MY thanks go to John Oliver who allowed me access to his collection of ephemera charting the early history of the Oddfellows Society in Salisbury.

The Oddfellows Society was one of many ‘friendly’ societies set up late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to help ordinary people overcome poverty in difficult times – this was before the days of the welfare state. The Salisbury Oddfellows Society, like many others, held their meetings in public houses where they met each month for a social evening and to pay a small subscription into the society funds. The payments entitled members to benefit when coping with illness, death or the loss of a breadwinners job. Indeed, they were essential to the survival of families at times of life crisis. One of the longest serving members of the Salisbury branch of Oddfellows was George Bartlett, a boot maker who lived first in Winchester Street, and then at 3 High Street, Salisbury. He was the secretary of the Salisbury and District Oddfellows Association for over 40 years and his daughter Harriett founded the Salisbury and District Ladies’ Oddfellows’ Association. George died aged 88 in 1908 and daughter Harriett died aged 81 in1927. Both are buried in the London Road Cemetery.

Mr Oliver’s documents show that the Salisbury Oddfellows met at the Saracens Head in the Blue Boar Row as well as The Bull in Fisherton, The Chough and the Crystal Fountain in Milford Street. It is known that the names of ‘friendly’ societies became closely linked to those of public houses so could there be a connection with the old Oddfellows Arms which once traded in Milford Street? Alas, none of Mr. Oliver’s documents mention Salisbury’s Oddfellows Arms but it is believed that this curious pub title gained its name from the fact that society members were fellow workers from an odd assortment of trades.