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James Craig and Orangeism, 1903–10
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The importance of the Orange Order to Unionism has long been accepted: J. F. Harbinson referred to ‘the marriage of the Unionist Party and the Orange Institution in the early days of the struggle against Home Rule’, while Alvin Jackson has written: ‘The significance of the Orange Order in terms of the ideological and institutional groundwork for Unionism can hardly be overstated.’ The closeness of this association and its nature can be tested for a crucial period of political mobilisation by examining the relationship of James Craig, a Unionist M.P. from 1906 and effective leader of the Ulster Unionists under Carson from 1910, and the Orange Order. This raises questions such as: What was Craig’s motivation for joining the order? What type of relationship did he have with the order? What role did Craig see the order fulfilling in Unionism?
At the opening of a new Orange hall in September 1906 Craig stated that ‘he was an Orangeman first and a Member of Parliament afterwards’ and called ‘for the Protestant community to rally round the lodges, strengthen and support them’. Craig’s biographers, on the other hand, do not consider his Orangeism significant. Hugh Shearman wrote that Craig, in common with other Ulster leaders, ‘had let himself become an occasional emphatic utterer of Protestant sentiments, and he had made great use of the Orange Order’, implying that the order was a tool for Craig. To St John Ervine it was an incidental part of Craig’s Westminster career. Writing of 1919, Ervine noted that Craig ‘started an Orange Lodge in the House of Commons, a surprising society to appear in that assembly’. Patrick Buckland saw it as more of a background influence, in that Craig was a typical product of his society, and while he might have seemed more broad-minded than many Ulster Protestants he ‘had almost unthinkingly absorbed all their conventional notions and had come to share their fears and prejudices’.
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References
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27 Ibid., 18 Mar. 1903.
28 Ibid., 23 Mar. 1903. Later in the same edition the election report gave the figures: Mitchell had polled 2,407 votes as against Craig’s 2,255.
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32 Belfast News-Letter, 11 Oct. 1905 (speech at Listooder Orange Hall). This type of procedure was not unusual. For example, at the 1905 Twelfth demonstration at Saintfield Craig had remarked on the Orangemen’s strength and help in securing the West Down seat for the Unionist candidate, Harry Liddell. Craig said ‘it would please them to know that his [Liddell’s] first act at the conclusion of that great contest had been to join the Order’ (ibid., 13 July 1905). Harry Liddell (d. 1931), Unionist M.P. West Down, 1905–7.
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34 Press cuttings (P.R.O.N.I., Craigavon papers, D/1415/A/3). The article was by ‘The Chief’. This was Sir James H. Haslett (1832-1905), Unionist M.P. North Belfast 1896–1905. He had been M.P. West Belfast 1885–6 and mayor of Belfast 1887–8.
35 Game book (P.R.O.N.I., D/1415/D/11), p. 294.
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41 In November 1907, as the M.P. for East Down, Craig stated that he was an Orangeman ‘representing a very Orange constituency’ (Northern Whig, 6 Nov. 1907).
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104 I should like to acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of Professor Keith Jeffery in the preparation of this article.