The not-so Secret Societies of England

Phenomena has the rundown:

As long ago as 1991 I heard Ronald Hutton pre-empt the work I had been doing into ritualistic Friendly Societies of the 19th century, and then more or less gave up interest in them. I had been trying to work out how group ritual and initiation could have spread to rural and other working class areas, given the largely middle-to-upper class nature of Freemasonry. Hutton’s work seemed to make this redundant, but I now realise this is only true about Wicca, NOT BTW. What I now believe may be the case is that magical knowledge was passed on by a process of initiation, and some group work carried out, as a result of the vast spread of secret societies in the 19th century, to the point where all but the very poorest British people belonged to them. However, this was a gradual process, and this concept of such societies changing their fundamental nature needs to be born in mind.

Longish article with a lot of history on different reasons for the societies, their initiation ceremonies and rituals and the economic motives for joining.