Independent Order of Rechabites

The Independent Order of Rechabites (IOR), also known as the Sons and Daughters of Rechab, is a friendly society founded in England in 1835 as part of the wider British temperance movement to promote total abstinence from alcoholic beverages. Always well connected in upper society and involved in financial matters, it gradually transformed into a financial institution which still exists, and still promotes abstinence. The Order has been active in Australia from 1843, promoting temperance and as a benefit society. A branch was established in the United States in 1842, which also flourished for a time.

The order began was founded on 25 August 1835 as the Salford Unity of Rechabites, at the town of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. Their first lodge was ""Tent Ebenezer #1" and soon "tents" were founded for adult females (over the age of 12), boys (aged 12–16), and for children of both sexes (age 5-12), as well as other adult males (age 16 and up.)

The rituals and ceremonies of the Rechabites varied from place to place, but the order worked three degrees, Knight of Temperance, Knight of Fortitude, and Covenanted Knight of Justice. Lodges were called tents because the Lord commanded the Biblical sons of Rechab to live in tents and the governing body, in England at least, was called the Movable Committee, meeting in a different city every two years. Membership was open to all who would sign a pledge to completely abstain from alcohol for all religious or medical purposes. There were also death and sickness benefits.

From the late 18th century a number of Friendly Societies had been set up to help working-class people with such things as health insurance, death benefits, etc. Generally these held their meetings in pubs. In the 1830s a group of Manchester Methodists became concerned that by encouraging working men to attend public houses to pay their friendly society dues, then the societies were harming the men's health and financial situation and threatening their moral welfare, rather than helping them. To counter this they set up a new Friendly Society called the Independent Order of Rechabites, named after the nomadic, abstaining Rechabites of the Old Testament. The IOR were an offshoot of the Calathumpians, then a diverse collection of social reformers of independent religious views.

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