Odd Fellows

The Fraternal Order of Friendship, Charity, and Mutual Aid

The Odd Fellows were once the largest fraternal secret society in the world. Their origins reach back to England sometime before 1700, although the earliest records are fragmentary. Much of the documentation concerning the beginnings of Odd Fellowship, including the origin of its unusual name, did not survive the first decades of the nineteenth century, especially the period of the Unlawful Societies Act.

The surviving evidence suggests that the first Odd Fellows lodges grew out of craft journeymen’s societies in the English Midlands and Yorkshire. The name itself points in this direction. In English guild language, a “fellow” was a member of journeyman rank. An “Odd Fellow” may therefore have originally referred to a working man who belonged to one of these independent fraternal groups.

Early Odd Fellows Lodges

By the early eighteenth century, Odd Fellowship had already established a significant presence in northern and central England. Some Yorkshire lodges founded before 1700 are said to have survived into modern times.

These early lodges welcomed adult men from every profession and social standing. However, the working classes formed the majority of the membership. New members were admitted through a single degree known as Making or Initiation. This resembled the “brothering” rituals practiced by apprentices and servants in Scotland during the same period.

The Odd Fellows quickly distinguished themselves from the many clubs and societies of the eighteenth century by their practical concern for members in distress.

Mutual Aid and the Benefit System

At a time when modern health insurance and social welfare programs did not exist, Odd Fellows lodges created their own safety net.

They collected money to help members who became ill, to pay funeral costs when members died, and to support widows and orphans left behind. Over the course of the eighteenth century, this practice developed into a regular system of contributions and benefits.

In exchange for paying a small weekly sum into the lodge treasury, members could rely on fixed payments for sick relief, funeral expenses, and survivor support.

This system became one of the most influential features of Odd Fellowship. It was widely copied by other fraternal orders throughout the English-speaking world and helped inspire the fraternal benefit societies of the nineteenth century.

Expansion in Eighteenth-Century England

With its benefit system in place, Odd Fellowship expanded steadily during the eighteenth century. However, organizational stability did not always keep pace with growth.

In the early years, each Odd Fellows lodge was effectively independent. As the century progressed, many lodges affiliated with one of two national organizations: the Ancient Order of Odd Fellows and the Patriotic Order of Odd Fellows.

The Ancient Order had strong Jacobite leanings, while the Patriotic Order was firmly Hanoverian. Their political differences reflected the divided loyalties of Britain during this period.

The Grand United Order and Manchester Unity

In 1802, the two major Odd Fellows bodies united to form the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. Yet the new organization soon developed internal problems, especially concerning leadership and structure. Within a few years, many lodges broke away from its jurisdiction.

Most of these breakaway lodges joined another Odd Fellows body: the Manchester Unity.

By 1820, the Manchester Unity had become the largest Odd Fellows order in Britain, a position it retained for generations. Governed by an Annual Movable Committee, it survived the difficult early nineteenth century with considerable success.

When the legal restrictions against secret societies were removed in 1834, the Manchester Unity expanded even further throughout Britain.

The Grand United Order and African-American Odd Fellowship

As the Grand United Order declined in England, it gained unexpected new life in the United States because of American racism.

In the early 1840s, the Philomathean Institute, a social club for free Black men in New York City, recognized the need for a welfare structure within the African-American community. Beneficial fraternal orders such as the Odd Fellows had already appeared in the United States, and the Institute hoped to transform itself into an Odd Fellows lodge.

In 1843, the Institute applied to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for a charter. Their petition was rejected on racial grounds by the white Odd Fellows.

The Institute then appealed to the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in London and received a charter. When the Grand United Order eventually broke apart in England, its American lodges continued independently. They founded their own Grand Lodge and carried on the tradition.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows had become one of the largest African-American fraternal orders. It also developed a strong presence in eastern Canada and the West Indies.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows

The largest and most influential Odd Fellows order in the world was launched in the United States: the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, commonly known as the IOOF.

In 1819, Thomas Wildey, an English Odd Fellow, joined with four other English members to establish the first successful Odd Fellows lodge in the United States. It was founded in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Odd Fellows system of weekly contributions and practical benefits proved highly popular in the young American republic. By 1830, Odd Fellows lodges existed in all the states along the Atlantic coast.

That same year, disputes with the Manchester Unity led the American lodges to sever their ties with Britain. They founded a new independent order: the IOOF.

Odd Fellows and the Antimasonic Movement

During the 1820s and 1830s, the antimasonic movement spread through the United States, targeting Freemasonry and accusing secret societies of dangerous influence.

Odd Fellowship benefited from this climate because it had not yet been publicly attacked in the same way Freemasonry had. Many men who might have avoided Masonic lodges found Odd Fellowship more acceptable.

In the late 1840s, an attempt was made to launch a similar campaign against Odd Fellowship. The Independent Order weathered the attack successfully and continued to grow.

Growth Across America and the World

As white settlement expanded westward across North America, Odd Fellowship entered a period of explosive growth.

Wherever new towns appeared, Odd Fellows lodges often followed. These lodges provided fellowship, ritual, mutual aid, and a sense of stability in newly formed communities.

By 1880, Odd Fellowship had become a global fraternal force. Population growth in America and Britain, the founding of IOOF lodges in Australasia and Europe, the growth of the Grand United Order among African Americans, and the expansion of the Manchester Unity into eastern Canada all contributed to its rise.

By this time, Odd Fellowship had become the largest fraternal secret society in the world.

Rituals and Degrees

As Odd Fellowship expanded, its ritual system also became more complex.

The earliest Odd Fellows lodges admitted members through a single degree. By the middle of the eighteenth century, additional degrees had been introduced, many of them strongly influenced by Freemasonry.

The oldest surviving Odd Fellows ritual, dating from 1798, includes the Initiatory, White, Pink, and Blue Degrees. These were followed by the Royal Arch of Titus, a degree modeled on the Royal Arch degree of Freemasonry.

Because early Odd Fellowship lacked strong organizational uniformity, degree systems varied from lodge to lodge and from order to order. Still, many Odd Fellows bodies developed ritual sequences that broadly resembled one another.

The IOOF Degree System

The most dramatic expansion of degrees occurred within the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

By 1820, the IOOF worked the Initiatory Degree, the White or First Degree, the Pink or Covenant Degree, the Royal Blue or Second Degree, the Green or Remembrance Degree, and the Royal Scarlet or Third Degree.

In 1821, a new branch of the order appeared: the Encampment branch. It was modeled in part on the Royal Arch Chapter of Freemasonry and introduced three additional degrees: the Patriarchal Degree, the Golden Rule Degree, and the Royal Purple Degree.

These could be received by Third Degree Odd Fellows.

The Rebekahs and Patriarchs Militant

Odd Fellowship also played an important role in the development of women’s participation in American fraternal life.

In 1852, the Daughters of Rebekah were founded as the first ladies’ auxiliary of any American fraternal order. The Rebekahs worked their own degree, known as the Rebekah Degree.

In 1880, the Odd Fellows lodge rituals underwent a major revision. The older six-degree structure was condensed into four degrees.

In 1885, the Patriarchs Militant were created as a uniformed branch of Odd Fellowship. A women’s auxiliary for this branch, the Ladies Auxiliary Patriarchs Militant, followed in 1903.

The Zenith of Odd Fellowship

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows reached its height around 1920, with a membership of approximately 9 million.

At this point, Odd Fellowship was not merely a fraternal society. It was a major social, charitable, and cultural institution. Its lodges offered community, ritual, moral instruction, social status, mutual aid, and practical financial protection.

For many members, the lodge functioned as a spiritual, social, and economic support system.

Decline After the First World War

The years following the First World War proved difficult for Odd Fellowship.

Membership began to decline, and the Great Depression was especially disastrous. Many lodges had invested their benefit funds in the stock market during the late 1920s, hoping to increase their reserves. When the market crashed in 1929 and 1930, many lodges lost everything.

This left them without assets at precisely the moment when their members needed help most.

The reforms of the American New Deal in the late 1930s weakened the order further. Government welfare programs began to replace the old fraternal benefit system that had once made Odd Fellowship so important.

The Cultural Changes of the Twentieth Century

The 1950s brought a modest recovery, but the cultural revolution of the 1960s began another period of rapid decline.

Many older Odd Fellows and Rebekahs were offended by the manners, values, and attitudes of the younger generation. Instead of adapting, some lodges effectively closed their doors to younger potential members.

Similar patterns appeared in the Manchester Unity and the Grand United Order. Old customs and rigid expectations became barriers that few new members were willing to cross.

Women and Renewal

A new phase in Odd Fellowship began in 1984, when the Manchester Unity voted to admit women to regular membership in Odd Fellows lodges.

After much debate, the Independent Order passed similar reforms in 2000.

These changes, together with other much-needed reforms, helped encourage younger members to join and slowed the steep decline. Although Odd Fellowship no longer possesses the immense size and influence it held a century ago, it remains alive.

The Independent Order continues to operate in the United States, Canada, and many other countries. The Grand United Order continues in parts of the United States and the former British colonies of the West Indies. The Manchester Unity remains active in Britain and eastern Canada.

Odd Fellowship is no longer the largest fraternal secret society in the world, but its legacy remains immense.

The Legacy of the Odd Fellows

The Odd Fellows occupy a fascinating place in the history of secret societies.

They were not simply a mystical order, nor merely a charitable club. They combined ritual, secrecy, moral teaching, mutual aid, symbolic degrees, and practical social welfare into one powerful fraternal structure.

Their history touches on guild traditions, working-class mutual aid, Freemasonry, African-American fraternalism, women’s auxiliary orders, ritual initiation, secrecy, charity, and the transformation of social welfare in the modern world.

The Odd Fellows remind us that secret societies were not always hidden groups concerned only with occult mysteries. Many were also deeply practical organizations designed to protect ordinary people from illness, poverty, death, and social isolation.

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