The first meeting of the Australia Felix Lodge of Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows (MUIOOF) was held on 7 December 1840 in Melbourne. Its founder, Thomas Strode, printer and proprietor of Melbourne's first legally recognised newspaper the Port Phillip Gazette, advertised in his paper for past members of the Oddfellows Society of Manchester to meet with him to discuss forming a Melbourne lodge. Along with Strode, Manchester Unity's founders in Australia included Dr Augustus Greeves, a surgeon who later became the Mayor of Melbourne; John Marzagor, a carpenter; John Shepperd, a painter and glazier; and William Johnson Sugden, a sheriff's bailiff who four years later became the colony's chief constable.