This paper examines what is lost by not exploring the intimate details of those whose lives were shaped by friendly societies. The loss is highlighted by drawing examples from the primary text on friendly societies in Australia.

The Australian historiography for friendly societies is very sparse. David Green and Lawrence Cromwell, in 1984, wrote the only scholarly text on Australian friendly societies, Mutual Aid or Welfare State: Australia's Friendly Societies. There are a few select histories on various societies. Some were written by eminent historians, most were not. There were hagiographic memoirs written by members in a nineteenth-century polemical style to attract new members. Many were just pamphlets now held in ephemera collections.

What the reader of these histories misses, however, are the intimate details of the people. The members, those who paid their subscriptions to ensure theirs were not a pauper's grave. What were their names, were they married, what were their occupations, how old were they they when they joined the Rechabites or the Hiberians or the Foresters? Where did they live, where did they meet? This paper draws on extensive research of Victorian Friendly societies' primary records, many not previously researched.