[citation needed] The first significant number of Canadian settlers to arrive from Ireland were Protestants from predominantly Ulster and largely of Scottish descent who settled in the mainly central Nova Scotia in the 1760s.
Many of the original "English" Canadian settlers in the Red River Colony were fervent Irish loyalist Protestants, and members of the Orange Order.
The BIS was founded as a charitable, fraternal, middle-class social organization, on the principles of "benevolence and philanthropy", and had as its original objective to provide the necessary skills which would enable the poor to better themselves.
[citation needed] In 1877, a breakthrough in Irish Canadian Protestant-Catholic relations occurred in London, Ontario.
The Orange Order's members must swear loyalty to the British Monarch and to uphold the teachings of Protestant Christianity.
Orangemen played a big part in suppressing the Upper Canada Rebellion of William Lyon Mackenzie in 1837.
Though the rebellion was short-lived, 317 Orangemen were sworn into the local militia by the Mayor of Toronto and then resisted Mackenzie's march down Yonge Street in 1837.
An obelisk there marks the spot where Orangemen died in defending the colony against an attack by members of Clan na Gael (commonly known as Fenians).
[citation needed] Four Canadian Prime Ministers were Orange Order members: Arthur Meighen, the ninth Prime Minister who served two terms from July 1920 to December 1921 and again from June to September 1926 was born in Ontario, but his grandfather emigrated in 1839 from Bovevagh, near Dungiven, in County Londonderry The Hart wrestling family through Stu Hart.