Order of Free Gardeners
Fraternal society that was founded in Scotland in the middle of the 17th century
The Order of Free Gardeners is a fraternal society that was founded in Scotland in the middle of the 17th century and later spread to England and Ireland. Thereafter, Free Gardenery spread to many other parts of the world initially to countries of the Empire. As with numerous other friendly societies of the time, its principal aim was the sharing of secret knowledge relevant to the profession of gardening, and mutual aid. Other such societies which were, and are, similar to Free Gardeners and Freemasons include, for example: Free Fishermen, Free Wrights (Carpenters), Free Colliers amongst several others. In the latter part of the 19th century, the activities of the Free Gardeners local mutual insurance, paying benefits for sickness, unemployment and funeral expenses began to dominate its activities to the detriment of initiation by ritual. By the end of the 20th century, the Order of Free Gardeners had become almost extinct.
In 1849, The Ancient Order of Free Gardeners Scotland, (a Grand Lodge similar to those of Freemasonry) was formed at Lasswade, Midlothian. The stated purpose of this body was to bring all existing lodges, in Scotland, under its control. It failed in this aim. Another attempt was made to create a single national governing body in 1859 at Edinburgh to which all known Free Gardeners lodges had been invited.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3355694. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1849 and 1859.
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This entry incorporates text from “Order of Free Gardeners” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.