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The Sash Canada Wore

A review of Canadian Orange Historiography by Alex Greer

ORANGEISM'S bicentennial year drew attention to where the Order expanded beyond Ulster's shores. The Order's Canadian branch has a rich history, but one which is often misunderstood. Some Canadian historians brand Orangeism as solely a negative anti-Catholic anachronism. Other historians have presented more balanced studies, which have placed the Institution's role in Canada in a proper perspective and have even revealed that the Order possessed some positive features.
As recenfly as the late 1970s, the 12 July Toronto marches (major events a generation ago) would feature the presence of the City's Mayor (who would often be an Orangeman too).

'It's insulting', was the reaction of Toronto Sun columnist Claire Hoy when the then trendy Toronto Mayor David Crombie and city officials decided to boycott the 1970 parade.

'Like it or not,' wrote Hoy, 'these people made a tremendous contribution in settling Canada, in welding the parts of it together into one nation.'

The Sash Canada Wore: A Historical Geography of the Orange Order in Canada written by professional geographers Cecil J. Houston and William J. Smyth is an excelent study of the Order.

This well-researched book contains many stories about Canadian Orange personalities and much statistical information. The authors were truly objective in their analysis. Given that William Smyth was a member of the Geography Department at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, at the time of writmg the book, he and his co-author can hardly be accused of having a 'pro-Orange' bias.

Wealth of Statistics
The prime value of the Houston Smyth study is that it is a technical textbook filled with illustrations: such as maps of the British North American colonies showing where Orange lodges were created and when in a section about Ontario we find that the 'geographical pattern of lodges in 187O coincides quite closely with the distribution of the Protestant Irish at the time.'2

The authors concluded that the Order's appeal was not in its anti-Catholicism for it 'did not require local Catholics to stimulate it . . . Orangeism was strong where the Protestant Irish were strong and that strength was not dependent upon the presence of a local Catholic community comparable in size’.3

Houston and Smyth also assembled a wealth of statistics. The conclusions from this data are that 'as Orangeism was able to transcend denominational and ethnic divisions so did it manage to bring together men of varied economic and occupational backgrounds'.4

In Toronto a good two-thirds of the Order in 1894 'belonged to the labouring and artisan classes'.5 While there were Orangemen from the business and professional groups, senior positions were never dominated by any one class. In other words, Ontario Orangemen usually represented a cross-section of society. In statistics regarding the denominational make-up of Orangemen, there are some surprises. Anglicans were over-represented' while Presbyterians 'were surprisingly under-represented.'6

'Not An Unwelcome Intrusion'
The Canadian Orange Order expanded beyond its Irish Protestant base to include people as diverse as Mohawk Indians, English fishermen of Newfoundland, Scottish miners in Nova Scotia and farmers in Ontario and Prince Edward Island and Ger man farmers in the Pontiac region of Quebec. This expansion was seldom the cause of strife with Roman Catholics. In both of the maritime provinces of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, violent sectarian clashes happened long before the Order made its presence felt. Houston and Smyth concurred that Orangeism 'did not create that feeling of sectarian bitterness'. The Order's appeal lay more in its fraternal nature and it became a 'comfortable niche amid the everyday social life of 'a community', which 'indicated' that it 'was not an unwelcome intrusion.'7

The role of Orangeism and the working class has also received some scholarly attention, and again from historians who are not Orange partisans. Gregory Kealey, a neo-Marxist, elaborated that: 'Contrary to earlier impressions, membership was not limited to successful artisans. The lodges were filled with labourers, street and rail way workers, grooms, teamsters and others from the lower levels of Toronto working class life.’8

While Kealey regretted that the Order divided the working class into two, the leadership skills it imputed to working-class Orangemen were very helpful in their work as trade unionists. The first editors of Toronto's Orange Sentinel, E.F. Clark and John Hewitt, were prominent union leaders.

Another area of Canadian Orangeism which may surprise some Ulster readers, is the Order's relationships in party politics. The Order never had a formal tie with any political party, but yet Orangemen were a strong lobby in the Conservative Party. Although most Canadian Catholics voted Liberal, the presence of the Orange lobby rarely hindered the emergence of Catholic Tories. In the 1890s the noted historian Goldwyn Smith claimed that Orangeism was a 'bulwark not of Protestantism, but of a Tory Government' because Orangemen go 'to the poll' and eat 'at the same party-table with the Roman Catholic and even with the Ultramontane.'9 Further facts on this matter can be found in R. S. Pennefather's well-researched "The Orange and the Black: Documents in the History of the Orange Order in Ontario and The West, 1890-1940: 10

Both Sir John Thompson in 1872 and Robert Manion [Roman Carbolic Tory leadership had strong Orange support for their leadership. 11

Orangeism is not quite as strong in Canada as it was two generations ago; something which is applauded by the supporters of the new liberal 'multicultural' Canada. Yet I find the Order's decline to be an impoverishment, not an enrichment, of Canadian culture.

Footnotes
1. Houston, Cecil J. and Smyth, William J. The Sash Canada Wore: A Historical Geography of the Orange Order in Canada. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1980.

2. Ibid., p.30.

3. Ibid., p.40.

4. Ibid., p.99.

5. Ibid., p.105.

6. Ibid., p.104.

7. Ibid., p.70.

8. Quoted from Pennefatber, R. S. The Orange and the Black: Documents in the History of the Orange Order in Ontario and The Wes4 1890-1940, Toronto, Canada: Orange and Black Publications, 1984, p.8.

9. Smyth, Goldwyn. Canada and the Canadian Question. With introduction by Carl Berger. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, [1891], 1971.

10. Pennefather op cit.

11. Ibid., p. 6.

(from New Ulster No. 27, November 1995