Orange Order in Canada

The Grand Orange Lodge of British America is a Protestant fraternal organization that began in County Armagh, Ireland in 1795. It has played a large part in the history of Canada, with many prominent members including four Prime Ministers, amongst them Sir John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker, as well as Tommy Douglas, founder of the New Democratic Party.

The Orange Lodges have existed in Canada at least since the War of 1812. The first Lodge was established in Montreal by William Burton, Arthur Hopper, John Dyer, Francis Abbott and several others. William Burton traveled to Ireland to obtain the warrant to open the Lodge from the Grand Lodge of Ireland and became the first Grand Master of the Montreal Lodge. In the following years Arthur Hopper was elected the next Grand Master and given the power of granting warrants to subordinate Lodges under the Great Seal of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The first such Lodge was granted to Robert Birch of Richmond. The Order was more formally organized in 1830 when Ogle Robert Gowan established the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America in the Upper Canada town of Elizabethtown, which became Brockville in 1832 (according to the plaque outside the original lodge in Brockville, Ontario). Gowan immigrated from Ireland in 1829, and became the Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America. His father was the grand master of the Irish Orange Order. Most early members were from Ireland, but later many English, Scots, and other Protestant Europeans joined the Order, Jews in addition to Amerindians, such as those in the Mohawk Orange Lodge which survives into the present day.

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