An example of the Rosy-Cross

        The Mercurial dragon

        ALCHEMY

SACRED GEOMETRY

SQUARING the CIRCLE

FREEMASONRY -
MYSTERIES  of NATURE and SCIENCE

        THIS is an area of main-stream HISTORY in which the accumulated weaknesses of past approaches can most easily be seen. Apprentices were an essential part of the guild scene and subsequently, but to all intents and purposes disappear during the Reformation, only to re-appear, as if by magic, in 'modern' industrial'/labour history accounts. Only the Freemasons have given them much significance from then till now, and that only in a very self-serving way.
        Political scientists and sociologists have, they believe for our own good, sanitised 'modern' history by losing key elements they regarded as non-modern and therefore part of a superstitious, irrational past, eg secrecy, fraternal ceremonial and its related paraphenalia. The resulting stew of competing ideologies and geo-political manoevurings while superficially plausible shows little relationship to what went before and is therefore fundamentally a-historical.
        Because of those past approaches, an alternative, connected history is not easy. A start can be made by way of the following titles:

Some Australian Druid History:
         An advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald for 28 September, 1846 invited brethren of the United Ancient Order of Druids (UAOD) to a meeting to form a Sydney Lodge. In 1850 a Mr James Himen is credited with having established a lodge at Port Phillip (Victoria). Neither of these could be maintained, the latter suffering from member losses to the gold rushes. Himen and others came together in 1861 to establish a Grand Lodge of Australia, presumably of the UAOD.
        Since the UAOD was still in existence in 2005, some might think there had only been the UAOD. They might not ask what Orders had there been that had to be 'united'?
        A 19th century set of Rules of the Ancient Order of Druids claims that the United Ancient Order of Druids was a breakaway in 1834 from the original Ancient Order said to have been 'revived' in 1781 by Hurle and others. It is clear from these Rules that a major revision occurred within the Ancient Order in 1849.
A 1916 article in the UK  Rechabite Magazine records that the Order of Druids was an 1858 breakaway from the UAOD at a time when there was also, besides the Ancient Order, a Modern Order, a Loyal Order, a Bolton Unity of  Druids and 'the Druids under the Grove.'
Does much of this have any bearing on Australia?
        On 17 May, 1869, the AGM of the Order of Druids (UK) at Staleybridge determined to assist the development of their Order in the colonies by sending a 'License or Dispensation' authorising the establishment of an 'Australian Board of Management to the Newcastle District of New South Wales'. The document, having survived, shows that the authorisation was to run only until 31 October, 1872.
        A further surviving document shows that Newcastle brethren had asked the Order of Druids (UK) for a dispensation which when sent on 16 July, 1867, was addressed to members of the 'Rock of Hope Lodge No 77', 'at the house of Brother Henry Bruniges' at Burwood, a coal village at Newcastle, County of Northumberland.
        The surviving minutes of that lodge, actually called by the brethren the 'Bud of Hope Lodge', had been initiated at a meeting on 16 January, 1864 at 'the Junction' where it was agreed that Henry Bruniges would 'make an application to Mr Joseph Wagdon for a Dispensation to open a Lodge of Druids'.
        Joseph Wagdon was a local man, whose earlier history is unknown. He was called to chair the first formal meeting on 24 January where the lodge officers were elected and installed for 3 months. He clearly had the power to issue dispensations for the Order of Druids in the UK for in 1867, at Morpeth, he was addressed by members of the 12 lodges then established in the Newcastle area as 'Past Most Worthy Royal Excellent Grand Arch', a title apparently awarded to him by the Order.
        Registrars' records show a 'Newcastle District Branch, Druids' was registered in March, 1868, a 'Hand of Freedom Lodge, Newcastle' in April, 1868 and the 'Loyal Friend in Need Lodge, Borehole, No 99, Newcastle District' in June, 1870. These appear to have been the only official NSW registrations. 
        In February of 1867 the first Sydney lodge of this Order was reported established at Hinchy's Hyde Park Hotel, cnr Bathurst and Castlereagh Sts, 'as a branch of the district lodge, Newcastle.' The Sydney lodge officers duly applied to Newcastle for a dispensation to operate.
        At Wagdon's funeral at Wallsend on 10 May, 1880, no Druid presence was recorded. A Masonic service followed a procession which also contained large contingents of  Grand United and Manchester Unity Odd Fellows.
        Clearly, there had been changes in Druidism in NSW between 1867 and 1880. Exactly what had happened is still not clear due to a lack of documents.        
        The UK Order of Druids extended the power of authorisation held by the original 'License or Dispensation' with a further document, also surviving, dated 23 June, 1873, until such time as an AGM in either the UK or in 'the colonies' would revoke it.
        Brother Robert J Beavis who died 7 November, 1898, is remembered as a key founder of UAOD in NSW. It is said that as Master of the Ancient Order of Druids in NSW he negotiated amalgamation with the Order of Druids by way of a Charter obtained from England which was sent to and held in Victoria and by which NSW became a sub-branch, a 'District Grand Lodge', of what is not clear. Beavis, it is said, continued to negotiate with England and obtained a Charter for NSW in its own right.
        A 1910 Austral Druid version (April, p.10) has it that in 1877 Beavis federated the NSW Ancient Order with Victoria's Grand Lodge, but shortly after assisted the members of the 'Iron Duke Lodge, Australian Order of Odd Fellows' to become members of the Ancient Order of Druids, which it must be assumed, continued. Earlier articles in the same magazine (October, 1909, February, 1910) assert that the Victorian UAOD, having 'assimilated' five Sydney lodges of the Order of Druids in Dec-January, 1877, namely Pioneer, Prince Alfred, Belmore, Stonehenge and Rose of Australia, allowed that 'District' to retain its identity and control of its own financial affairs. It is further claimed that a movement to obtain Grand Lodge status for NSW began in 1881 and was successful by January, 1883 when the first Grand Lodge meeting was held. This is recorded as being of the UAOD.
        A Memo of Agreement between UAOD, Grand Lodge, NSW and the Grand Lodge of Australia, [in Victoria] dated the 5 December, 1882  allowed transfer of members between either branch of the UAOD, under certain conditions, including the agreement being subject to the approval of both Sydney and Newcastle Districts. It would appear Sydney was keen but not so Newcastle.
        In Newcastle, in October 1883, both UAOD and another called the Grand United Order of Druids Friendly Society were actively recruiting members, the latter claiming the 'Young Man's Friend Lodge, No 3, Wallsend' and the 'Lily of Australia Lodge, No 5, Waratah'. 'The Rock of Hope Lodge' at the Junction is apparently by then part of the UAOD.
        It would seem that Druid history is one of fierce competition between Druids, and that the UAOD finally come out on top, but in the Newcastle district, and perhaps elsewhere, the independent coal miners insisted on their local autonomy.
        The book, History of Broken Hill, claims that Druidism there dates from 1887 when brethren met 'at the Hill' and determined on a local branch. They approached both NSW and Victorian Grand Lodges but both refused to issue a dispensation. The members then approached South Australia and were accepted as the Silver Star 'branch', formed 3 May, 1888. When in 1901 NSW legislators passed a Friendly Society Act insisting on registration of all societies the 'Success Lodge', UAOD, seceded from South Australia and joined NSW, in 1902. The other Broken Hill Druids remained with SA until 1907 when officers from both States met on the Barrier and negotiated a peaceful transition of 'Railway' and 'Triumph Lodges', both formed in 1896, to NSW's jurisdiction by way of an 'Indenture of Agreement'.
        The Austral Druid of November, 1902, reports formation of the first Ladies Druid lodge in NSW, the 'Lady Rawson'. In 1905,  'Pride of West Wallsend', a coal village near Newcastle, established a ladies lodge, which was interesting since no male lodge was apparently yet operating there.
        Also in 1905, 2 Newcastle lodges, the 'Hand and Heart', Newcastle, and the 'Hope of Carrington', both of UAOD but under jurisdiction of the Newcastle Grand Lodge moved after negotiation to join the Grand Lodge of NSW. In November, 1909 that Newcastle Grand Lodge finally 'amalgamated' with the Sydney-based Grand Lodge.
The area remained a Druid stronghold. A memoir by Mrs Mary Anne Davis of Minmi, another mining village near Newcastle, recalled night-time processions of Druids in the 1880's. Two abreast, all with long white beards, with faces turned green with some sort of powder, and carrying flaring scrub 'torches' they were 'weird and frightening.' The last such parade, including painted faces and torches, appears to have been in the village of Lambton, another coal-based community, now part of Newcastle, in 1937.

        ANCIENT ORDER OF FORESTERS.

        The AOF is one of a number of 'friendly societies' which came to Australia in the baggage of 18th and 19th century emigrants from the northern hemisphere, and made significant cultural, political and economic contributions to Australian society. By 'friendly society' is meant a voluntarily-organised group members of which contribute to a central fund, out of which each can take when adversity strikes. Because of their central role in the provision of what we call today 'health coverage', these societies have been pivotal in the spread of health professionals and related services - including doctors, nurses, hospitals and chemists - across Australia.
        The AOF is also an example of a 'fraternal' or 'benefit society' whose European heritage genuinely pre-dates the Industrial Revolution. The official AOF locates its origins in 1745 England, with the 'Royal Order of Foresters', from which the AOF broke away in 1834, during uncertainty caused by the sentencing of the Tolpuddle Martyrs to transportation to Australia for swearing an illegal friendly society oath. It is reasonable to conjecture a much longer heritage than this, back to unions of woodmen and foresters, akin to the forerunners of today's Freemasons and trade unions.
        The AOF's first meetings in Queensland appear to have been in 1854 Brisbane, the local brethren achieving independence from NSW jurisdiction in 1859. 'Courts' as the basic building blocks of Forester organisation are called, spread widely throughout Queensland during the ensuing decades.
        The United Brisbane District of the AOF was registered in 1881 as a distinct entity in accordance with the Friendly Societies Act of Queensland, 1876. The published laws show the Order's Objects then as:
the establishment of a Fund by the voluntary subscriptions of the Members -
        for relieving its Sick Members,
        for defraying the expenses of interment of its deceased members, and members' deceased wives
        for providing Medical Advice and Medicine for the Members, their Wives and their Children under 18 years of age, also the Widowed Mothers of unmarried Members, in case of sickness.
        This emphasis on the health financing aspects of Court activities, while extremely important, eventually became a major reason for both the eventual decline in Foresters' membership and the Order's invisibility generally to today's historians and social commentators.
        The convivial, religious, secret and community-building aspects of AOF's existence have been of equal importance to that of the provision of health services and the support of families in times of stress. Because they were not mentioned in the public documents, these other activities have over time been perceived, even in Courts themselves, as of less importance, and their value as potential recruitment devices devalued or lost altogether.
        In brief, the substantial contribution of AOF Courts over 150 years to the social history of Queensland has still to be realised and acknowledged by most educators, archivists and historians. Even the logical evolution of friendly societies, such as the AOF, into the development and establishment of 'Friendly' pharmacies, hospitals, drug companies, medical institutes and today's health funds is only partially known.
Organisation:
        The AOF, like most other Orders, has a 3-tiered structure, Court, District Court and Grand or High Court. Its principles emphasise the potential for any member to rise from the lowliest position to the highest, without fear or favour.
        The Executive Officers of a Court are:
                Chief Ranger.........CR        These identifying initials
                Sub Chief Ranger....SCR   appear on Court regalia and
                Secretary.............S              other 'regalia'.
                Treasurer.............T
                Senior Woodman.......SW   The Court positions are
                Junior Woodman.......JW   matched in other Orders,
                Senior Beadle........SB         where they may have other
                Junior Beadle........JB          names.
                Trustees..............T
                Past Chief Ruler....PCR
        After 1897 when women were admitted to AOF and encouraged to form all-female Courts, the official Forester emblem was dramatically altered to show a male and female figure, replacing two males.
        As part of regalia, aprons were worn in 18th and 19th centuries. Surviving regalia is of the long sash or collar type. It is predominantly 'lincoln green' in colour, in keeping with the Order's claimed association with Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest, a claim which may well have a basis in truth.
        A neck ribbon (or small collar) was an alternative, introduced in 1834. When produced, it was found that the makers had reversed the colours for the officers of a Court, and had made them red with green stripes. This 'error' was not officially corrected until 1939 when the colours were reversed back to the intended green with red stripes.
        Stripes on the regalia have, since 1834 at least, distinguished the executive positions from one another and lower from higher levels of the organisation, viz:
                High Court...green with gold stripe & gilt fringe
                District.....'pearl white' edge stripes & silver fringe
                Past Chief Ruler...red with narrow green edge stripe and central white stripe & appropriate fringe
                Courts......green with letters, metal or embroidered, to indicate officer position.
                Ordinary members...green, no stripe, but with emblem.

        Hibernians - New Zealand

R Sweetman, Faith and Fraternalism: A History of the Hibernian Society in New Zealand, 1869-2000, Hibernian Society, (Wellington, NZ), 2002, 228pp.

        Rory Sweetman is a professional historian, commissioned to write a history of 130 years 'of achievement by Hibernians in New Zealand.' There is here both a strength and a weakness, not of Hibernianism, but of the treatment by historians generally of friendly societies.
        The strength is that Sweetman was asked to bring his skills and experience to a job of history, not as has often been the case, a fraternal insider asked to invent themselves as an historian in order that the best possible picture might emerge. The potential weakness is that Sweetman had a close, family connection to his topic in that his father was 'an Hibernian by birth and son of a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.'
        Sweetman's professionalism has, in the main, won through. This is the best social history of a fraternal society I've read over the nearly 20 years I've been pursuing fraternal associations on this side of the pond.
        Firstly, it's extremely well written, where, again, many are tedious and prosaic being compiled entirely from minute books and official management publications. Sweetman speaks of his 'wanderings' after fraternalism's notoriously complex, scattered and incomplete material sources. It's his personal contacts, of course, which enable him to speak of his human protagonists with sympathy and warmth, without missing their foibles.
        And this is the second reason why it's such a good study. It isn't one-dimensional, speaking only of triumphs, ignoring the defeats, or less than glorious episodes.
        Sweetman's approach is not to provide a full-blown social history, but is thematic, reminding me of Green and Cromwell's Mutual Aid, and Gosden's Friendly Societies in England, 1815-1875. Themes are attractive, because these complex societies have been rendered by academic and media neglect virtually invisible to today's readers. Thus, their multi-sided reality, involving religion, ritual, personal and societal politics, the health industry in general and the Society's own benefits evolution, all need space for separate explanation.
        Sweetman begins with chapters related to a word of the Society's original title - the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society - and though NZ-based they can be read here with genuine benefit. His last Chapter, 'Towards the New Millenium' covers the 30 years to the close of the century and is centred on the period's, mostly forced, administrative and structural changes. As in Australia, these decades were a firestorm for societies involved in medical benefits, life assurance, building mortgages, and credit provision to working families.
        The choice pushed by the new breed of economic managers - 'modernise or die' - has trivialised fraternalism's past though, to this reviewer, the issues in the 1980's and '90s were clearly those which bedevilled the previous century. Actuarial competence, involvement in political issues, Catholic exclusivity, and democracy versus centralised decision-making have taken on new contours but have remained the key concerns. There is much here that could be discussed at length, if only because fraternal associations mirror the broader society.

        ...Before the New South Wales economy settled down again after the gold mania, Grand United found it very difficult to maintain enough funds coming in to ensure payments out could be made when required.
        Certainly by 1863, after a decade of membership and finances running down to virtually nothing, the Committee of Management acknowledged the Order was in financial trouble. Among other things it owed the English Committee of Management for regalia and other goods obtained but which individual lodges were not prepared to buy. The crisis appears to have been eased by a generally improving situation and small loans from the Grand Masters' Chapter and Travellers' Home Branch.
        In 1865 one of the Society's most picturesque figures, Brother George Brown, appeared for the first time in the records, having been elected a member of a Committee asked to draft a set of By-Laws for the Braidwood District, opened in 1863. Brother Brown was to have so remarkable and long a career as to rightly entitle him to be called 'The Father of the Grand United in New South Wales.'
        In 1867, the Hunter River District was opened and in 1869 a Charter was granted the region for a Grand Masters' Chapter.
        In 1869, also, the Braidwood District made history by establishing a Widows and Orphans' Fund. This was a separate section of the Society providing an additional death benefit on a voluntary contribution basis. Several other Districts followed Braidwood's example and when a Friendly Societies' Act was passed in 1873 these funds were registered as separate Friendly Societies. With the passage of years, membership was depleted and they amalgamated with the Assurance Department of the Society. Braidwood District alone stood out, refusing to amalgamate...
        See They Call Each Other Brother for more of this history.

In general:
        Since, say, the French Revolution, each of the three major 'strands' has increasingly specialised what we now call 'trade unions' in wage and working conditions, friendly societies in health insurance, and Speculative Freemasons in charity, and personal development in the process competing with one another for members, social resources and political influence.
        In-house 'histories', most obviously those of trade-oriented and of Masonic societies, have defended their particular citadels by claiming to be unique, that only 'insiders' could properly understand them, and that critics were, by definition, 'outsiders'. In the 20th century, Labour Historians created a genre specifically for the purpose, but have not been alone in only acknowledging information which was favourable to their pre-determined conclusions.
        One technique has been to assert that on or close to a certain date a clear break has occurred between pre-modern 'rites of association' and 'modern' methods of organisation and behaviour. It has been argued, for example, that the effect of the transportation of seven Dorsetshire labourers to 'Botany Bay' in 1834, the so-called Tolpuddle Martyrs, was so great that secret rites and regalia were abandoned by all worker combinations lest the authorities transport any group or any person even found in possession of ceremonial items.

  Ref: S & B Webb, The History of Trade Unionism, London, 1920 edn, p.128 and subseq.
        The evidence supports only that some changes were made shortly after the trial by some societies in England, but that many new societies took up the fraternal essentials, and that others simply carried on, as before. Before the end of 1834, as one example, English boilermakers founded their 'new' national federation, and included initiation ceremonies, loyalty oaths, passwords and secret signs in their Rules.
        A number of the associations which have achieved dominance in fraternal insurance and welfare payments, the Affiliated Friendly Societies, either began or gained huge impetus in the period just before or immediately after the 1834 Trial. Those which appear to be entirely new organisations, such as the Buffaloes and the Rechabites, had no hesitation after 1834 in adopting 'secret society', ie fraternal, artefacts and structures.
        Even 'Manchester Unity Odd Fellows' the administration of which acknowledged being panicked by the trial into dropping some of its ritual, and while insisting it was totally loyal to constituted authority, amended its Rule No 47 to read:
  Ref: Copy with writer.
        Established churches continued to complain of fraternal 'evils' secrecy, wage-demands, conviviality and anti-patriotic nationalisms. Even the gloves, banners and emblems used in parades were, for some Protestants, tokens of devil-worship long after 1834. And, decades after the 1834 'New Poor Law' rendered any British traveller a target for suspicion the century saw the greatest wave of fraternal societies the world has ever seen surge into all Europeanised corners.
        Nineteenth century UK Government ministers knew that all fraternals used oaths, passwords, rites and regalia. They were concerned, however, only with information inimical to their interest, information which might get passed around without their knowledge, or that persons of interest might also be travelling from 'lodge' to 'lodge', out of government sight. In other words, what scared officialdom the most was a lack of control over 'secret' information pumping through unofficial networks.
        Of the major fraternal strands, it is Freemasonry which has made most of the travelling artisan. Before there was Speculative or esoteric Freemasonry, there was operative freemasonry, the mediaeval documentation of which records workmen, and women, travelling from work site to work site and sustained where possible by their membership of 'fraternities.' The UK's Robert Leeson has described this longer perspective in the vital matter of tramping, a fraternal circumstance which feeds directly into Australia's colonial experience. Leeson concluded that the 'travelling brother' forced, from mediaeval times, to tramp from 'lodge' to 'lodge' for work or for succour, laid down the networks which, in the 19th and 20th centuries became the national trade federations:
  Ref: R Leeson, Travelling Brothers, Paladin, 1980, pp.118-121.
        That widespread networks of benefit-based 'trade unions' were a normal part of working life, and that they involved the whole of Britain by the early 1800's is well-recorded if not well known. Evidence to the 1824 Commons Enquiry into 'Combination Laws Artisans and Machinery':
  Ref: Quoted in Leeds Mercury, 1 May, 1824.
        An 1803 report in The (Sheffield) Iris of Scottish printers included:
  Ref: The Iris, 28 April, 1803.
        It is the potency of these networks that resulted in the wording of the various laws enacted from 1799 against 'Seditious Societies'. The nomadic worker, so important to the settling of Australia's inland and to our industrial history, is just one more, unacknowledged element of fraternalism's heritage. Romanticised and mis-understood today, 'the tramp' was both the representative of autonomy and the harbinger of its negation.
        Nineteenth century government officials came to understand that repressive methods did not work. They were counter-productive and cripplingly expensive, and there was a better way. The 'modern' managerial approach involving registration, statistical survey and legislation allowed governments to record, observe and control much more effectively than the old methods requiring supportive local magistrates, 'fizz gigs' (informers) and penalties such as hanging, the lash or transportation.
        That the rise of capitalism began long before the advent of managerialism cannot be doubted anymore than that the lack of actuarial competence among the earliest 18th and 19th century lodges has been exaggerated. But the need for greater legal and financial regulation than any which trusting camaraderie could ensure was no doubt clear to many members at the time.
        Arrivals in the colony of New South Wales, however they came, brought knowledge and experience of all of this and, naturally set about recreation. But deep and profound change was also underway and the colony was a tabula rasa at least as far as what they understood as community infrastructure was concerned. Thus, social capital had to be built from scratch in a foreign environment as understandings of what was involved were changing dramatically.
        The 1886 opening ceremony of Wingham's (NSW) Oddfellow's Hall featuring the 'secret customs' of scattering of corn, water and earth on the lodge room floor (GUOOF Magazine (NSW), June, 1886) would have been inexplicable to an uninformed observer. Many of the statements in the Rules of fraternal societies are inexplicable today without a long-term view of fraternalism and its socio-religious sources. When I was 'made', ie initiated, an Odd Fellow [member of Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, GUOOF] in 1998 I was conducted into the lodge room by the Inside and Outside Guardians, one on each side, hooking my little fingers with one of theirs - a very old, 'secret' custom, still alive at the end of the 20th century, despite a scarcity of candidates, and despite a century and more of attempts to stifle all non-material aspects of fraternalism with discouragement and ridicule.
        Counter-intuitively, perhaps, the evidence supports a belief that colonials were more insistent on the proscribed forms in lodge than their UK counterparts. One 1887 report referring to the Australian use of lodge furniture and aprons, 'which may be regarded as excessive in Britain' had it that:
  Ref: The Oddfellows Quarterly Magazine, Vol XVIII, Feb, 1887.
        Fraternal breakaways and 'standoffs' were frequent, but, eventually, most societies perceived advantages in the new approach, and over time moved to centralise administrations in their Grand Lodges, or in the case of 'trade unions', in the peak body of the ACTU and State Trades Hall Councils. Between the peak body and the local 'lodge' a system of district representation evolved, often with its own rites and regalia, lectures, passwords and the like.
        Whether a society's name refers to a specific trade or not, it alone does not tell us whether its members used rites and regalia, or whether secret oaths were sworn. Although formally organised co-operatives have been important to working people's self help and mutual aid, there is no known evidence that either retail or wholesale 'co-ops' followed any of the fraternal principles here expressed. However ideologically-driven the founders were, members joined co-ops to save money, not to build mateship.
        On the other hand, the evidence for the grouping of 'trade union' with 'Freemasonry' and 'Friendly Society' as strands of fraternal societies is quite overwhelming. The        anecdotal evidence of fraternal symbols on the walls of Trades Halls needs to be followed up. The issue arose, for example, in 1929 Lithgow:
  Ref: Portland Mercury, 3 Dec, 1929. 
        Well into the 20th century, 'trade union' marching banners contained the common fraternal symbols, such as the temple, rays of divine light, the Eye of God, clasped hands, bee hives, doves, cornucopias, representations of God, angels and saints, and drew on the same store of biblical stories, such as 'the Story of Ruth' on the banner of the Federated Millers & Mill Employees.
        After 1945, a number of Australian trade unions were still using Rules which closely followed the centuries-old fraternal form. For example, the Newcastle Branch of the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders began their meetings with:
        (Continued)
        It has been argued that 'modern' Trade Unions, not only have no need of 'superstitious paraphernalia', they also have no need of benefit provisions these can both be left to 'friendly societies.' The more correct view is that logically and in practice, wages and benefits are integrally linked as parts of a single process.         Maintaining the health of members and families through sickness and other benefits is exactly what wages do and are intended to do. Sickness, accidents, death, unemployment, loss of tools, the very contingencies which benefit funds guard against, are the events most likely to weaken a worker's capacity and/or resolve to 'maintain wages.' The reverse is also true keeping someone in work and at a reasonable level of wages is precisely the method whereby the funds for sickness and other benefits have been built up. The complementary nature of the 'industrial' and 'friendly society' functions is essentially the argument of the Webbs' chapter, 'The Method of Mutual Insurance' in their Industrial Democracy, published in 1897, without which their account of the evolution of 'trade unionism' is incomplete. Not surprisingly, most 'trade unions' have operated accident or funeral funds, and strike pay has been and is now just another benefit fund, another contingency against loss of the bread winner's capacity for employment, ultimately the reason for all fraternal benefit funds.
        There is the further point that fraternalism bestowed an organisational heritage, in addition to the common lodge memorabilia such as regalia. Trade-specific societies, what we now call 'trade unions', have been organised on the same lines as SFreemasonry and the 'Friendly Societies.' That is, internally they maintained certain essentials of fraternalism beyond the point of their no longer carrying out religious observance, the swearing of oaths, and/or degree ceremonies.
        When federation or consolidation was appropriate between trade 'lodges' they went about it in the same way that Freemasons and 'Friendly Societies' did. And when membership numbers declined in the 20th century, it was for similar reasons, and resulted in similar responses.
        The UK's Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons, established in 1832, is one major link and exemplification of the process, being simultaneously a 'friendly society', a 'trade union', and on the basis that it was 'working' a Seven Degree structure of advancement within its lodges to the end of the 19th century at least, was also a 'speculative' society. In 1858 the local Society meeting at the Odd Fellows Hall in Sydney's Haymarket, and about to become the key organiser of the first NSW Eight Hour Day celebration, authorised a circular which urged all 'Masons', ie, operative society members, to join 'the Union' in the following terms:   Ref: Circular, 'The Committee of the Operative Stonemasons Society' dated '14th September, 1858', copy at PAM Q85/155, Dixon Collection, NSWSL.
        This, for Friendly Societies and for Speculative Freemasonry,(SF), was the long-understood process of a 'Grand Lodge' chartering 'subordinate lodges'. Whether ideologically-driven or not, much of 19th and 20th century Australian fraternal history follows the clear European pattern of 'competitive tendering' between 'Grand Lodges' for locations, jurisdictions and for influence.
        For fraternal memberships, rich or poor, but especially for artisans, the 19th century choice was between independence, which could bring government harassment, and an alternative, 'legitimacy', which has, in my view, been wrongly labelled 'respectability'. Choosing to register with a State-official and thus becoming subject to the formalities of the managerial system meant bowing to government demands about the kinds of activities which could be pursued, the levels and kinds of benefits, how funds could be invested, how records were to be kept, etc, etc. As the regulatory system developed, any society not registered and not conforming to demands, could be told it no longer existed in any legal or statutory sense. Choosing independence was thus not a real option for most, despite the often projected image ('myth') of the self-reliant 'British' working man.
        In addition, 'Government' views of what was acceptable were changeable. Before 1825, as Curthoys has argued, British law had sought to criminalise all worker combinations. An 1825 Combination Act had then sought to marry an emerging preference for freer trade with clear statements of exactly what employees were to be allowed to do and what was proscribed. This 'settlement' was disturbed in the 1860's when magistrates began handing down sentences to combinations engaged in long-standing, peaceful activities, and as politicians shifted towards protectionist policies. Trade-Union and Friendly Society legislation from the 1870's appeared to endorse 'modernist' claims for these 'fraternals' and to end, once and for all, the era of secret rites and regalia. As we have seen this was not the case, on the ground.
  Ref: M Curthoys, Governments, Labour and the Law in Mid-Victorian Britain, OUP, 2004.