Friendly societies were involved in providing pharmacy and dispensary services to their members. Usually, friendly societies in a town or suburb would join together to manage the dispensaries. These were known as United Friendly Society (UFS) Dispensaries and were once a feature of many local shopping strips. Today we are more likely to see the large retail chains of Chemists operating in our shopping precincts. In the early 1800’s, doctors did their own dispensing, but by the 1860’s, many friendly societies were contracting with chemists for the supply of medicines. Eventually, the friendly societies got together to build and run their own dispensaries because of the high costs of medicines for their members – and also because many chemists were adulterating the drugs. The Combined Friendly Societies Dispensaries employed qualified dispensers and were able to offer medicines to members at a reduced rate. Australian Unity and its predecessor companies had Dispensaries for many years, but that business was sold in late 2004.
