Who wants to be a grandmaster? A profile of the Grandmasters of the Middle Island of New Zealand

Abstract

The Loyal Orange Institution (LOI) transported to the Antipodes, created new opportunities, but was in turn affected by a changed social and political climate. This paper seeks to profile the type of person who became a Grand Master and to identify any patterns of occupation or ethnicity. The LOI) began in Canterbury in 1864 with a small group of Irishmen. It gained a strong public presence in Canterbury and continued to expand throughout what was then called the Middle Island of New Zealand. What type of person was chosen to lead the expansion of Orangeism? Drawing on LOI annual proceedings and other archival research, the paper will attempt to discover how Irish were these early Grand Masters, and to ascertain how their patterns of occupation and influence compared with their Irish counterparts.