The Australian Natives' Association (ANA) was a mutual society founded in Melbourne, Australia in April 1871. It was founded by and for the benefit of White native-born Australians and membership was restricted to that group.
The Association's objectives were to "raise funds by subscription, donations ... for the purpose of relieving sick members, and defraying expenses of funeral of members and their wives, relieving distressed widows and orphans and for the necessary expenses of the general management of the Society."
The organisation had 95,000 members in 1976 and provided benefits to 250,000 people, members and their families. While the ANA was legally required to have no affiliation with any political party, it was socially active. It provided strong support for the Federation of Australia, sport, afforestation, social well-being and the Federal Government's restricted immigration policy, later referred to as the White Australia policy. The ANA and Manchester Unity agreed to merge to form Australian Unity in 1990. After the merger, social and educative functions continue in the ANA Fraternal organisation. The last remaining branch of the ANA closed in 2007 in Western Australia.
Background
The formation of the Australian Natives Association was a multi stage process. It comes after the creation of the six Australian colonies, the discovery of significant quantities of gold with the wealth that brought and the increasing number of locally born citizens. The initial idea was to form a Friendly Society to provide help in sickness and distress solely for Melbourne born citizens.
"Melbourne Natives" desirous of forming society for the protection and promotion of their interests are requested to attend a meeting Monday evening, 8 o'clock, Grimwood's Hotel, Elizabeth St. Formation of a Society.
Victorian Natives' Association
The 24 April 1871 meeting had 14 men in attendance who resolved to form a Friendly Society of Victorian Natives. A committee was formed and after a number of committee meetings and another public meeting, registration as a Friendly Society was gained on 4 May 1871. At the 5 June meeting it was agreed the objects were "To promote the social and intellectual improvement of its members".
ANA Day
Around the end of the 19th century, the Victorian association advocated for a kind of forerunner of what is today Australia Day, to be celebrated on January 26 as a public holiday and the national day. This subsequently became known as ANA Day in Victoria, but was not taken up by the other states until 1935, and renamed Australia Day."...What the people celebrate on Australia Day is not the coming into being of the Australian Commonwealth, for that befell on New Year’s Day; and not May 9, when the first Parliament of the Commonwealth commenced its sittings; but January 26, the day in 1788 when the first permanent white settlers, being Captain Arthur Phillip’s officials, marines and transported convicts from England, landed on the shores of Sydney Cove."
Australian Natives' Association
In 1872 it was voted to extend membership to men born in the other Australian colonies and changed its name at the same time. The association started to grow and form new Branches initially around Melbourne and then in the golds fields towns of Ballarat and Sandhurst (now Bendigo) in 1874 and Neangor (now Eaglehawk) 1976. In 1978 the Sandhurst branch initiated a motion that the Association allow having debates or essays at the meetings after the business had been completed. The membership population centre of the Association moved to the gold fields towns west of Melbourne as the membership of these branches grew. The administration also moved West with the election of F. C. Wainwright, a member in Ballarat, as General Secretary in 1881. As the Association grew, it was decided in 1890 to move administration back to Melbourne. The Association played a leading role in the movement for Australian federation in the last 20 years of the 19th century. In 1900 it had a membership of 17,000, mainly in Victoria.
The ANA provided sickness, medical and funeral cover. Membership in the ANA was restricted to men born in Australia, at a time when Australian-born people of European descent (not including Indigenous Australians) were rising to power in place of an older generation born in Britain. In the 1890s, for the first time, the native born became the majority of the population.
The organisation received criticism for their name, including from Aboriginal leader and activist William Cooper over the appropriation of the term 'native'.