ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the social functions of Orangeism in New Zealand so as to illustrate the role which lodges played in the lives of the institution's membership. It examines the areas of sociability and mutualism, as well as the role that the Order, as an institution, had in bringing together disparate and informal Irish Protestant social networks. Using the example of the Orange Order in Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, between 1870 and 1930, the chapter argues that these aspects of the Order were important for a deepening sense of an Orange community. The chapter commences with a brief overview of Irish migration to New Zealand in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and provides a discussion of the development of the Orange Order in the colony. Despite a number of attempts in the late 1890s and early 1910s by senior Orangemen to establish central or national funds, benevolence and mutual aid remained informal and inconsistent.
