The majority of women actively and officially serving in World War One were nurses – between 2,500 and 3,000 Australian nurses served overseas – in England, Europe, India, Egypt and at Lemnos, Greece where the wounded from Gallipoli were treated. Australian tolerance for high temperatures made Australian nurses particularly popular in Egypt and India. Women doctors, on the other hand, had to make their own way overseas as Australian Government policy did not allow them to be officially deployed on war service. Many served with distinction overseas. Some joined the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and served in war-torn Serbia and other European bases, seeing the war at the front line.

A few women worked as writers and war correspondents. Women became drivers, interpreters and munition workers. Women’s contribution to the workforce rose from 24 per cent of the total in 1914 to 37 per cent in 1918, but the increase tended to be in what were already traditional areas of women’s work — in the clothing and footwear, food and printing sectors. Unions were unwilling to let women join the workforce in greater numbers in traditional male areas as they feared that this would lower wages.

Victorian Vera Deakin White, youngest daughter of Australia’s 2^nd Prime Minister, set up the Australian Wounded and Missing Inquiry Bureau, to help relations seeking information about their loved ones. The Australian Comforts Fund was established in August 1916 to co-ordinate the activities of the state based patriotic funds, which were established earlier in World War I. Mainly run by women, they provided and distributed free comforts to the Australian ‘fit’ fighting men in all the battle zones. Socks were urgently needed, since soldiers could not wash or dry their socks in the mud and cold of the trenches, and Australian women knitted tens of thousands of socks, distributed through the ACF.  Women were also avid fundraisers, and the Anzac biscuit, which was not part of the military rations, was almost certainly made at home for fundraising purposes. That tradition lives on with the RSL.

Most women contributed through the 3 Ws:

• Working – taking on new forms of employment (not necessarily  paid) to cover work normally undertaken by men who had enlisted, working to be the mainstay of their young families or working to send support to the troops through the Red Cross. Many worked in all these ways. For those whose husbands returned home alive, but physically and mentally shattered by war, the work went on for a lifetime.
• Worrying – letters were infrequent, and soldiers rarely shared many of their real experiences with those at home. The devastating news of a death might arrive months after the event.
• Waiting – for letters and postcards, for news from other family members and most of all for their relatives to come home safely.