The Friendly Society Research Group is chaired by Dan Weinbren
of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University
It has created an international network of researchers,
practitioners and archivists; plays an important role
in the preservation of records and provides advice on
the writing of societies' histories. It is a major source
of information for researchers and offers a means of understanding
the development of fellowship and loyalty within the movement
which can be of value to societies and the AFS today.
It actively tries to link practitioners and scholars through
meetings, an electronic newsgroup and a newsletter. It
has five aims:
- To promote research into the history and operation of friendly societies
- To provide fora for the exchange of information about friendly societies
- To raise awareness of the historical and current roles of friendly societies
- To encourage best practice regarding access to and the preservation of friendly society collections
- To develop a register of the location of the records of friendly societies
Increasingly,artefacts and archive material from friendly societies are being lost or destroyed. This is usually because either the value of the documents and artefacts are not known, or there is simply not enough storage space to keep all the material. This is a great loss to all who are interested in taking the long view necessary if we are to better understand how communities have developed, what are the best ways of promoting trust and a number of other pertinent current issues.
One of the aims of the FSRG is to try to safeguard societies'archives. Wherever possible, it encourages friendly societies to catalogue, maintain and storetheir histories. Recognising that some are unable to do so the FSRG is organising a national collection of archives and artefacts belonging to friendly societies which no longer wish to store their archives and have not got an arrangement with local libraries,museums or county archives. The FSRG has been negotiating with various bodies to see if it can find a central repository, and it has explored different ways of preserving these archives.
The FSRG is also interested in making records available to researchers. It currently arranging for records to be filmed by Microform, A sample film of records from the Independent Order of Oddfellows, Manchester Unity, the Rational Shelley and the Rechabite Friendly Society has been made.