International Organisation of Good Templars

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The International Organisation of Good Templars (formerly known as the International Order of Good Templars and the Independent Order of Good Templars) describe themselves as "the largest international non-governmental organisation working in the field of temperance".

Their base is in Sweden, a country which has had very strict alcohol policies and laws in the past.

1 History
2 Member organizations
3 Further reading
4 External link

[edit] History

The history of IOGT - but not that of temperance or total abstinence organizations - begins with the establishing of the Knights of Jericho and a lodge of it in Oriskany Falls (then known as Castor Hollow), a village near Utica, New York, USA, in 1850. Shortly afterwards, it was visited by 13 members of another group established in Utica. Under the leadership of Wesley Bailey, it was decided that these two lodges form the Order of Good Templars. As thus, the name of "Good Templar" came into existence in Utica 1851. The motto of the renamed organization was "Friendship, Hope and Charity".

Over the next year, 14 additional lodges were established. By the summer of 1852, a convention was called in Utica to establish a Grand Lodge. During the convention, a dispute broke out between Wesley Bailey and Leverett Coon, who had established a lodge in Syracuse. Coon left the meeting and his lodge, Excelsior, supported his actions by renaming the organization Independent Order of Good Templars, with the motto altered to "Faith, Hope and Charity". After this faltering start, the Order grew in the United States and in Canada.

In 1868, Joseph Malins returned to his native England and held a meeting in a small chapel in Cregoe Street, Birmingham. From this small gathering IOGT was to spread to the continent of Europe and to the rest of the world. Within three years the Order spread to Ireland, Wales, Australia, Malta, New Zealand, France, Portugal, South Africa, Bermuda, Belgium and East India. Another five years later (by 1876), the Order had established itself in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Madras, British Honduras, British Guyana, Jamaica, Malacca, China, Japan, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, Argentina, Trinidad, Grenada and the Bahamas. This was followed by lodges in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Germany and Jerusalem, and from 1900 and onwards in Holland, Burma, Nigeria and Panama.

[edit] Member organizations

As listed on the website of IOGT International.

Others - PCDP-Cambodia, Together against Drugs, Sri Lanka Interactive Media Group, International Academy of Sobriety, EGTYF Macedonia, Atmosphere F, NADA India Foundation

[edit] Further reading

European Good Templar Youth Federation
Temperance organizations
David M. Fahey, "How the Good Templars Began: Fraternal Temperance in New York State", Social History of Alcohol Review, Nos. 38-39 (1999)
David M. Fahey, "Temperance & Racism: John Bull, Johnny Reb, and the Good Templars" (University Press of Kentucky, 1996).