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	Secret Societies (inactive)
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Origin/meaning of Oddfellows?

Should the background for the meaning of ODDFELLOWS be included in the article?
19:14, 1 January 2005 209.179.168.31

I was about to ask the same question. What's the etymology behind the name of Odd Fellows? I'll assume that "odd" isn't meant to refer to "weird" or "strange" in the modern sense. --Brasswatchman 01:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The "Odd Fellows and Rebekahs" have been in the Pasadena 'Tournament of Roses Parade' 61 times and won 'best coordination of color' award for the 2012 parade, I'm watching just now. Hope you are too — Happy New Year. The parade announcers read a different reason for the name: "Friendship, Love, and Truth are their watchwords". Further, "Their whole credo is to Visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead, and educate orphans. It was such an unusual concept in 17th century England, we are told, that they were dubbed, 'Odd Fellows'." "They give more than $700million/yr to causes around the world." The float featured a knight in full armor on his stead with lance-weapon, FYI, in front of a castle.

There are more than 10,000 lodges in 26 countries. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 19:57, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Bias?

I'm wondering should the neutrality of this article be disputed.. I think there's a bit of bias bleeding through the start of the introduction, but I really know nothing about the organisation, so I don't feel qualified to edit it. -Geno
00:44, 17 July 2007 Geno-Supremo

Read on! At least two others agree with you! Pdfpdf 12:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

Mea Culpa - I should have written this on 2 September 2007.

First, let me state up front that I am not now, never have been, and never will be a member of any Lodge, Oddfellows or otherwise. My father, who died 25 years ago, was heavily involved in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in Australia; I want to be known for my own abilities - I have never wanted to be thought of as "riding on his coat-tails". However, I am proud of my father's achievements, and have (from a distance) an interest in the history of Guilds, Friendly Societies, Lodges and, to a lesser degree, Trades Union.

Are you sitting comfortably? I shall now begin.

Back at the end of last month (i.e. August 2007) I was proof-reading a contribution for a wiki-friend when I came across a link to Odd Fellows, which is a disambiguation page. Not very exciting. It said:

Odd Fellows can mean one of the following friendly societies, fraternal and service organizations:

• Independent Order of Odd Fellows (a.k.a. IOOF)
• Oddfellows

So I followed both links to pages which were, to me, quite fascinating. (I had always wondered what the IOOF were "independent" of!) However, both pages were, to be frank, "a bit of a mess", and they contained "stuff" I didn't believe. For example, the middle of the Oddfellows page said:

According to the official web site of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the meaning behind their name is a mystery, even to the organization itself:

There are several different reasons given for our strange name. One old and apparently authoritative history of Odd Fellowship gives the explanation, "That common laboring men should associate themselves together and form a fraternity for social unity and fellowship and for mutual help was such a marked violation of the trends of the times (England in the 1700's) that they became known as 'peculiar' or 'odd,' and hence they were derided as 'Odd Fellows'. Because of the appropriateness of the name, those engaged in forming these unions accepted it. When legally incorporated the title 'Odd Fellows' was adopted.

Another, similar explanation is that the original Odd Fellows were men who were engaged in various or odd trades, as there were organizations for some of the larger trades.

Modern references state that the true reason for the name Odd Fellows is not known or documented. Whatever the reason may have been, the unusual name has been the object of public curiosity (and on occasion derision or mirth) for well over 200 years.

— http://www.ioof.org/ioof_history.htm

My reactions to all that were: 1) What a load of rubbish; and 2) Somebody hasn't done their "homework".

So I did some "homework", and without much effort found: http://www.oddfellows.co.uk/uploads/documents/feb_06/odd_1139392353_Oddfellows_History.doc
This is a lovely little document - well written, amusing, informative and plausible. Yes, it has its shortcomings (no references, no author, only tells the story from one Point-Of-View), but the value it adds far outweighs these.

I made a start on trying to fix up Oddfellows

10:41, 2 September 2007 Pdfpdf (Correct various errors of fact, spelling and grammar. Add references and cross-references.)

But after I'd finished, I still wasn't happy with the results. I decided it needed a rewrite. So I did.

15:31, 2 September 2007 Pdfpdf (Rewrite)

However, like all "Grand Projects" I ran out of steam and, of course, I ran out of time.
So, at the top I put:

Under Construction - needs a wider range of sources/references

22:41, 2 September 2007 Pdfpdf (Add Under Construction, and minor edits)

Then I went back to proof-reading my wiki-friend's article. Pdfpdf 07:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Grand United and Manchester Unity

I am a member of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows. This artical is way biased. We are the origional order that the Manchester Lodge broke away from. This artical makes no mention to the fact that we are still going with very active members all over the world including, Cuba, USA, Ghana, Aust. and more. This artical looks as if it was written by the Manchester Unity Lodge and at first and 2nd reading is very biased. I will be passing this link to the Order board to take responsibility for contacting Wikipeadia and editing this as approperate. In the meantime can someone please put somthing on hear that mentions all of this? our web site is www.guoofs.co.uk 82.27.67.218 13:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)ccasa

Well 82.27.67.218, I wouldn't say the article is "way biassed", but it certainly does tell the story from only one Point-Of-View (POV in Wiki-parlance), and (to be generous to MU) certain statements "don't tell the whole story".

(However, I must agree with you that With their improved organisation and rules, they encouraged many other lodges across the country to leave the old Grand United Order and join the Independent Order under the 'Manchester Compliance'. It was the Manchester Unity which was to become the the Oddfellows of today. is indeed biassed!)

(And yes, the stuff up the top could almost be classified as "propaganda". It's not there now!)

I, personally, would greatly appreciate it if others (like you) with some actual knowledge of the subject matter added that knowledge to the article.

Yes, the article sort of was written by the Manchester Unity Lodge. There's no secret about that; every paragraph I wrote references a document from their web site, and up the top of the article it says: "Under Construction - needs a wider range of sources/references".

I will be passing this link to the Order board to take responsibility for contacting Wikipeadia and editing this as approperate. - Why? Do the editing yourself. And if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself, ask for help. I'm happy to help.

In the meantime can someone please put somthing on hear that mentions all of this? - By placing your message here, you have already done that yourself. (i.e. You don't need anyone else to do anything else - you have already done it yourself.)

Over the next few days I will incorporate whatever I can find at www.guoofs.co.uk and www.guoofs.com into the page. I would welcome your help! (My wife would prefer I got a life that didn't involve spending hours on Misplaced Pages.) Cheers, Pdfpdf 07:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. In the meantime, why don't you create a user name and hence user Talk page so that people can discuss stuff with you, rather than do so here or on an anonymous page? Pdfpdf 07:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi and thank you for the quick reply. In re-reading my earlier comments I may have been well a bit hot headed! Sorry. I assumed that like most articles in the Press the Manchester Unity Lodge did this and they tend to forget that were are still here and disown everything we do. This coupled with the easy ability to site here and fire off quick replies without thinking made me look like a total arse.

I need to go through all the paperwork I know of and speak to different people in the Order. I am kind of new having only joined three years ago. I know the Manchester Unity 'dispute' still causes all kind of interesting comments when mentioned and getting the facts is hard. Just two nights ago it was commented that the Original reason Manchester Unity broke away was that The Grand United Order was allowing blacks and other ethnic minorities to join and they hated that fact. How true this is I do not know.

I don’t know much about editing or contribution to Wiki’s but will endeavor to learn. I do know that most of our current activities and agreed upon history are on our (new) website at www.guoofs.com and my knowledge is limited to the UK.

We are a small Order with a large (geographical) reach. These days with the welfare state and other organizations the original reason is largely gone but is still part of the Order, mainly for tradition, to appeal to the ‘old timers’ and because we do manage some really good insurance policies for members. All regulated by the FSA. Now days there are loads of registered members but very few active ones. Many pay their small annual subs and collect on the great rate of return at retirement age.

Those that are active are in it for the Social side mostly. We get together and raise money for Charity and organize lots of nights out where lots of beer is involved. In so far as members political social and religious beliefs are concerned we are all over the place. We have far left Socialists to far right supports of fringe political parties. Most of use are in the middle and tend not to talk politics with in the Order. Although we are nominally a Christian this is not really strict. Religion very from Ordained C0E Ministers to Atheists. And locally we have Hindoo and Muslim persons whilst not members yet look as if they will join. Backgrounds very wildly with many UK Members (esp. London) from Africa.

There are active Lodges in the US, Cuba, Africa, and Australia (but the Financial side was bought out by a big insurance company so they exist as ‘fraternal’ members only. Most of the Ritual and tradition is gone with only the London Lodge maintaining elements of this. But many want to bring this back and efforts are being made to do so. Just how much and what bits are open for discussion.

Any information I can provide I will endeavor to do so and will get an account sorted so you can email me directly. 82.27.67.218 (talk) 14:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. Your reply made interesting reading. The situation in UK sounds similar to the situation in Aus. (e.g. Although never being a member of the Lodge, I was a member of the "sick & funeral fund" for over 30 years; the Lodge closed down the fund only last year.)

Setting up an account is easy - the hard part is thinking of a name you'll be happy with for some time (that no-one else has already chosen.) I regret that I didn't give it much thought. At first I just used my initials, but pdf is already in use, so I just used pdfpdf. I now wish I'd given the choice more thought! Cheers, Pdfpdf 15:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

PS: Regarding MU split from GUOO and the issue of Race, I thought you might find the following interesting: The American IOOF page says:

"The (American) Grand United Order of Odd Fellows is a fraternal organization founded in 1843 for black members. Created at a time when the IOOF was primarily a white-only organization the GUOOF obtained its charter directly from the Manchester Unity in Great Britain so the American IOOF organization had no control over it. Although still in existence the membership in the US has declined, due to the mainstream IOOF no longer being segregated and also due to the decline in fraternal membership in general.

Pdfpdf 15:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Any external sources?

Nice article... but I am (mildly) concerned about the lack of third party, independant sources. Essentially, everything is cited to "History of the Odd Fellows" (the other notes and references are essentially commentary about that history). Are there no other sources... has no one written about the order (either positively, negatively, or neutrally)? Blueboar 13:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Blueboar. (A bit of appreciation is always nice.) But I can't take much credit for it; the raw material comes from: http://www.oddfellows.co.uk/uploads/documents/feb_06/odd_1139392353_Oddfellows_History.doc

I am quite a bit more than (mildly) concerned about the lack of third party, independant sources.

You are quite correct - everything is cited to that one source.

Now we get to the hard part! Are there no other sources... ? There must be, mustn't there.

Want to help find them? Pdfpdf 07:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

There are some esternal sources, very few that i have seen are on line. and very very mention much about the oddfellow just in passing mostly. instead they speak mostly of the 'interesting' Orders like, Druids, Masons and so on. I will see what I can dig out of the GUOOFS records and see if i can find the external material i once looked at. CCasa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.27.67.218 (talk) 14:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is an artical i found. other then what is here i have no idea what is referancable or verified. I have also found a few articals in books dealing with S. Societies however from the looks of it they were taken from the official histoies of GUOOFs and manchester Unity. I do know tere existed the old records and meeting minutes etc but getting ahold of these an then transfering them to digital is, well frankly beyond what i am going to do as it looks a big job. also would it be any help? perhaps not as they are not verified 3rd party impartial referances etc.

Artical is as follows, I hope this helps; Grand United Order of Oddfellows magazine March 1972

BOB LINDOP looks at"THE STORY OF THE GRAND UNITED"

Remember the "Bull and Mouth"? This was what we supposed to be a tavern in Sheffield where the second Grand Lodge of the original Order was founded in 1792. It is significant that the London Grand Lodge, which by all accounts was a most autocratic institution, should have condescended to give Grand Lodge status to those heathen Northerners. The fact is that the Order was seizing the imagination of the Northern counties, particularly Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the London Lodge could no longer resist the claims of their brethren in these parts. Apart from the demands of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Lodges, difficulties of communication in those days made administration of "outposts" a near-impossible task. We must remember too that in a young, yet rapidly growing movement, it could not have been long before the provincial strong points came face to face with the fact that the London Grand Lodge was itself not very soundly constituted. Indeed, the weakness of the London Lodge and its undemocratic ways coupled with the surge of strength in the North, saw the London Lodge wholly eclipsed so that the very name of the Grand Lodge in the South vanished at once from our records!

So Sheffield became the effective centre of Oddfellowship. The Union Order or the Grand United Order as it was variously called, embraced all the Lodges in England and seemed set fair to become a huge, thriving, all-class institution. But soon, within twenty years, in fact. the Grand Lodge. Sheffield, born of dissension in the eighteenth century, in turn became the object of criticism from those Lodges, notably from Lancashire, who felt that the new Grand Lodge was becoming as dictatorial as ever the London Lodge had been! This dissatisfaction came to a head in 1813 when several Lancashire Lodges seceded and formed themselves into a Union which they called "The Independent Order of Oddfellows, Manchester Unity." As we know, this breakaway institution went from strength to strength and today represents the biggest Friendly Society with Lodges in the country. However, the secession regrettable though it was did not prevent further rapid growth of the parent body, and, in the next twenty years bringing us to 1831, more than 200 Dispensations for Lodges had been granted.

But the fortunes of the Grand United had always been erratic and now, in 1831, another blow was to fall! Grand Lodge had not, apparently, learned anything from the breakaway movement of Manchester Unity. It is not now known on what principle the Sheffield Grand Lodge was constituted, but it would appear that once again the growth of the Movement outstripped that governing body's effec­tiveness, and soon the seeds of disaffection grew into a heavy crop of discord and insubordination. The principles of Love, Friendship and Truth, received a further heavy setback when what purported to be "a general delegate meeting of all the Lodges in Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire" was convened at the Bridgeman Arms Inn, Bolton, for the purpose of moving Grand Lodge to Bolton and reconstituting it as a board of twenty (elected?) men who would undertake: ". . to assure the Lodges of their fatherly care and protection so long as the laws, customs, usages and ceremonies of the Order are well observed and truly kept . . ."

From this meeting was formed the Ancient Noble Order (Bolton Unity) and the parent Order licked its wounds again. However, though the Bolton-based union became an established fact, its claims to represent "all the Lodges of Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire" must be a gross overstatement, otherwise these three counties would not have survived at that time and to the present day as the stronghold of Grand United Oddfellowship. By the time, in the plethora of breakaway Orders, for many sub­divisions had taken place, the average Oddfellow must have been confused as to who was his Brother and who was not!' Indeed, there is the case of Washington Union Lodge, No 1, Philadelphia, which was once thought to be the first Grand United Lodge in America. It is pretty clear now that its laws and allegiances were those of an Independent order. Our present American Brethren certainly do not recognise this early Lodge (1819) as ever being a Grand United stronghold.

1832 saw another "revolt" against the "arbitrary" conduct of the Grand Lodge and its officers Little was achieved from this latest upheaval, but the Grand Lodge, now having an unwieldy complement of eighteen members, was slow to read the writing on the wall. "By 1837 the Grand Lodge had succeeded - as all other Grand Lodges had done - in making itself sufficiently obnoxious to cause a great agitation." So wrote P.G.M. Jowett late in the nineteenth century. Certainly agitation there was; agitation for popular representation and an elec­tive system of Order government. This reached its climax when in 1837, the Grand Lodge Meeting was so assailed with demands for democratic rule that it capitulated and the next year the first Annual Meeting of the G.U.O.O.F.S. was held in Leeds. More of this meeting next time, but let us look for a moment at the case the curious case. of Bro. B. Towndrow. who represented the Man­chester District at that meeting.

In the annals of our Order we find no mention of Bro. Towndrow until the meeting at Leeds was convened. He appears with the suddenness of Halley's Comet, a phenomenon still being talked about at that time, and disappears just as suddenly. Yet at that memorable meeting of 1838, this man was Mover of no less than TWENTY-SEVEN rules or motions, received the special thanks of the Conference, made what appears to have been the most impor­tant speech of the Conference, was ~trusted with the registration of Rules, was charged with having the flag altered for the next year's meeting and was appointed to prepare the Report on the Con­ference. Addressing the Chairman (Bro. Walker, of Leeds), Towndrow then made a speech in reply to Conference's Vote of Thanks. Near the end of that speech he said: "You have this day shed a ray of pleasure on me, which can only cease with my life." For all we know his life could have ceased at that moment. Whether he fulfilled his special charges from Conference, whether he kept his promises to that meeting we shall never know. Cer­tainly when the story is resumed, in 1845, Bro. Towndrow's name is conspicuously missing.

All articles © E.W. Lindop 1971-1976. Magazine extracts and logo © The Grand United Order of Oddfellows Friendly Society, reproduced with kind permission of the Board of Directors.

Ccasa (talk) 13:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)ccasa

Odd Fellows

Odd Fellows is a disambiguation page that I have expanded considerably with information I have been able to find.

The page is by no means complete, and I really don't know how accurate my findings are.
(For example, from the information on the Manchester Unity site, I had (wrongly) assumed that "The Grand United Order of Oddfellows (1789)" were defunct. I now know differently!!!)

Any help on reviewing that page would be greatly appreciated. Pdfpdf 08:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Issues with this article

I earlier highlighted what I consider to be weasel words in this article. It summarises a few things already said by others; namely, that the sources are sparse and one-sided and that the article's tone is somewhat apologetic and/or promotional. I made a few edits to the lead to neutralise it a little, and suggested that consideration be made for the rest of the article. Concerning sources, I imagine that there are very few sources available that are not produced by the societies in question or their members, as there appears little interest in them from outsiders. For the history section, it should be made clear that legend refers to certain 'founding myths' used within certain societies. Also, it is clearly an overstatement that all societies in history are the precursors to Oddfellows; there is a certain watershed between 18th century societies that are the clear the originators of Oddfellows, and earlier groups that are co-opted as precursors, having certain names and features that were later formalised by Oddfellows. The article, in its present state, does not read like an encyclopaedia article; it is far too casual in style and imprecise in detail. It is reasonable to draw notice to this state of affairs, and encourage those with more information on the subject to deliver more focus and encyclopaedic style to the article. Not knowing anything of Oddfellows personally, somewhat limits me, but, reading this article for information, I felt the need to filter the text to get the facts from it. I would appreciate it if editors could help improve this article. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 16:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional literature, links and general information

interesting information here on the US Grand United Order of Oddfellows linking the African American lodges with first the Manchester Independant order and then the Grand United Order.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ku9aOC9OxnMC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=Grand+United+Order+of+Oddfellows&source=bl&ots=8HCeGBiaj1&sig=abf3fJZhE-3bTF7eEUJ-r7wR540&hl=en&ei=FoI_SpLoOt62jAfj9JkT&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.152.49.186 (talk) 13:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

2.219.16.149 (talk) 14:22, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

   Hi, I have just come across one of your fob medals, it is hall marked  and in a box from Spencer & co London.
    It is Blue and white on the front and has Manchester Unity 100f  1810/1910. I was interested to know if this 
    has any value.

Manchester Unity in Australia - different wording needed ...

With an edit comment of: Noted that in Australia the Independent Order of Manchester Unity was demutualised and effectively wound up in 2008., User:TheDirtyDigger has posted:

The Australian Manchester Unity Order was demutualized in 2008 and its health insurance operations merged with health fund HCF, with the name Manchester Unity retained only as a brand name for aged care services. http://www.manchesterunity.com.au/site/about-us/

This is only part of the story. (More coming - Internet connection is playing up - sorry) Pdfpdf (talk) 08:49, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

One needs to distinguish between the businesses which were set up by the Orders, and the members and Lodges of the Orders.

Yes, the businesses of "The Australian Manchester Unity Order demutualized in 2008 and health insurance operations merged with health fund HCF, with the name Manchester Unity retained only as a brand name for aged care services."

However, the Order itself, and the Lodges, still remain.

(A similar thing has happened with the various Grand Lodges of the IOOF of the various Australian states. e.g. South Australia: The health insurance went to Mutual Hospital => Mutual Community => HCF/MBF or someone similar; The sick & funeral funds were demutualized and became KeyInvest; etc. But the IOOF Grand Lodge of South Australia still exists, and also, it has "a finger in the pie" of a number of "retirement homes".)

I'm not sure how to word this - particularly, how to word it concisely! Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 09:08, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Overlinking?

User:Jayaguru-Shishya has removed a large number of links. Some of these removals are justified, but many provided useful links to explanatory information. (e.g.: mutual organization; Southwark, Hatton Garden and Smithfield areas of London; table (information); National Insurance Act; etc.)

Some of the edit summaries are puzzling; e.g. How is "In 1911, when Asquith's Liberal government was setting up the National Insurance Act in Britain" (Out of British context (National Insurance Act))?

However, the one that particularly puzzles me is the removal of the link to the Stuarts, with the edit summary (Linking to "House of Stuart", which is very different from any implied "Stuartism") - a) Why? b) What is "Stuartism"? c) What exactly do you think is implied?

Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 06:08, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Greetings Pdfpdf! I am sorry if my edit summaries were confusing; I have to admit that I was cutting corners under a heavy workload (not an excuse though!) Anyway, I'll try to explain some of my edits below. Hopefully it will help to clarify my edits.

] of the ]: "Exodus" itself means the "exile of the Israelites", so we should link to the more specific

Jewish: major religions

destruction of the temple at Jerusalem: I changed this one to a more specific link to the exact event

knights: IMHO, this is an everyday word that even kids get familiar with ever since fairytales. Moreover, the whole article does not even mention "Oddfellows", so I think it's very tangentially related to the topic.

inns: an everyday word too? Well, this is debatable though

Southwark, Hatton Garden: my apologies, this was purely my mistake. Instead of merely removing the links, I was meant to fix the linking per WP:LINKSTYLE. I fixed the linking now though.

Smithfield areas of London: the same as above; I fixed the linking now. Thanks for your notice.

tables: maybe I have understood wrongly, but how is this exactly related to the article? =P

Stuarts: oh, indeed... You are right, I am not sure what I was thinking. Apparently I've been considering "Stuarts" as some sort of political movement (?!?)

transportation: this one is an obvious mistake from my behalf too. The link is actually to "penal transportation", not to "transportation" in general.

National Insurance Act: This one too. Sorry for the hasty removal. After all, the linking is quite specific indeed, and stands for its place.

George Harrison; Ringo Starr; The Beatles: this is quite trivial though. The piece of text is about the fathers, so linking to their sons has nothing to do with the article. IMHO, it's the same as we'd make it The father of ]; It'd give no information ever so far about ] himself. Actually, I think the whole passage should be removed. A source about the actual "fathers", who they were, could be reasonable though.

Anyway, thanks for your kind notice, Pdfpdf. I hope this helped to clarify you my edits even a bit. Well, as I said above, I know that huge workload isn't an excuse for hasty edits (e.g. when I pertained to "link specificity" in my edit summaries, I used to just plainly remove the links instead of fixing them). Still many of the removals were justified in my opinion, even though might have been poorly communicated. Sorry for that. Cheers and happy beginning of 2015! :-) Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 13:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Problems with the lede

Greetings! I think the last paragraph in the lede is quite problematic. We shouldn't include in the lede, and for disambiguation purposes a hatnote on top of the article serves the purpose.

The current hatnote takes the reader to Odd Fellows which is a <nowiki>

</nowki> page. However, since we have only two other Odd fellows organizations (Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Independent Order of Odd Fellows) that have articles in Misplaced Pages, I think a neat and nice hatnote would be much more clear solution. I'l like to suggest the following hatnote for the article:

This is how we could avoid the in the lead, and place the disambiguation where it belongs - into the hatnote. If one still wants to include a piece of text about the diverse usage of the name "Oddfellows", I think this should be done by referring to a source. For example, "According to John Doe, there has been a number of different Orders of Oddfellows in the UK, and those can be easily confused. These orders include..."

Summa summarum, 1) we should not include into the lede, 2) when we say something, there should be a source to back it up, and 3) when we want to make a disambiguation notice, a hatnote is the right way to do it. Cheers! ~~~~