Following its initial appearance in mid-1790s Ulster, the Orange Order spread rapidly. Within ten years it had grown beyond British shores. By the middle of the nineteenth century, its geographical range had become remarkable. In the 1860s it spanned the British Empire, calling Irish emigrants into its folds where they settled. If this traversing of the globe was impressive, its hardiness over time is equally noteworthy, for Orangeism remains with us even today, more than two centuries after its conception. Each year, members still march in settings as far-flung as Tyneside and Toronto. In each place the iconography and ceremonial dimensions remain reassuringly familiar to those who don the Orange sash. Throughout the period covered by this study, and down to the present day, the mother society in Ireland has maintained links with her diasporic offspring. But it has not always been easy to do so. Communications were not always a success, but by means of migration and the press, the movement's global extent was made known to all members. The process by which the Order was carried from Ireland is interesting and important. It was not some vague export of notions and ideas but was instead rooted in the drift of people from one setting to another. Migration was at the heart of its transfer. The Order's spread was a cultural consequence of Protestant departures from Ireland, primarily Ulster. This process of carrying and planting homeland values and culture in places of settlement is what concerns us now.

By sketching the ebb and flow of Orangeism in northern England, this chapter tries to explain the key elements of a process of development that saw the Order successfully, and permanently, planted in the industrial towns of the far north by the mid-Victorian period. In so doing, this discussion provides a framework for later thematic interpretations.

The earliest migrations to carry Orangeism abroad were those which brought militiamen home following their participation in the savage suppression of the Irish Rising of 1798. Military units carried the first Orange warrant to the weaving town of Maybole, Ayrshire, precipitating the movement's spread to Glasgow and Argyllshire, where they met with support from recently arrived textile weavers from Ulster. Northern England's lodges followed similar patterns of appearance.