Ancient Order of Foresters

The Ancient Order of Foresters was one of Britain’s Friendly Societies, organizations that helped working people obtain cooperative pensions and other financial support when government or privately funded schemes were absent. In the account of George Merrett’s death and funeral, the Order appears both as a source of practical mutual aid and as a community capable of public mourning.

Purpose and Membership

Merrett was a member of the Ancient Order of Foresters. On the night he died, he had been relieving a shift-worker who was also a member, an act of small benevolence that strengthened the Order’s obligation to honor him. The book presents this mutual responsibility as part of the society’s wider role: its members were connected through both financial support and reciprocal duties.

Merrett’s Funeral

The Order gave Merrett a handsome farewell. Its half-mile funeral cortège began with the Foresters’ Band playing the Funeral March from Saul, followed by scores of members wearing the organization’s emblems. A horse-drawn hearse and four black mourning-coaches carried the bereaved, including Merrett’s widow, Eliza, who rode in the leading carriage with their youngest baby.

Hundreds of brewery workers and thousands of members of the public joined the procession, many wearing black crêpe bands on their arms or hats. The Order’s members thus formed the front of a much larger public tribute, accompanying Merrett’s family through a funeral attended by people from across the surrounding community.

Role in the Account

The Ancient Order of Foresters gives the funeral a visible structure: its band and emblem-wearing members lead the cortège, while the society’s obligations explain why Merrett received an unusually substantial farewell. The episode also shows a Friendly Society acting where broader financial protections were lacking—not only through cooperative assistance, but through solidarity with a member’s bereaved family.