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[Kilsally]

From the News Letter Nov 2011

file:///C:/Users/Alan/Downloads/orangehistory.jpg
A photograph of an Orange lodge in Lagos, Nigeria, taken in the earty 1900s. which is featured in the exhibition

Orange outreach across the world

THE day a Belfast Orangeman broadcast on Radio Moscow is given prominence in the Order's exhibition.

William John Alexander was regarded a leading light in the Independent Orange Institution in the city.

Materials relating to him were donated last year to the Order and Dr David Hume said the Grand Lodge was delighted to offer a permanent home to them.

Explaining their significance, he said: "The material on William John Alexander's trip to Moscow m 1954 was of particular interest as it shows an interesting aspect of his wider involvement in the trade union movement "He was part of a trade delegation: to the Soviet Union and on May 15th, 1954, he broadcast on Radio Moscow, the copy of his script now being in our archives. Photographs and letters relating to the visit are also part of the collection. It would be fair to say that not too many Orangemen visited the Soviet Union in the 1950s - at a time when the Cold War was prevalent-so this material is extremely interesting," he said.

The archives also include material on the Orange Order in Nigeria and a specific lodge in Lagos - Lagos Fine Blues LOL 801 - in the early 1900s.

"The lodge in Lagos was linked to Orangeism in England and it helps to remind us that there is no colour bar in the Orange Order;" Dr Hume said.

"There is one particularly telling reference from a report from the lodge in 1910 which states that an officer from one of the European boats was to be initiated and that he would be the only white man in the lodge, a reversal of the Order in other parts of the world."