|
|
Who are the Buffaloes?
Written by Brian Dowling
They are the second biggest ‘secret society’ in Britain. Two Prime Ministers have been members. What do they do? Why do they do it? A Picture Post team went to Liverpool to find out the fact behind this ‘Royal and Antediluvian Order’.
The ‘Buffs’ have many secrets. But the greatest of them is doing good by stealth. They began in hard times, when the Welfare State was well below the horizon, and a man and his family could starve for the want of a few shillings. Today, the members of the Order may part with a million pounds in a year, to add to the provisions of the state.
They have been called the ‘Poor Man’s Freemasons’ – a title they don’t care for. Their beliefs (for attending a Lodge is not enough; a true Buffalo believes in his Brotherhood) are as valid as any other Order’s. And if they are an Order ‘founded on ha-pennies’, that is a matter for pride in four thousand Lodges throughout the world.
A bishop, two Prime Ministers and Lord Chief Justice have belonged to the Order. The Lord Chief Justice said once: “I can go into this vast crowd and know the moment I shake hands with a man he will tell me he is a brother, and I shall know that we are bound together by a bond of union – a desire to promote the best principles of Buffaloism”. Someone once asked why on earth he was a Buffalo. The answer was: Because he is a good judge.
The Order is not sectarian. Talk of politics, religion – or gambling – is forbidden. There is no colour bar. Only Communists are excluded, because a member of the Order must declare his allegiance to Constitutional authority of his country. The Buffaloes’ creed is summed up in a number of homely maxims. ‘Justice, Truth and Philanthropy.’ ‘In things doubtful, Liberty, and in all things, Charity, and in things essential, Unity.’ And, most significantly, ‘No Man Is At All Times Wise.’
They have been called ‘Boozy Buffs,’ and they don’t much care for that title, either; especially as there are teetotal Lodges, and teetotal members of Lodges. Yet it is easy to see how the nickname came about, for their meeting place has traditionally been the pub, since the Order began which is reckoned to be about 1822.
This date of 1822 is a dangerous one to use. The Order’s full title is the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, and many Buffs have tied themselves in knots trying to trace the Order back to the mists of prehistory. However, the Order is only Royal ‘by courtesy’ (it called itself ‘Loyal’ until the latter half of the last century), and it certainly isn’t Antediluvian. It’s 1822, until anyone can prove differently. In the early nineteenth century, clubs were a common feature of pubs. The RAOB is one of the greatest survivors of them, and it is this origin which accounts for the two distinct strains in Buffaloism.
One side, which never endeared the Buffs to people in early days, developed out of boisterous buffoonery. The secrecy and passwords, the initiations, the ritual and regalia are relics of those beginnings. But, at the same time, the philanthropy was there from the start
The Order began in London, at the Harp Tavern, where the famous ‘City of Lushington’ held court. The ‘lush’ part, of course, was derived from liquor, and the ‘City’ was a convivial meeting-place for theatre people, parodying a city council. The ’City’ was not democratic enough for all tastes. Stage hands, for instance, were not welcome. So the first buffalo Lodge, the ‘Harponian’, was formed there, on a more popular basis. It borrowed a great deal of the Lushington ritual-as well as the actors’ habit of helping others in distress.
As it stands now, the Order has four degrees, each with its own regalia. The Buffalo is initiated as a Kangaroo, and installed, after an examination, in the second degree of Primo. For services to the Order, he may be elevated to the third degree of Knight Order or Merit, and exalted to the fourth degree of the Roll of Honour. Any Primo can quality for the highest offices of Grand Lodge, but a man who aspires to high office will obviously have undertaken many lower ones. When a man has held office or performed some service, he is rewarded with a ‘jewel’, and a heavily jewelled Buffalo moves, in his Lodge, with a pleasant tinkling sound.
The early meetings were boisterous enough. An initiate was blindfolded and greeted with a speech which began “Degraded Wretch! – Miserable Ashantee!-Unfortunate Individual!” One of the songs which was sung at him consisted mainly of the words ‘bloody-head and raw-bones’, and he was likely, in some Lodges, to get his hair singed.
| The First Centre
From the Harponian Lodge, the movement was taken in to the provinces by actors in stock companies. The first great centre was Manchester where it soon eclipsed London, and Lodges ramified very much as they do now. For many years, the Lodges did as they pleased. There was no central body to standardise ritual or canalise benevolence. The London Metropolitan Lodges have always regarded themselves the true guardians of Buffaloism, but they found it hard going to agree even among themselves.
A year after the Grand Primo lodge of England constituted itself in London, in 1886, another London faction set itself up in opposition; and that split very quickly. ( There are still ten known “Banners” of Bufffalos, agreeing to disagree.) However, the Grand Lodge has been accepted since its foundation as the governing body of the Order, despite it teething troubles. These culminated in 1897, in a pitched battle on the hotel landing where Grand Lodge was meeting, when representatives of the northern federation broke in, to assert the national character of the Order. This was the dilemma that made the Order’s coming of age a lusty business; it needed strong men to unify it, but it wouldn’t stand for dictators.
Since then, the system of Provincial Grand lodges, Governing Authorities (there used to be District Lodges) and Minor lodges has grown steadily throughout the world – with the ordinary members of minor Lodges every where determining their own affairs within the Lodge, and affairs of the Order through their elected hierarchy. There are Lodges throughout the world; fifty in Western Germany alone. Members in the forces have done a great deal to spread the Order, and it was for their benefit that the age of joining was lowered to eighteen.
I don’t now what the Buffalo secrets are, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell. If they had nothing in common, they could hardly band together in a social relaxation and benevolence. Any man can find out for themselves, by being invited to join. But one thing, at least, can be said; the secrets are only important to the Order.
Many people say that all secret societies are bad, but Buffaloism, at its highest, enables its members to give direction to there benevolence, and at its lowest, allows them to dress up, and amuse themselves with exotic formalities. The only privilege of a Buffalo is to give, and the only obligations are to adhere to the common decencies of life
| Money well Invested
The higher a Buffalo aspires, the more he gives to the Order, in time at least. It is not unknown for an officer – and there are men who have worn out two sets of regalia, although many Buffaloes may not believe it - to have 450 Lodge attendances in a year.
Buffaloes are businessmen, in general sense. The halfpennies and pennies of the members (last years average weekly attendance was 90,000) add up to good money, well in invested. The Order runs three convalescent homes, for Buffaloes and their close relatives, and it sends more to other homes. It established an annuity fund a memorial to Buffs who fell in the Kaiser’s war –“We invested in flesh and blood, not in lifeless stone”. It used to run two orphanages, until the Welfare State made the need for them superfluous, although it still makes individual grants to orphans. These are national institutions. Lodges and groups of Lodges, also make their own arrangements for the sick and needy.
Yet Buffaloes shy – rather too violently – when likened to a Friendly Society. Their pride is in the voluntariness of their efforts, and they feel that friendly Society members may be more aspired by prudent self-interest. And besides, they like being Buffs.
The “jewels” and rituals are the pleasurable symbols of their brotherhood. It was the late Lord Alverstone, the lord chief Justice, who summed up their feelings. “Don’t mind the people who laugh at you,” he said. “Don’t mind the people who say you are only doing it because you like to belong to an exclusive Order, I am proud of the medals I wear. I could not continue to support the Order, if I were not satisfied that it is doing quietly, without ostentation, a work which will commend itself to those who desire to live in brotherhood with their fellow men, and to increase what I have already spoken of as a brightness and happiness of other peoples lives.”
|
|