrecy, the very elements likely to be attractive to a subversive artisinal combination. We have seen that some writers have assumed that artisans had no other source for 'dressing up' than the 'tinsel and trappings' of SF. If they were going to dress themselves up in any borrowed 'paraphenalia', why would artisans borrow from an only-just-legal organisation for secret purposes, and then call themselves by a name that was no more warmly regarded by the authorities than the one they were trying to disguise?

4: Artisans had no need to borrow from SF.

The accumulating evidence argues that trades, including stonemasonry held their own rites, regalia, and 'orders for better regulation' into at least the 19th century, however damaged or imperfect, and had no need to borrow from either SF or operative masonry. Durr, an SF, has drawn together some known 18th century and later 'rituals of association', including:

four London lodges of bookbinders came together in the 1780's to establish their 'trade union' with a 'Ceremony of Making',⁴⁶⁹

metal workers in 1766 formed the United Order of Mechanics, which a member described as a 'secret order', and

the 'Ceremony of Making' of the Society of Horsemen, 'a remarkably successful form of trade unionism' among Scottish farm servants in the 19th century;⁴⁷⁰

The Bookbinders' 'making', used when four of their lodges - the 'Society of Friends', 'The Brothers', the 'City Brothers' and 'The White Stocking Lodge'- amalgamated to form 'the trade union for London Bookbinders', used lodge officer titles not found in SF. It began:

The Friend proposed being below stairs, the proposer shall conduct him to the door, giving notice with three distinct knocks, answered by the Friendly Sire within, with the Friends upstanding and uncovered [ie, hats off] the PS [Principal Sire?] shall then call out, 'Conduct the Friend in.'

The Secretary being at the door, wearing a purple sash, with a flaming gilt heart attached thereto, and robe, the person proposed repeating the following words:

'True generous friendship no cold medium knows, But with one love, and one love, and one resentment glows.'⁴⁷¹

Equally indicative of a continuing, similar but non-SF, tradition across all trades is an ordnance of the 1768 Fraternity of Tailors stipulating:

that whatever entring freeman of the Craft, or any other freeman thereof, shall anyways reveal or divulge to the Magistrate or any Burgess of Guild, directly or indirectly, any of the Craft's secrets, especially anent their procedue when entring [ie, 'making'] freemen of the traid, anent the composition or other expenses, shall never carry public charge amongst the said traid as deacon, maister, or box master, until they give all satisfaction anent the said misdemeanour.⁴⁷²

This language is straight out of the mediaeval 'Charges'. The intercession of SF as explanation is not required.

5: The logistical requirements involved in 'Webberian' borrowings before 1834, which I note, have not been investigated, would appear insurmountable.

No suggestion has been made by Webbs or their acolytes that many artisans were also Speculative Freemasons throughout the century or so prior to 1834 which might have made an osmotic kind of borrowing feasible. For specifically SF procedures to have been borrowed, there would have to have been either a tyrannical foisting on to all 'unionists' of practices chosen arbitrarily by some person or group; or a mass adoption over the whole country of the same details at much the same, comparatively brief time. Either is mind-boggling in its absurdity.

I have suggested that the Webbs showed no signs of knowing the first thing about SF. I'm sure they were not knowledgable about the state of even Craft SF ritual in the UK during the decades prior to to 1834. Carr (above) recounted the usefulness of 18th century exposes to the education of SF brothers in a situation where until well into the 19th century there was little or no standardisation of ritual or of the associated lectures, prayers, etc:

During the 40 years or so, from 1769 onwards, the English ritual was largely moulded...by...English moralists and expounders...Broadly it is fair to say that the basic pattern of our work today follows the ritual and procedures that were approved at the Union [1813]...Despite wide variations of practice that must have existed all over England, this recognition of the importance of the Installation ceremony did not lead to any immediate attempt to standardise it. It was not until 1827 that the Grand Master authorised a special committee of Brethren to adopt and demonstrate a 'standard' version, and the ceremony in general practice nowadays is that which was approved in 1827...⁴⁷³

Unification of the two major 'British' Grand Lodges, the 'Moderns' and 'the Ancients', was only achieved in theory in 1813, conformity in practice, again of just the basic 3-Degree Craft, was far more difficult:

There had no doubt been attempts at various times before the Union to secure uniformity of working but it seems unlikely that they were particularly successful...In 1810 the premier Grand Lodge...adopted alterations designed to reverse changes made some seventy years before...

When the Union of the two former Grand Lodges took place in 1813 the task of settling the Ritual forms for use in the Lodges under the new United Grand Lodge was given to another Lodge specially formed for the purpose.⁴⁷⁴

And so on, well after the time that artisans including odd fellows are acknowledged by all concerned to have been using ritual. Another in-sider has written about the 'unsatisfactory material' with which scholars, trying to determine exactly what the 'Antient' and/or the 'Modern' ritual was, must work:

(It) must be borne in mind that that in those days it was quite impossible for there to have been one uniform ritual for either body. Lack of any real contact or communication between lodges throughout the length and breadth of the land must have resulted in a considerable number of variations...

(It) is possible only to list the charges made by the Antients [against the Moderns] and suggest to what extent they appear to be justified:

i) Preparing candidates incorrectly. (This relates to such things as whether 'the right knee was made bare and the left slipshod' and whether a 'sharp instrument was presented when the candidate entered the lodge', whether 'his left breast was only made bare when he was about to take his obligation' and when the hoodwink or blindfold was removed.)

ii) Abbreviating the ceremonies.

iii) Omitting the lectures (ie the catechisms or Q & A intended to instruct the candidate in the essentials of a degree.)

iv) Omitting to read the Ancient Charges to Initiates. (Batham's comment here is that 'many of (the Charges) were outdated and certainly inapplicable to non-operative masons'.)

v) Omitting prayers.

vi) Transposing the means of recognition (ie the signs and grips) of the First and Second Degrees.

vii) Using an incorrect word for a Master Mason.

viii) Including the passgrips and passwords in the actual ceremonies instead of as a preliminary to them.

ix) De-christianising the ritual. (Batham's comment - 'Originally the ceremonies were definitely Christian and indeed, Roman Catholic in phrasing.')

x) Ignoring the Saint's Days, especially those of St John the Baptist (24 June) and St John the Evangelist (27 December).

xi) Arranging the lodge incorrectly.

xii) Not having Deacons.

xiii) Neglecting the esoteric ceremonies of Installing the Master.

Batham has agreed with another noted SF scholar that:

..many of the finest portions of the ceremonies we practice today have been preserved for us by the tenacity of the Antients and their stubborn resistance to innovation...⁴⁷⁵

All of which might mean that borrowings after 1813 by artisans were more likely and easier than before. What it says to me is that the Antients' 'tenacity', from the middle of the 18th century, was only feasible if 'Antient Freemasonry', ie the rites of association of operative stonemasons, were still reasonably healthy at that time. And if the rites of one craft were still known and practiced, why not the rites of others? That the Antient lodges were made up of a more obviously artisinal strata, and predominantly of Irish extraction strengthens the point.

6: While we have seen that there was, and is, no single 'Freemasonry', it seems fair to say that on the known evidence there is no similarity between the detail of Craft SF ritual and what is known of 19th century Odd Fellow ritual. Where references occur in benefit societies other than SF to occupations they are appropriate to the society, they do not rehearse the building of temples. There is certainly nothing like that expounded by Klein, above. The fact that absolutely nothing is known of explicitly weaver ritual only extends the problem faced by advocates of 'Webberian' borrowing theories.

7: Lastly, the borrowing 'claims' can be suitably explained.

new or old ritual

Claims made that it was the 'Patriotic Oddfellows' which transmitted ritual to Owen's 1833 Grand National Consolidated Trades Union (GNCTU), are difficult to take even at face value. This 'Order' does not appear to have had a presence after 1800, if it had any before that date, and if we look at what is known of 'Odd Fellow' rites up to 1834, we again find variations on a common theme, variations strong enough to suggest a much more diffuse process of transmission over a very long period.

The 'Patriotic Oddfellows' initiation has been reported as follows:

Each brother present was masked. The presiding officer wore a long white beard and wig, an apron of white leather bound in scarlet, with emblems of mortality painted thereon, and on a pedestal before him were similar real ones. Two other offices wore respectively yellow and blue cloaks; while the treasurer, secretary and almoner in white surplices, stood behind the altar of obligation. Others had aprons bound with purple, edged with gold lace.⁴⁷⁶

For this initiation the candidate was completely naked, thus could only be a man, and when 'made' was clothed with a 'plain, unadorned lambskin apron.' This last is the only point at which known SF ritual clearly 'overlaps' with the detail of this account. Even purple regalia edged with gold, probably to give a regal tone to officers of higher status, and found in a number of 19th and 20th century societies, is not something which could have been borrowed from Craft SF because it doesn't use that particular stratagem.

Note that although naked the initiate's sworn oath is in line with the rest of the proceedings' formality and wordiness and that it emphasises the society's law-abiding principles. It reads:

I...being in possession of my faculties, declare that I am free born and of mature age. I follow no calling that oppresses my fellow-man. I will never act as a bailiff, a bailiff's follower, or be a tipstaff or marshallman. I will act with Justice to all men. I will be loyal to the King and Constitution. I will obey all the laws passed by the high courts of parliament. I will pay due respect to all persons set in authority by the legally constituted rulers in this kingdom. I will prefer a Patriotic Oddfellow to all others in my dealings, unless I find reasons that justify me in acting otherwise. I will respect the virginity of his unmarried family and the chastity of the unmarried. I will never make known to anyone the constitution or workings of this lodge, nor write, print, or in any other way make known, either the whole or any other part thereof. All these covenants I promise and swear to obey, or suffer the penalty of having my arms and legs severed from my body, or be branded with infamy such as my unworthy conduct would deserve.

Only the general form, the words relating to making secrets known and the penalties for doing so come close to coinciding with those from an SF ritual.⁴⁷⁷

The 'animal' masks are an important but difficult link to mediaeval times. They are, potentially, a major prop of the bridge between the allegedly 'old' and the allegedly 'new' societies. There is no evidence of animal masks in SF ritual but the claim has been made that mediaeval 'engineers' used observation of animals - wing arcs, running and leaping movements for example - for insights on which to base their arithmetic measures and geometric equations. Neither 'engineers' nor such usage of animals has achieved any mention in SF or 'benefit society' literature, as far as I know.

Put very starkly, any supporting evidence for operative practices or customs in SF, weakens the claims made that 19th century benefit societies, especially 'trade unions' and 'friendly societies', are 'new' societies, in form, attitude or content. Similarly, any carryovers from 'old' societies, the guilds, into the ritual of societies which only gain attention in the 19th century, when new degrees and whole new Orders were established, weakens claims about the newness and/or the uniqueness of such 'modern' departures.

Do the animal masks indicate an earlier version of a ritual already long in transition and other claimed evidence perhaps a later version? In a supposedly 1832 admission ritual, 'odd fellow' brethren wore 'grotesque and ludicrous dresses' and 'burlesque masks', there is a 'painted transparency representing a skeleton' and there is a lot of stooping under and stepping over unseen dangers. These effects are what to later observers made these rites 'weird' and 'terrifying'. The ceremony has the story of the Lodge 'Noble Grand' having to be awakened which appears in other summaries, but, in addition, it contains a 'Warden' said to be 'father of the Lodge' and who plays a particularly important role. This position appears in SF lodges, being common to guilds, and in later OF ritual, but as a supporter, not a leader.⁴⁷⁸

The earliest reference to the ritual of the '(Grand) United Order of Oddfellows', an Order which may have resulted from the amalgamation of the Patriotic and Ancient Orders and may have spawned the the MU and the IOOF, is an undated summary:

The lodge officers wore velvet 'Henry VIII' hats and large cloaks colored to indicate their office - black for Past Noble Grand [past officers], red for Noble Grand [presiding officers], blue for Vice-Grand and green for the Secretary. Supporting officers took their colours from these. The Initiate was led in blindfolded by two officers, accepting him from the Outside Guardian who was also in a cloak and bearing a sword. Two officers stood in the centre of the room with their swords in an arch. The candidate went below the arch, whereupon the 'Peter and Paul' [iron chain and ball] was dropped and the Noble Grand called out -

Stay thou presumptuous mortal, nor dare to enter

Within the precincts of the sacred temple.

After other exchanges, the candidate being asked what he most desired, answered 'Light' and the blindfold was removed.⁴⁷⁹

The Webbs quoted from Wilkinson's Mutual Thrift to argue that the rites of the 'Patriotic Odd Fellows' corresponded in many characteristic details with those of many 'trades unions'. I have already suggested that because the odd fellow record is, at best, a shambles and no-one has yet attempted serious comparisons, Wilkinson's claims are without solid foundation. However, the words 'Stay thou presumptuous mortal' which appear here, and in the alleged Patriotic Order's ritual, the only textual correlation between those two, also appear in the 'making' ritual of the 'Operative Stonemasons Society' for 1834 and in the ritual of 'the American Order', the IOOF. They do not appear in later published GUOOF rites, at least from 1859.

Earlier, we also saw that the Webbs argued that all lodges of the Builders' Union were ordered in 1833 to adopt the rites and organisational procedures from this Society's 'Making Book', this 'Union' then being the major support of the GNCTU. The Webbs also asserted, without providing supportive evidence, that the rites of this 'Operative Stonemasons' Society' closely resembled those of contemporary 'unions' among Yorkshire woollen workers and certain National 'Unions' and that they were largely adopted by the GNCTU. One wonders why any odd fellows' ritual coming to the GNCTU via the weavers, would contain an element recognisable as part of a uniquely stonemasons' ritual. Any proven similarities between such disparate 'crafts' surely argues for the existence of a broad cultural phenomenon. An 1833 instruction of the sort the Webbs assert, may have been to obtain conformity of approach rather than to impose a ritual where there was none.

Correspondences alone, in any event, don't prove direction or timing of transmission. If the weavers', the stonemasons' and the odd fellows' rituals could all be compared and accurate establishment dates for each determined, we might be in a position to advance the arguement. As it happens, apart from that single phrase and what I've already described as basic 'lodge' essentials, what we have for OF's ritual does not resemble known Stonemason's ritual.

In approaching this question, firstly, from the OF side, 'official' IOOF histories from the US can be useful. In particular, James Ridgley, a participant from 1829 in the IOOF until his book appeared in the 1870's and a close personal friend of the named 'founder' of IOOF in the USA, Thomas Wildey, detailed 'the first decade of American Odd Fellowship', that is, the IOOF from 1819 to approx 1830.

This chronicle shows that it was only a greater awareness of the possibilities for expansion in a new region among members of the 'Unity' that odd fellowship in the USA was nurtured by MUIOOF rather than by London's 'United Order', the self-styled 'Grand Lodge of England', again of which we know virtually nothing. The bulk of the founding fathers had received their initiations in that London 'Order' but in seeking legitimacy were aided firstly by a travelling brother from the MU Duke of York Lodge at Preston, then by the MU's Grand Committee meeting at Manchester. The further question occurs: why did not those pioneers simply establish MUIOOF rather than an Order distinct in name and as time went on increasingly distinct in almost every other way. There would seem to have been no 'IOOF' in the UK, only sub-branches of a non-existent tree, so to speak. So, in that sense, the 'American IOOF' is yet another sub-branch, and theoretically of the same status as the MU, but, because MU was 'home', it, MU, was for a brief time accorded special deference.

The third option for colonial odd fellow's, that of being totally independent as already were a number of UK lodges, does not appear to have been canvassed. I think this was because to do so would have exposed the 'pioneers' to claimjumpers waving authorisations from 'home', and to claims from other 'independents' arguing that their claim to legitimacy was as good as any.

Henry Jackson was an MU brother travelling in the 'new world' before the alignment of Wildey's 'creation' was determined. Jackson experienced the rites being used in the fledgling 'Washington Lodge, No 1' and made clear that 'his', Manchester workings and those of the London 'Grand Lodge' were quite different:

(Under) the impression there was no lodge of the Order in the United States, he had come provided with copies of the charges, then recently revised by the still incipient Manchester Unity, as well as the lectures just issued by the same authority; and he had fondly hoped to become the pioneer of Odd Fellowship in America..(Invited to act as Warden in a lodge meeting he saw that) it was not being worked on the reformed plan..and so he gravely announced to the astonished Noble Grand, "Nobody in the lodge is correct." ⁴⁸⁰

Just how or whether the actual rites differed is not clear, since what Ridgley has listed as Jackson's 'innovations' are not actions but words, that is, formalised and written down injunctions, disciplines and membership criteria, as follows:

1st. The weekly benefit system, on which the Unity had been formed in 1813;

2d. The renewable password agreed upon by the Unity as a body, in 1815, at first ordained to be changed monthly, but in a year or two was made changeable quarterly;

3d. The Code of General Laws, adopted also in 1815, but not fully enforced for several years;

4th. The 'Funeral Fund' system, adopted in 1816, but not made obligatory on the lodges;

5th. The three original degrees, with their lectures, which were also adopted in 1816; and

6th. The old charges as revised in 1817, with a new Past Grand's charge adopted at that time.

I note in passing that this period of 'formalisation' of MU is the point at which it is claimed a significant gap opened up between the old and the new benefit societies, and between what we now call 'friendly societies' and the other 2 benefit society strands.

The 'three original degrees', also designated the White, the Blue and the Scarlet, would appear to derive from and belong to the secret guild heritage for which historians such as myself still search. Noticeably, the White or initiatory degree shares that colour with the first, 'entered apprentice' SF degree in certain jurisdictions. The colours, blue and scarlet feature in SF regalia but not as specific Degrees.

US brothers added the Covenant and the Remembrance Degrees in 1821, partly, at least, to add to the attractions of lodge and to raise funds. These degrees were designated the Pink and the Green. They passed to 'the Unity' in England and were adopted there in 1825 along with what had started as a 'Mazarine (or deep) Blue but then became a (Royal) Purple Degree. A further Grand Lodge Degree, also invented in the US was rejected by 'the Unity' in conference because MUIOOF no longer had a Grand Lodge. For their part, 'the Unity' invented and passed to the US the idea, at least, of 'Past' Degrees, ie rewards for ex-lodge officers. These were initially only signs and passwords. Subsequently also transferred from the old to the new world was a formalised Patriarchal Degree and a Golden Rule Degree, which as 4th and 5th Degrees were by the end of the decade bundled with the Purple to become a set of higher 'Past Officer' attainments, the earlier 5 then being designated 'subordinate degrees'.

A clear example of a unique and defining innovation was introduced by the US brethren in 1830. Enjoying the beginnings of a surge of interest among more upwardly-mobile members akin to the onset of speculative masons into operative lodges, what were called 'Degree Lodges' and para-military 'Encampment Degrees' have not as far as I know been adopted by any other jurisdiction anywhere.⁴⁸¹

What was being manifested here, consciously or subconsciously, were non-operative reasons for having ritual. These Orders are not trade-based, therefore rites of association no longer reflected, nor grew organically out of a brother's working life. The SF's took on and initially maintained ritual, allegedly to gain access to operative secrets. Later, SF rites, as distinct from other SF practices such as charity and welfare work, became self-perpetuating and status-driven, having as reason for their existence only that they did. However close they were to operative originals, they could not claim to embody the originating operative impulse.

Which nineteenth century Orders were without trade connection of any kind remains undetermined but the affiliated societies have certainly exchewed such connection, in which case they similarly could have no organic reasons for their ritual. Weight of tradition was probably sufficient to ensure some continuities across generations, but some US authors, at least, acknowledge an 'artificial' impulse, a need to attract members and to sustain their interest once initiated. Thus, while tensions around these very issues in the UK has obscured the process, a very strong emphasis on role playing, ornate and varied costumes and on public display developed dramatically in the US, reaching its peak just after the Civil War but maintaining emotional force for some decades thereafter.

The next link in what can seem like a new integrated chain of cause and effect is rarely acknowledged in any jurisdiction. In 'old' societies, the funds collected, it is always argued, were for the survival of brethren - the society, even at the smallest most parochial level could not exist without them. In the 'new' societies, in addition to 'old' cost-incurring needs, funds were supposedly necessary for 'modern' requirements, namely, for paid officials, for the developing hierarchical structure and for the burgeoning public display and recruitment requirements.

Are these so new? I don't think so. What is emerging is that the 'benefit payments', which remained the sine qua non of 'benefit societies', became, in the new context, the focus of competition amongst societies and their ambitious officials. The size of funds held and the value of realizable assets became prime recruiting propoganda, further, it has to be said, undermining the linkages and the essential values of fraternalism.

It is significant, however, that while these 'forward thinking officials' saw their benefit structures as modern innovations requiring more and more actuarial leverage, they saw no problem whatever in maintaining the 'mediaeval' heritage in displays, in lecures, in their basic 'welfare' practices such as sick visitors, in the idealisation of fraternalism itself and in the integrated nature of lodge activities - social/convivial, religious/symbolic, secret/fraternal, and community/charitable.

The aspect which had obviously dropped away from SF and which was dropping away from the 'friendlies' was that of maintenance and protection of actual, physical working conditions, ie the 'work/industrial'. The specifically-trade based societies of course maintained this aspect and looked askance only at the religious/symbolic, the absence of which made less impact on their overall 'benefit society' attitudes and functioning than did the loss of the work orientation on the others.

Until well into the 20th century, all AFS's continue to emphasise the need to secure the 'lodge room' against 'forrins', to ensure that the qualifications of attending brothers are appropriate for the particular degree being 'worked' and to have the minds of all officers on the correct carrying out of their part in the lodge drama. The Independent Order of Good Templars, has in its opening ceremonies first published in 1867 the following examination of 'the Sentinel' by the 'Degree Templar' (or lodge master, in OF lodges the 'Noble Grand', in SF, the 'Most Worthy Master'):

DT: You will give me the Pass Word. (Sentinel gives it.) Your duty is to give attention to all who make the proper signal at the outer gate of the Temple; to admit those who give you the Pass Word of the Subordinate Lodge; to see that members are properly clothed in Regalia, and informed that the Temple is working in the Degree of Fidelity; that order is preserved in the ante-room, and that candidates and visitors are made welcome. Be faithful to your official duties.⁴⁸²

The IOOF ritual, in comparison, has each lodge officer telling the 'Noble Grand' his/her duties, not being told them, for example the 'Outside Guardian':

Outside Guardian: When candidates are to be initiated, or brothers admitted, to see that they are orderly and qualified; to examine and reject any one I suspect, until your opinion is taken; to receive the password previous to admission, and to guard the lodge against improper intrusion. To prevent the admittance of any one during ritualistic ceremonies, or at other times, when so directed; to prevent any person from listening to acquire a knowledge of what is going on in the lodge; and to act in conjunction with the Supporters and the Inside Guardian in the execution of your commands.⁴⁸³

A third version of an OF initiation rite, allegedly, of the 'Ancient Order of Oddfellows' is too general to be of use here, except for its conclusion:

The making ceremony over, each member pledged the newly-initiated brother in a flowing glass for which he had the honour of paying. Momus now presided and the deep-wrought-up fears of the novice were soon drowned in the loud laugh, the rude jest or the boisterous chorus of a Bacchanalian song.⁴⁸⁴

Many readers would equate 'boisterous chorus' with artisans and suppose the following, taken from an 1810 Leeds newspaper, referred to an SF lodge. Compare the emphasis on decorum and admission of 'Gentlemen' with the 'loud laugh' and the 'rude jest' of the previous.

After the Brothers had taken their respective situations, the Lodge was opened in due form...when a number of Gentlemen were proposed, admitted and initiated into the Order, with all the solemnity and decorum observed on such occasions.⁴⁸⁵

This was, in fact, a gathering of the 'United Order of Odd Fellows.' Were there, then, operative 'Odd Fellows' and gentry 'Odd Fellows' or are these journalistic effusions examples of 19th century 'spin-doctoring'?

Part of the answer is that in the name of individual freedom and enterprise, 'modernisation' was directing that boisterousness and indiscipline be replaced with sobriety and stiffened formality. The subsequent record insists that only partial success was achieved, then or later. While the UK literature rarely mentions the problem, it has been acknowledged by Ridgley that in a resource-shy environment, the presence of liquor in lodge became an issue very quickly amongst US odd fellows. What did the administrators choose to do? In what remained for many years to come a 'free and easy' style of lodge meeting they determined only to safeguard lodge income by quarantining members' contributions from monies paid for 'refreshments'.⁴⁸⁶

Nevertheless, very early 19th century UK material indicate that a sophistication of approach, which we associate with 'modernisation', was already common to OF lodges, some of which were also already acting in concert:

A Leeds street procession for the 'Festival of the Original and Fraternal Lodges of Odd Fellows' in 1811 exhibited extravagance rather than decorum in its ranks, the first of which were described as:

Two Conductors with green sashes,
their jewels suspended by the same colour,
bearing wands tipped with gold
Full band of music
Two Guardians in green sashes,
their jewels.(etc)...bearing swords
The Lodge, carried by four brothers in white sashes,
supported by two brothers in pink sashes,
bearing Maces richly ornamented with gold crests, etc
The Noble Grands of the two lodges,
in scarlet sashes, richly ornamented with white fringe
and spangles,
their jewels suspended by the same colour,
the Noble Grands bearing an elegant gold sceptre,
their supporters in green sashes, their jewels suspended...,
bearing wands tipped with gold...⁴⁸⁷

A generalised 'Odd Fellow' funeral regalia for 1815 can be compared with SF detail already provided. Note the absence of green though there is plenty of white, red and blue amongst the black:

The Death Supporters (to) carry drawn swords, and be attired in gowns and caps; that none but Death Supporters and Tylers walk in gowns and caps during the procession; that every Brother appear in a white napkin [scarf? around the neck] and white stockings; also a white apron with the following binding, viz: Past and Present Grands, scarlet sash with mazarine [deep] blue rosette on the shoulder and tied with mazarine blue; mazarine sashes to be tied with sky, and sky sashes to be tied with mazarine...⁴⁸⁸

'Death Supporters' here indicates two persons, one on either side of a representation of 'the old mortality' - Death.

The first claimed OF funeral in the USA was in 1823. An eye-witness recalled:

Officers and members were in appropriate lodge costume; gowns, caps, sashes, collars and aprons, of white, black, blue and scarlet colors...the caps (were) fashioned after the forms of crowns and coronets. Each officer bore the emblem of his office in his hand. Six or seven of the members were in deep mourning, and occupied the centre of the crowd. These were enveloped in narrow strips of black muslin or crape, which hung from their hats almost to the ground. They bore black rods, eight or ten feet long, surmounted by spheres of some kind; the spheres covered with black cloth, with black streamers, three or four feet long, pendant. Every person not provided with some official emblem of some sort, bore a flaming torch..(At the grave side) the remains were then silently lowered into the grave; not a word was spoken...The procession resumed its disordered ranks, the mutes as before in the centre, and departed as it came.⁴⁸⁹

If this sort of theatre wasn't already part of artisinal day-to-day experience, what could working families possibly have seen in it?

Turning to ritual of operative stonemasons we find that the President of an Operative Stonemasons' lodge in addressing the candidate on 'his' fate and responsibilities referred to a skeleton, as did the 'Patriotic Odd Fellow' but the words were quite different. And for the candidate to see the skeleton as he was addressed he could not have been blindfolded as the odd fellow was:

Stranger, mark well this shadow which now you see:

Tis a faithful emblem of man's destiny.

Behold this head once filled with pregnant wit;

These hollow eyes once sparking eyes did fit.

This empty mouth no tongue or lips contains; (etc)

The President then asks:

Stranger, and pilgrim in the dark, are you come here with a pure intention to support wages, and protect the Mason's trade?

When answered positively, the President has the candidate repeat the oath:

I, AB, a stonemason, being in the awful presence of Almighty God, do voluntarily declare that I will persevere in endeavouring to maintain and support a Brotherhood, known as the Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons, and I further promise that I will to the utmost of my power assist men on all just and lawful occasions to obtain a just remuneration for our labour...

The oath continues on to cover non-disclosure:

And I call upon God to witness this my most solemn Declaration that neither hopes, fears, rewards or punishments, or even death itself, shall induce me, directly or indirectly, to give information respecting anything in this Lodge, or any other similar Lodge connected with the Society; and I will neither write nor cause to be written upon paper, stone, wood, sand, or anything else, except for the use of the Society, and I further promise that I will keep inviolable all the rules of this Society...

This oath is completed with an avowal that 'he' will not agree to any money belonging to the Society being 'divided or appropriated to any other purpose' than the use of the Society 'and the support of the trade' and the wish:

So help me God, and keep me steadfast in my most solemn Obligation.'

to which the President asks 'him' to repeat:

And if ever I reveal either part or parts of this my most solemn Obligation, may what is before me plunge my soul into Eternity. Amen.⁴⁹⁰

In summary, we can say that this 'making' ritual contains some elements found in other 'makings' while bearing only minimal similarities to actual/known SF or AFS ritual.

There was a further, quite different, 7-degree ritual in use among at least some 19th century stonemasons and related tradesmen, involving what appears to be a genuinely work-integrated structure and approach yet it was repudiated by 'trade unionists' and effectively