Kellie Fishwick-Roscoe has been renovating the former Manchester Unity building in Grenville Street for its conversion to a ballet studio after she purchased it last year. Her son Harry was helping and, as boys do, rapidly grew bored with the work and went off exploring the 134-year-old building.

Climbing up onto to the roof of the building's safe vault, he crawled through a tiny access hole into the roof. Once inside he found, as Howard Carter said, 'Wonderful things'.

A thick, choking layer of dust and cobweb lay across over a dozen wooden chests, most emblazoned with beautifully sign-written gold leaf lettering.

Scattered throughout the space were hundreds of magazines and books, picture frames and pieces of old furniture, and hundreds of pieces of what appeared to be clothing.

What Harry found was the remnants of what once was one of Ballarat's most popular 'friendly societies' - the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows.

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The Friendly Society movements in Australia began during the 19^th Century. They were modelled on similar associations of trade-orientated benefit groups which existed to give assistance to workers and members who were injured, unwell or had fallen on hard times.

Melbourne University PhD candidate Roland Wettenhall has written a paper on friendly societies in Australia. Before the introduction of government welfare and insurance, the societies provided security for the working class in the face of a boss's indifference.

"The Melbourne Sawyers' Friendly Society protected timber cutters; the Melbourne Operative Cordwainers' Society was founded for shoe makers and the Melbourne Association for Manufacture of Passover Cakes was another early example of friendly society that thrived in Melbourne," Mr Wettenhall writes.

"British immigrants brought their knowledge of friendly societies to their new homeland and created branches in Australia that were linked with the large English societies.

"These included the Grand United Order of Oddfellows (GUOOF), the Ancient Order of Foresters (AOF), and the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows (MUIOOF)."

Not to be confused with Freemasonry, the societies nevertheless shared some of the liking for regalia with that organisation, including wearing aprons, odd caps, sashes and stoles and rituals of entry and membership.

There is so much material it hasn't been fully sorted through, but Federation University curator of Art and Historical Collections Clare Gervasoni was astonished by what had been stored, and what good condition most of the material was in.

"The little aprons they wore, some of those are made of goat leather, which is where the phrase 'riding the goat' in the initiation came from," Ms Gervasoni says.

"They are not all hand-embroidered like the Masons, they are a bit cheaper. They may have wanted to save money."

Ms Gervasoni says some of the varied caps and tam o'shanters found on the collection will have been worn to demonstrate various roles within the lodge.

"Everyone may have had one. Like in the Freemasons, the Grandmaster and Tyler and other roles - we'd call the presidents and vice-presidents - would have all had ceremonial hats, with different colours denoting status," Ms Gervasoni says.

The large number of cedar and pine chests, which are very well made, would have been a protection against rats and mice and ensured little of the textiles have been damaged by moths and silverfish.

"But there are so many chests, it makes me wonder just how big the organisation was."

Another issue is raised by the discovery is: what do non-government organisations, community groups, and businesses do with their records, especially when the organisation folds?

"What we need is a big climate and pest-controlled archival storage facility, divided into sections like self-storage facilities," Ms Gervasoni says.

"Organisations that have no safe place to put their items can hire a space, with their own lock and key, and a site manager can monitor the environmental and pest control."