Friendly societies were clubs for working people, set up to help members in times of illness and death. Members paid a regular fee which entitled them to free medical care and subsidised medicines, before the state funded or covered these costs from the late 1930s. Friendly societies banded together to run pharmacies, such as this one in Wellington's Courtenay Place, probably photographed in the 1920s. It was still operating on the same street (though in a different building) in 2011.
Using this item
Alexander Turnbull Library, R. P. Moore Collection
Reference:
PA6-017
Photograph by Robert Percy Moore
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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