What is the Ancient Order of Foresters?

Part of the current Brent Museum exhibition is an element on the Ancient Order of Foresters, which had a long established base at what is now the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, first established there in 1929 according to the date on the front of the building. 

It was one of many clubs that sprang up during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries aimed at self help and a limited kind of welfare provision.  Such organisations were very common and tended to combine monthly contribution, a social element such as a drinking club, payouts for uncommon events such as funeral costs and (often) customs and various other flummery.  Other examples include Freemasons and a lot of the early Druids movement that morphed into the Eisteddfods.