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CHAPTER 21
Women At War

To many women it was ‘this beastly war’, that took away the men, emptied the shops, paralysed the cars, curbed outings and holidays, and diverted a girl from her chosen occupation or lack of it. Others, aware of destruction and suffering in Cologne and the Ruhr as well as in Portsmouth or London, recoiled from all war as barbarous and useless, and were both thankful and ashamed that, unlike men of military age, they were not called publicly to stand by the war or reject it. They remained quiet, accepting the war passively, numbed by the headlines and Daventry news reports, waiting for it to pass, and meanwhile concentrating on things at hand, on children, households, jobs, studies, charities, the people they loved. Some such women were in universities, some in less articulate places; some were church members, some not; some were not attached to men drawn into the war, some were. They might give to patriotic collections or subscribe to National Savings, but they did not watch parades or knit balaclavas; they sought, consciously or unconsciously, to preserve enclaves of non-war values, interest and concern. Women have a very long tradition of accepting the inevitable and surviving through it.

Other women wanted to be in it, to do their bit, do something more specific than just going on diligently with their jobs and being kind to soldiers. Certainly such kindness covered a host of actions, from knitting or fund-raising to partnering unknown warriors at dances. In both town and country there was, for women of all ages, patriotic work organised through local committees, and special branches of other bodies—such as Women's Institutes, Townswomen's Guilds, church groups, the Women's Division of the Farmers' Union (WDFU) and also those of particular devotions, notably Air Force Relations and the Navy League. Here was the organised knitting, with wool distributed by patriotic committees, of socks and gloves and mittens (some mittens also ingeniously fashioned from the tops of worn-out socks), of skull caps and balaclavas, scarves and jerseys and sea-boot stockings. In three years, Air Force Relations alone knitted more than 24 000lb of wool into 85 000 garments, while more than one million garments passed through the National page 1054 Patriotic organisation.¹ There was also the making of hussifs, face-cloths and handkerchiefs,² the preparation, through the Red Cross and St John societies, of hospital supplies ranging from bandages, dressings and dysentry pads to pyjamas, quilts and jug-covers.

These women packed the thousands of individual parcels which were crated and sent overseas by provincial patriotic councils to every serviceman four times a year: the cake, biscuits, sweets, all in their separate tins, tinned fruit, coffee and milk, and various meats,³ the cigarettes, soap, razor blades, footpowder, fruit salts, handkerchiefs, writing paper, playing cards, small books and other oddments. Some of these were purchased with patriotic funds, others were made or contributed by citizens.⁴

For prisoners-of-war the Red Cross maintained a steady flow of parcels, without which many would not have survived. One per man per week was the target and, in all, New Zealand prisoners totalled 8469, of whom about 4000 were captured in Greece and Crete during April–May 1941. Each parcel, which with packing weighed 11 pounds, held tins of cheese, jam, coffee and milk, honey or condensed milk, meat, sultanas, dried peas, chocolate, butter, sugar and four ounces of tea. At Red Cross headquarters in Wellington, men did the heavy crating work and more than 1500 women volunteers packed the parcels, measured and packaged the sugar, peas and tea. In the Wellington district in the year ending 31 May 1943, parties of about 33 women, averaging three hours daily, handled 342 952 parcels.⁵

There was also the packing of parcels for one's own near and dear in the Middle East or England or the Pacific. The favourite fruitcakes, ginger nuts and shortbread were baked, carefully fitted into tins and soldered and sealed. Some women with a long list of ‘boys’ baked incessantly. Tinned foods patiently shopped for, and assorted minor comforts with well chosen newspaper in the packing, were sturdily wrapped and sewn in calico.⁶

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There was patriotic fund-raising, through the time-honoured, laborious devices of entertainments, raffles, Paddy's markets, stalls selling cakes, jams, pickles, plants, vegetables, tea-cosies, aprons, children's clothes. Acres of cooking passed over the trestles that regularly appeared on city street corners, in suburbs, in small towns and communities. There was much difference in detail but as a random example, one small town, Marton in the Rangitikei district, may be cited. Apart from knitting and Red Cross work, of which there was a great deal,⁷ the patriotic committee held regular shop days, the proceeds going to various appeals. In 1941 two such days were devoted to the Navy League, two to the Heart to Heart appeal, two to the Red Cross, one to soldiers' parcels, one to prisoners-of-war parcels, one to the Mayor's Comforts fund and one to the Nurses' Memorial fund; the total raised was £2,500.⁸

Many women hastened to take first-aid, home nursing and Voluntary Aid Detachment courses with the Red Cross and St John societies, even before war started. In the first few days of September 1939, 500 enrolled for VAD training with the Red Cross in North Canterbury alone, where in the preceding months 600 certificates in first-aid and home nursing had been issued.⁹ In all more than 12 000 certificates were issued by Red Cross national headquarters in 1939, after which it was decided that each local centre would issue its own. It was also decided to widen the scope of courses available, with training in motor vehicle driving and mechanics, in cooking, laundry, canteen and Air Raid Precautions work.¹⁰ Again citing North Canterbury, in three years, by September 1942, 3275 women had taken the home nursing course, 3753 had done first-aid, 1086 had studied hygiene and sanitation, 197 had taken the ARP course.¹¹ In the Wellington area 1240 took courses in 1939, 1527 in 1940, 2360 in 1941 and 1830 in 1942 when the risk of an emergency reached its peak. Numbers then waned.¹² Response would have been similar in other districts. The widespread training, apart from giving qualifications in EPS work, enabled women to cope better with everyday minor injuries and ailments, lessening calls on hard-pressed doctors.

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VAD training was longer. In addition to the courses in first-aid, home nursing, hygiene and sanitation, it required more than 60 hours of hospital work, but hundreds went through it to be ready for work in emergencies. By September 1942 North Canterbury had 520 VADs fully qualified and nearly as many partly trained,¹³ while in the whole South Island, excluding Marlborough and Nelson, 2088 women had qualified as nursing VADs; others, in the transport section, had taken examinations in elementary motor vehicle management, while kitchen and laundry trainees had staffed two auxiliary hospitals during an influenza epidemic.¹⁴ In the first two years there was little direct call on their services, save when outbreaks of influenza, measles and mumps in camps and air-training schools filled emergency hospitals, often in racecourse buildings or commandeered schools. By mid-1941 some were wondering why, and for what, they had been urged to prepare.¹⁵ In that year the Air Force began using nursing aids in its station hospitals within New Zealand and later a few were regularly employed by the Army: in February 1944 there were 119 working for the Air Force and 50 at military camp hospitals.¹⁶

An elect few went overseas. In September 1941, amid a good deal of heart-burning, 30 VADs were carefully selected from all over the country and later sailed for the Middle East, followed shortly by 200 more.¹⁷ About 14 were shorthand typists who worked in hospital offices, etc, while in the wards the nursing VADs made beds, washed patients, took temperatures, served meals and helped with cleaning and cooking. Others worked on hospital ships. Many became capable and responsible nurses, and their overseas employment was an innovation approved by the Army nursing sisters.¹⁸ By February 1944 there were 268 voluntary aids in the Middle East and the Pacific, and 244 were still overseas in May 1945.¹⁹

At home, from the latter part of 1941 onwards as sick and wounded crowded existing hospitals and the new ones specially built, notably for Americans, there was an increasing demand for VAD services. Unpaid, they logged many thousands of hours in casualty clearing stations and assorted duties in both civil and military hospitals.²⁰ Also they were keenly sought as regular nursing aids, though page 1057 the wages were so low that many preferred other work and, despite the priority of hospital claims, Manpower officials sometimes agreed. In October 1942, J. A. Lee pointed out that, after taxation (at 2s 6d in every £), VADs commonly received only £2 3s 9d weekly includeing living-out allowance. Thereafter, hospital boards were recommended to pay them not less than 30 shillings a week in the first year and 35 in the second, while raising the living-out allowance from 20 to 35 shillings.²¹ Even so, Manpower authorities allowed the appeal of a 23-year-old girl at Auckland who, having previously worked 18 months as a voluntary aid at Whangarei— ‘nothing but a glorified housemaid’—appealed against direction from machine work averaging £3 17s 6d net a week to being a nursing aid at Green Lane Hospital where she would get only £1 17s 6d gross if she lived in, £3 if she lived out.²² Nursing aids at the foot of the nursing service instanced sharply the problem that beset all its ranks: the assumption that dedication, discipline and membership of a noble profession made money almost unnecessary. But threadbare honour was not enough in the changing social patterns wherein women's demands for greater independence combined with labour shortages to make professional satisfaction an insufficient return.

In March 1943 the Civil Nursing Reserve was established to meet the acute and fluctuating demands for staff which beset hospitals, creating crises. At its peak it employed 50 registered nurses and more than 400 voluntary aids, who during four years assisted in more than 30 hospitals, many of which could not have carried on without this supplementary staff.²³

Another area of women's effort was the refurbishing and making of clothes for the war's most direct civilian victims. In June 1940 Lady Galway, wife of the Governor-General, launched a movement to provide comforts for refugees and those in want because of the war.²⁴ The idea of sending clothes to women and children bombed out of their homes grew with the Blitz. Beginning with meetings of mayoresses, with the ballroom at Government House as a practical and inspirational centre, the Lady Galway Guild spread rapidly. Soon there were branches in cities, suburbs and towns of all sizes, headed by mayoresses and other leading ladies, while existing women's organisations formed special groups for the same purpose.

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Old clothes were collected and sorted; dry cleaning firms and transport agencies gave free services. In the Guild's work rooms, in their own homes, and in the sewing circles of supporting bodies, women cleaned, mended and made clothes, cutting up worn or unsuitable garments to make all sorts of children's clothing, with special emphasis on warm things for babies and young children. Quantities of junior shirts, shorts and trousers were made from old suits. Pieces of new material begged from manufacturers made skirts and shorts and pants and jackets, locknit singlets and petticoats.²⁵ Wool was knitted and reknitted, patchwork rugs were made out of knitted squares or pieces of worsted and tweed. Women's coats and frocks were mended and freshened. Many Depression-trained women were already adept at such contrivings and they taught others. Skilled young women from dressmaking firms came to work in groups.²⁶ Displays of garments were viewed, informing and inspiring further efforts.

Within two months more than a hundred tons of clothing had been sent off to Britain, and there were more than a hundred branches of the Guild, each with its own subsidiary organisations, through which flowed a constant stream of clothing for sorting and making over.²⁷ Besides direct volunteers, groups from all sorts of bodies took turns at the Guild's work tables: in Wellington, for instance, during 1941, the National Club supplied Monday's workers, a private group came on Tuesdays, the Repertory Society and Victoria League on alternate Wednesdays, the Women's Institute and Union of Jewish Women on alternate Thursdays, the Labour Women's Patriotic Organisation on Fridays.²⁸ Through sewing circles in many organisations—the Red Cross, YWCA, Townswomen's Guilds, Women's Institutes, the WDFU—in suburbs and in remote country areas, the work went on and parcels were sent to the main centres for despatch.²⁹ Early in 1942, when attack by Japan seemed probable, it was decided to retain a portion of the prepared clothing, lest need strike nearer home,³⁰ but the flow did not cease.³¹

Over the years, the Lady Galway Guild and its tributaries continued to send out cases of clothing, mainly to Britain but sometimes page 1059 to other bomb-targets such as Malta and Russia.³² Effort was sustained by the warm reception from the British Women's Volunteer Service, for example, in 1943: ‘… your magnificent generosity. It is quite beyond me how you can still send such lovely presents, but we are truly thankful that you can.’ And again, ‘words are inadequate. I should like you all to see a woman bombed from her home being fitted out in your clothes, amazed, as she climbs into a coat, to be told that it has come all the way from New Zealand. No speeches, no flag-wagging, can cement the Empire ties more inviolably than this, that somebody in New Zealand should be helping somebody in Great Britain. The miles of land and ocean dwindle to nothing. You have become Mrs Jones from Next-door lending a helping hand.’³³ In 1944 the work was still going on briskly, though now at some centres the proceeds of one day a week were reserved for the families of servicemen overseas, and many such were helped through the era of shortages.³⁴

Some groups of women in shops, offices or factories also organised themselves for particular projects. For instance, about 120 girls from Flamingo Frocks, Auckland, aged 15 to 25, earning weekly from 17s to £2 12s 6d, tackled the needs of the military hospital at Narrow Neck. They gave money to buy a vacuum cleaner and an infrared lamp, also material for sheets, pillow-slips, pyjamas and dressing gowns which they made up in the firm's workrooms. They made socks, mittens, gloves, slippers, table covers, cushions, towels and 26 patchwork rugs; they painted red flamingos on lampshades.³⁵ Thereafter, they settled down to working for the Lady Galway Guild and the St John Ambulance.³⁶ By February 1944 the tea rooms of James Smiths, Wellington, had given £200 to the Harbour Lights Guild of Missions to Seamen to buy comfortable chairs, cutlery, cups, a portrait of George VI and handkerchiefs for Christmas parcels. Wish-bones from poultry used in the tea rooms provided most of the money: about 8000 were bleached, enamelled and sold to be put in overseas parcels for good luck.³⁷ Less bizarre, groups of girls page 1060 from firms did Red Cross, EPS and WWSA work, including camouflage-net making, or they typed for the Home Guard.³⁸

Especially in towns near camps, the entertainment of servicemen on leave, most of them far from home and friends, was an obvious urgent problem: otherwise the lads had only the pictures, the pubs and the streets. Many would prefer the pubs to the pictures, but the pubs closed at 6 pm. No one wanted the streets filled with rowdy or staggering soldiers, and clearly it was both a duty and a pleasure which fell naturally into the hands of women to make ‘our boys’ as happy as possible.

Obviously as a first step there must be Services clubs. Army, Navy and Air Force (ANA), Welcome and Catholic Service clubs appeared rapidly, first in the main leave towns, then further afield, as at Palmerston North and Timaru.³⁹ They were run by local patriotic committees and by hundreds of voluntary workers, mainly women. Christchurch probably led here: its Welcome Club was created almost overnight in October 1939 to greet the first soldiers on weekend leave from Burnham with an information bureau, tea and a dance;⁴⁰ its Union Jack Club, opened in August 1940, was admired in other cities.⁴¹ Everywhere, these clubs were open for long hours, offering cafeterias, cheap meals, lounges, reading rooms, weekend entertainments and sleeping accommodation (but never enough).

Such clubs were, however, only a drop in the bucket. Food and company, primarily the company of young women, were the foremost needs. Dancing was the most direct, simplest and cheapest way for girls and servicemen decorously to begin acquaintance and pass the time. Accordingly, dancing was the staple entertainment, though there were also concerts, community sings and socials with games and charades. Existing clubs such as the YMCA, YWCA, Toc H, Victoria League and National Club opened their doors to servicemen at weekends, supplying teas, cost-price dinners, and dancing. New clubs sprang up, run by volunteers and helped by patriotic funds, mainly for weekend entertainment. Wellington, for instance, had the Spinsters,⁴² Webby's, the Grosvenor, the Victory, the Fighting page 1061 Forces and the Cinderella⁴³ clubs and others even out in the suburbs, such as the Miramar Fighting Services' Hospitality Club.⁴⁴ Organised groups of women and girls took turns at cooking, serving, washing dishes, chatting up the boys and dancing. For girls especially, these clubs were mutual benefit societies, as outside them men were growing scarcer; older women and established hostesses contributed their social standing and skills. Many, both as individuals and in groups, especially from country areas and small towns, sent in quantities of vegetables, meat, eggs, butter, hams, fruit, jam, cake, biscuits and flowers.⁴⁵

Other places offered cafeterias and relaxation in lounges and reading rooms throughout the days and evenings. They were staffed with friendly women who, besides serving food and chatting, would sometimes mend clothes and sew on buttons, as at Wellington's Salvation Army hut, handily placed between the railway station and the wharves.⁴⁶ Some of these places were also hostels, offering beds, though again never enough of them, such as Toe H and the Carrie Army Hostel in Auckland,⁴⁷ Toc H and the Combined Hostel in Wellington,⁴⁸ the Salvation Army in several cities.⁴⁹ Catholic Service clubs opened, offering home-style comforts from tea and papers to weekend entertainment and beds.⁵⁰ The YMCA was active, opening its gymnasiums and other facilities to servicemen and extending its premises in several cities to provide hundreds of beds, while various churches and women's auxiliaries took turns in providing weekend meals and entertainment.⁵¹ When the Americans arrived, more clubs appeared in the relevant centres, equipped with American features such as coffee and hamburgers, and with information bureaux for making contacts with hospitable civilians.⁵²

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Many families, especially those with sons in the forces or with daughters about, gave tireless warmth and good home meals to an endless chain of friends' friends from the camps. Often this meant easy companionship, liveliness and linked acquaintances; sometimes, given shy lads with little small talk, it was heavy going, and after one had joked through dinner and the dishes a desperately long time could stretch out before the next cup of tea or the leave train. Many boys, of course, would not face such amiable ordeals, and stuck to their own resources, however bleak, counting Sunday leave as a dead loss. New Zealand Sundays were still solid Sabbath: not till the Americans came was there even the refuge of films for servicemen and their friends, which then began in two or three cinemas in each city. Popular films, however, had long runs, and save for some sports arrangements there was no other regular entertainment for the non-dancers, except the pursuit of girls, sometimes an elegant pursuit, sometimes coarse. As one American told a reporter, with a New Zealand soldier in agreement, ‘a man at liberty occasionally wants more than a cup of coffee and a paper to read’.⁵³

Letter-writing occupied thousands and thousands of hours, countless evenings when women searched memory over humdrum days, sometimes helped by notes on kitchen jotters or on envelopes in handbags and sometimes inhibited by awareness of the censor, for there were so many things that one should not mention. They wrote to Bill or Jack or Jim, strove to feel close to him, perhaps cried a little, perhaps worried that they did not cry, worried that he was becoming remote and unreal. As the overseas months and years passed, even a much-loved man could recede frighteningly, endearments and yearnings seemed mechanical because they had been written and read so often. Sometimes letters were an emotional life-line that sustained and confirmed a relationship, sometimes they nurtured a minor friendship into knowledge and strength. Sometimes, particularly for the less articulate, ardour faded on the pages as time and distance wore down feeling, especially when another man appeared more lively and more mature, simply because he was there, than Bill, Jack or Jim in Egypt or Italy or New Caledonia. Some wrote only to husbands or boyfriends, to sons or brothers or relatives or close friends; some sterling girls wrote more or less regularly to many not really close to them, understanding how the boys looked for letters, any letters, that gave news and warmth and the sense of belonging back there; understanding how good it was to be the lad with a packet, how desolate to be the one for whom there was no mail at all.

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For some women such homely, low-keyed contributions were not enough: they wanted sterner, more stirring stuff. In films and in the newspapers, British girls forked hay, fed calves, drove tractors, Army cars and ambulances through the Blitz; impressive in trousers, overalls and goggles they worked on shells and hand-grenades and aeroplanes, welding and using heavy machinery; in uniforms replete with pockets they swung in soldierly fashion, chins lifted, faces rigid; in control rooms they read dials and signals, uttered messages, moved flags. These things were important, dedicated and far more exciting than one's normal typing or shop work, replacing a man at an office desk or machining shirts and trousers. This zeal to do ‘real war work’ found spontaneous expression.

At Auckland, soon after war began, the Women's National Service Corps was launched, and within a year recruited about 400 girls, keen to cope with emergency. Its style was very military. Its commander, ‘Major’ D. M. Hawkins, who had been an officer in a women's auxiliary in England during the last war, was now a drill instructor at a girls' school and had the remarkable distinction of being chairman of the New Lynn RSA.⁵⁴ She was understandably keen on drill. Disciplined movement and smart saluting were conspicuous with these devoted girls, but they also trained for VAD and clerical duties, for signalling, canteen work and cooking, while their transport section, besides driving, learned to repair motors. They had no public support, but each paid 6d a week for expenses and provided her own uniform. Khaki material was scarce, so they began with shirts and shorts for drill, looking forward to public parades when fully equipped with skirts and caps, which they had attained by August 1940.⁵⁵ Their first route march was photographed in September.⁵⁶ To these young women their khaki was a great attraction and they thought of it as the King's uniform, not as that of a private club.⁵⁷

Despite an internal row and some external criticism,⁵⁸ their zeal won recognition. They obtained the use of Narrow Neck military parade ground for their Saturday afternoons,⁵⁹ and in January 1941 they held a camp on Avondale race course, where their elaborate page 1064 marching was approved by Brigadier Bell.⁶⁰ They joined in a ceremonial parade of troops⁶¹ and from time to time the Army rewarded their eagerness with use. They worked in military hospitals during epidemics, did canteen work: after a city parade they served pies, buns and tea with great dispatch to 4000 3rd Echelon men.⁶² By mid-1941 some were employed as cooks at Waiouru Military Camp and some were doing driving jobs for the Army.⁶³ They also did clerical and telephone work for the Army and Home Guard.⁶⁴ Their smartness and military movement continued to impress in parades, while their signallers were becoming adept in semaphore and morse.⁶⁵

When the WWSA was set up in August 1940 to co-ordinate all women's war work, the National Service Corps was one of the first bodies to affiliate; its commander, Miss Hawkins, was elected to the WWSA Auckland committee, and after the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was formed in February 1942 she attained full military status by becoming head of its Auckland division.⁶⁶ In December 1941 the National Service Corps had 520 members for signalling, transport, clerical and cooking work, and 40 band players;⁶⁷ by mid-August 1942 membership was reported as 450, out of which 76 had joined the WAAC with Miss Hawkins, 75 were in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), three were in the Land Army, while 30 were driving, herd-testing or doing hospital work.⁶⁸ By December 1943 only those tied to essential industry or to their homes remained, doing spare time work in Service canteens and clubs, and packing patriotic parcels. One group cooked for a Home Guard unit, while the entertainment section, assisted by three American servicemen and a returned New Zealander, performed at clubs and hospitals.⁶⁹

In mid-1940 some Christchurch women, rightly foreseeing a scarcity of vegetables, decided to grow them in their spare time. About 50 business and professional women, led by Mary McLean,⁷⁰ page 1065 formed a modest, non-uniformed group to grow vegetables for orphanages and other institutions which might not be getting their normal peacetime support. Some produced more in their own gardens, some, tutored by City Council gardeners and by skilled members of the group, tackled half an acre in Abberley Park, a former suburban estate, ploughed for them by the City Council.⁷¹ Among those who collected blisters on this ground was Ngaio Marsh,⁷² better known in the fields of detective fiction and drama production.⁷³ Several landowners lent accessible sections and the gardeners multiplied. They grew their own seedlings in thousands, and by the summer of 1941–2 the WWSA bicycle corps was delivering their vegetables to orphanages, the Salvation Army, old age pensioners, returned soldiers and soldiers' wives.⁷⁴

At this stage the group, having acquired a dehydrating oven to dry beans for men on minesweepers around New Zealand, decided to send beans to Britain also. In the ‘Beans for Britain’ campaign, local women were asked to grow extra in their own gardens, timed so that the oven could cope with production, while cocoa tins, etc, were saved for packaging. A dietician, Dr Muriel Bell,⁷⁵ approved the project, and Christchurch beans duly found their way to women's societies in the north of England.⁷⁶ Early in the enterprise there was modest readiness to use this enthusiasm in regular production. Several market gardeners offered to take on girls for training while, as some aspired to farm work, at least eight farmers ‘consented to take girls who are at present not working in the city and train them as farm workers’. Their duties were to include the care of calves, pigs and fowls, feeding and grooming horses, milking cows, gardening and assisting with housework. They would probably go in pairs, taking camp stretchers and their own bedding, and be prepared to get their own meals, saving the farmers' wives additional labour; wages would be privately arranged between trainee and farmer.⁷⁷ In the early summer of 1941 successive groups of the Christchurch Land Army⁷⁸ spent a week of their annual holidays at Waimate picking peas at 1d a pound, an effort approved by the Farmers' page 1066 Union in the growing labour shortage.⁷⁹ A month later, however, this effort was discontinued following complaints that Christchurch land girls were depriving Waimate people of work.⁸⁰

Driving, obviously a vital skill, was prominent in several preparatory efforts. In Wellington in October 1939 young and not-so- young women, with their own cars, enlisted in an auxiliary transport group with the general idea of being useful and prepared.⁸¹ Led by Mrs V. Hole,⁸² who had driven an ambulance in the previous war, they learned first-aid, stretcher drill, map-reading and transport column work and took a fairly extensive course in motor mechanics, prescribed by the Institute of Automative Engineers, with practical work in garages, and examinations.⁸³ By mid-1940 they had moved under the auspices of the Red Cross which was organising similar groups in other centres, conspicuous in blue-grey, two-piece uniforms and red-crossed caps.⁸⁴ They practised traffic control and ambulance driving, using three-ton lorries on hilly roads, and went with ambulance drivers for experience.⁸⁵ By 1943 there were about 150 members at both Auckland and Wellington, 50 at Dunedin and smaller groups at other places. They were on call for various duties, notably meeting ships and trains bringing wounded, and regularly driving convalescents between their homes and the hospitals for treatment, giving their time and cars free, but using government petrol; a few drove Army vehicles.⁸⁶ In some places, such as Palmerston North, the most experienced were on the hospital pay-roll as supplementary ambulance drivers.⁸⁷ In the EPS system they were attached to medical aid posts. In Dunedin, beginning in October 1939, about 25 women were trained in regular St John Ambulance work, replacing men in voluntary duty, on call to hospitals and accidents and attending sports meetings.⁸⁸

In sundry places and through various organisations, women learned to drive and service heavy vehicles. At Christchurch, in the General page 1067 Service Corps, a body organised to help the war effort in any direction, there was a vigorous women's section which, besides knitting, sewing and entertaining troops, had an active transport branch of about 280, whose training included mechanics, first-aid, signalling and drill.⁸⁹ In New Plymouth, YWCA classes in mechanics at the Technical College were followed by practical courses in driving and in running repairs, with the Borough Council lending heavy lorries for the last stages of training.⁹⁰ In Ashburton, during July 1940, 63 women enrolled for transport driving in the Technical School's evening classes.⁹¹ Gisborne had a group of 50 to 60 women, many able to drive trucks, linked with its Legion of Frontiersmen, waiting for emergency and meanwhile learning squad drill from a sergeant-major.⁹²

Driving was not the only avenue of preparation. The idea of listing people who were ready to help in various ways was gaining ground, notably in Christchurch where canvassers of the General Service Corps were making such a register;⁹³ in country districts Women's Institutes were sorting out those ready to cook, drive, do home nursing and first-aid, care for children or take in evacuees.⁹⁴ As the gloomy headlines of June and July unfolded in 1940, women in several towns began to form active groups for widespread work. In the Manawatu a large and eager meeting, with the mayoress of Palmerston North presiding, formed an auxiliary service corps, to be on the lines of Britain's WAAC of the last war and ready for an emergency with units trained in first-aid, mechanics, ambulance and lorry driving, despatch riding, and as cooks and land girls.⁹⁵ Women at Nelson formed an auxiliary corps keen to train for any emergency work,⁹⁶ and at Hamilton 250 enrolled in a corps to assist the war effort in any way required, the immediate activities being service at the local soldiers' club, clerical work for the Army, physical training under an Internal Affairs expert and drill with an Army sergeant.⁹⁷ A year later the town saw precise and efficient marching as this corps paraded in new dark blue uniforms behind the Waikato Regimental Band.⁹⁸

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Thus, by July 1940, there were scattered but widespread attempts by women to organise for the war effort in general and also for an emergency within the country. A month earlier in Wellington the Women's War Service Auxiliary had its beginnings, initiated by Dr Agnes Bennett,⁹⁹ a veteran who, besides notable work in the mother and child field, had the additional status of 1914–18 war service in the Balkans and in England. Thinking of the organised activity of women in England during that war and of how much they could undertake in New Zealand if the mood of zeal were seized, Dr Bennett, after preliminary discussion with other strenuous ladies, headed a deputation to the Prime Minister on 11 June 1940. They first proposed an auxiliary corps of women to assist in essential services, to be trained in any needed capacity, demobilising automatically at the war's end, leaving jobs clear for the returning heroes. Their corps should have a disciplined, military tone, with attesting, readiness to serve anywhere for the duration, and saluting of officers. There should be uniforms, starting with armbands, for recognition by the public, and to make the women feel that they were really giving national service.

This military aspect was firmly discouraged. The Prime Minister said that some of the discipline they had in mind would be quite unacceptable in New Zealand; they seemed to have a uniform complex, but factories were already taxed to the utmost for the fighting forces, the main problem at the moment being to get sufficient labour for them. The idea emerged, shaped largely by Eraser, of the Auxiliary acting as liaison between women at large and government departments; of its using existing organisations, such as Women's Institutes, the Plunket Society and the WDFU, to make contact with large numbers of women, finding out what each could do and as need occurred guiding those with appropriate experience into community service or industry.¹⁰⁰

Thereafter a constitution was worked out, and on 11 July a national conference, representing 69 women's organisations, adopted it and elected officers. Mrs Janet Fraser,¹⁰¹ elected Dominion president, explained that the government had agreed to the formation of the Auxiliary on condition that it obtained the backing of established women's organisations, whose war activities it would co-ordinate, avoiding duplication without disturbing their normal functions. It page 1069 would be a non-military organisation, under control of the Minister of National Service. It would enrol those willing to render service and allot them tasks in the future: at present there was no general drain on manpower.¹⁰² The Dominion Council had 12 elected members,¹⁰³ and four¹⁰⁴ were to be appointed by the Minister of National Service, then Robert Semple. It was widely representative, but unwieldy and met seldom.¹⁰⁵

Business was delegated to a smaller Dominion Central Executive, all living in Wellington; Mrs Fraser (president), Dr Bennett (vice-president), Mesdames V. Jowett,¹⁰⁶ M. J. Bentley,¹⁰⁷ E. M. Knox Gilmer¹⁰⁸ and M. Don¹⁰⁹ (secretary) and Amy Kane.¹¹⁰ Mrs H. Atmore, wife of the independent member for Nelson, toured the four centres preaching the gospel of preparation, training and readiness to do all kinds of work. Despised domestic duties must be raised in status, no honest work was menial; women should be ready to work the factories 24 hours a day if necessary. All organisations should enrol members for this comprehensive new body, filing details of qualifications; age did not count but all should improve their physical fitness.¹¹¹

This could hardly produce the wanted ‘feeling of living in an armed camp’ or meet ‘the burning desire to do our bit’ that the Woman's Weekly of 8 August perceived in women. Simply, there page 1070 were as yet no jobs for them, and the burning desire in many cases burnt out. But the WWSA organisation busily established itself. Branches soon formed in many centres, each with nine members elected by and from the women's organisations, and three appointed by the government. As the Taranaki Herald remarked on 26 October, the latter were a precaution against any one interest being over-dominant. They generally represented the Labour side, and the lists of those elected suggest that they were a necessary balance. Thus Wellington's elected ladies were drawn from the Plunket Society, University Women, Business and Professional Women, the Women Writers and Artists' Association, the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, the YWCA, the League of Mothers, the Lyceum Club and WDFU.¹¹² A trade union secretary doubted if they represented 25 per cent of women in the district, and ‘A Tailoress’ thought that they would have included a qualified clothing tradeswomen.¹¹³ The government appointees, Mesdames R. Semple, M. J. Bentley and H. D. Bennett, added some Labour ballast.¹¹⁴

The immediate aim was to enlist as many women as possible, both directly and through affiliated organisations. Members filled in cards, saying what they could do, whole-time or part-time, and what training they could undertake. From these cards WWSA district committees compiled lists of those willing to help in various ways, such as driving, first-aid, farming, clerical work, growing vegetables, caring for children, working in hospitals or factories. Then they paused, for zeal outran opportunity. It was established that in Industry even the most patriotic must work for wages on the same terms as regular employees, and in practice the Auxiliary's only activity in this field was referring women who wanted factory work to the placement officer. At the start of October, Wellington had about 1400 members, Christchurch 1000.¹¹⁵ By December 1941 there were 183 local centres and sub-centres, all compiling their registers.¹¹⁶ After Japan's entry membership, including affiliated organisations, rose steeply to 75 000 in 1942, with 250 district committees.¹¹⁷

Vegetable-growing on a modest scale was one of the first direct activities of the WWSA, following the lead of the affiliated Christchurch business women who had begun their gardens earlier. Wellington members soon tackled a vacant section in Aitken Street near page 1071 Parliament Buildings.¹¹⁸ Other sections were made available at Russell Terrace, Khandallah and Sydney Street, some needing strenuous clearing: at Sydney Street nine lorry-loads of old iron and rubble were cleared for a bumper crop of potatoes. These vegetables went to Service clubs, as did those grown by members at Eastbourne and Paraparaumu.¹¹⁹ Dunedin's land group began in July 1941 with classes in horticulture, then the City Council lent them half an acre at Chingford, on which about 20 women were soon producing promising crops destined for nearby military camps.¹²⁰ Auckland's WWSA did not cultivate civic plots, but arranged well attended classes for improving orchard and garden skills, and sought out knowledgeable gardeners in every locality to advise others.¹²¹

Apart from gardening, compiling registers and waiting for jobs to turn up, the WWSA began several training courses so that women would be ready for tasks arising from attack, generally referred to as ‘emergency’. Canteen workers learned about camp cooking and catering for large numbers.¹²² In technical college classes, garages and city corporation yards, transport groups learned how to drive and repair heavy vehicles, hoping to be called to the wheel.¹²³ The Press on 17 January 1942 reported that 20 WWSA and General Service Corps girls were delivering impressed vehicles to camps, their first opportunity for driving service after drilling and studying for a year. They sought experience wherever possible, some driving shingle trucks, others heavy vehicles, even a double-decker sheep truck.¹²⁴ Signals groups learned morse with flags, buzzers and lamps.¹²⁵ Bicycle dispatch riders trained in long-distance runs, care of their machines, night-riding, map reading, local geography and street directories and in formation-riding for parades.¹²⁶ All groups learned first-aid, map reading and some signalling. They also had plenty of drill, so conducive to discipline and a good appearance in public. Keep-fit classes were organised by the physical welfare branch of the Internal Affairs Department.¹²⁷

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Some hundreds of WWSA trainees sped into the WAAF when it began early in 1941 and others were ready-made leaders for EPS units, but in May 1942 the Director of National Service expressed longstanding uneasiness: the main function of the WWSA was to co-ordinate the work of other bodies, rather than do the work itself. It would be ‘quite undesirable to continue training women in such work as signalling, clerical, transport, etc., if in the event of an emergency these girls would be unattached to any operating body’ Only those who could be so attached, notably to EPS, should be trained.¹²⁸

These women wanted uniforms, uniforms that gave the outward sign and the inner conviction that one was doing one's bit. Already two earlier organisations, the Auckland National Service Corps and the Red Cross Transport, had contrived their own uniforms, and the Woman's Weekly voiced some current ideas on this theme: ‘for the establishment of unity, discipline and esprit de corps, uniform is not only desirable but necessary, for women's units as for men's. … It must be logically conceded a woman needs to be more correctly accoutred than a man if she is to uphold what has previously been unfeminine attire with necessary dignity and decorum’.¹²⁹ From the start, uniform was envisaged,¹³⁰ and despite the Prime Minister's initial disapproval, War Cabinet duly approved a modest outfit. The first issues were in time for the large home defence parades in the main towns during April and May 1941, the first occasions on which New Zealand women in any number, apart from nurses and those in the Red Cross, paraded in uniform.¹³¹ This consisted of a long-sleeved, belted dress of khaki cotton drill, buttoned right up the front, with three large military-style pockets, worn with a soft-crowned, visored khaki cap, a badge, and a tie the colour of which varied according to the wearer's section. Only active members acquired uniform, and wore it only for drill and training classes, parades and actual duty. With government subsidy, the outfit cost each girl £1. For committee members and training leaders the Minister approved two-piece, military-style uniforms, also of khaki drill, worn with an official badge. But when the central executive, having provided themselves with a distinctive uniform, asked for it to be officially recognised, the Director expressed surprise that this had been done without the Minister's permission.¹³²

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In the long run, through the register of who could do what, the WWSA organised women in various projects, large and small. A few helped in the control rooms or drove as messengers at fire stations.¹³³ Many helped in the perpetual tasks of patriotic fund raising and war loan campaigns. After Japan's entry, when camouflage nets were urgently needed, the WWSA soon had hundreds of women of all ages, in scattered depots, practising the skill initially taught them by a few retired fishermen, along with the boy scouts and girl guides who had already pioneered this field.¹³⁴ Some of the sections were very large on paper, but only women living within reasonable distance of, say, camps or hospitals could be actively engaged. The most prominent were canteen workers, totalling 20 000, who cooked for Home Guard manoeuvres and in evenings and weekends helped to run canteens in military camps and hospitals, or worked in Service clubs and hostels.¹³⁵ They were specially active in 1942–3, when all camps were bulging and, later, when drafts of men were returning they rallied to the catering arrangements. The clerical section (10 000-strong at 31 March 1945) did most of the clerical and typing work for the EPS and Home Guard, and in nightly or weekend stints made up Army arrears, especially in the mobilisation period of 1942. The transport group, 5000 strong, some able to drive heavy vehicles, were prominent in EPS units, and in waste paper and other collections, while many moved into the WAAF and WAAC as drivers. Another 2000 formed the hospital section, which, besides training aids for kitchen and laundry work in an emergency, helped voluntarily with routine clerical and telephone work and hospital visiting. A section of 250 acted as spare-time obstetrical voluntary aids, and in Wellington a group of 30 became full-time nurses in public maternity hospitals.¹³⁶

The WWSA, run largely on volunteer labour and assisted to some extent by donations and small fees for classes, etc, was not extravagant, and was encouraged in its thrift by the government.¹³⁷ Up to 31 March 1945 it cost the War Expenses Account £24,408, of which £15,500 was incurred by March 1942, while 1943–4 saw a credit of £600 from the sale of uniforms.¹³⁸ At the war's end the page 1074 Director of National Service said that it was ‘one of the most inexpensive war organisations set up’.¹³⁹

The WWSA rank and file were stand-by maids of war work, each ready, in any area, at a telephone call or other summons, to turn to any job within her appointed range, generally in her spare time. The higher ranks had a more managerial function. They were, as Fraser from the start intended, the link between officialdom and women in the community. The government had to break new ground in directing women to essential industry and enlisting them in the armed forces. In these innovations, feeling could easily have risen that girls were being Manpowered into positions detrimental to their delicacy or moral fibre. This was forestalled by the prominence of senior WWSA leaders in the early stages of enlistment and Manpower direction; their role, to the public, was something between chaperons and watchdogs of women's interests. As people became accustomed to women in the Services and being directed to work, the WWSA chaperons became less necessary. They were eased off the Manpower scene as more women officials were appointed, and eased out of enlistment procedures, both for the forces and for land work, when enlistment was made direct to the forces and through Manpower to the land service. But at the outset it is probable that this respectable body, elected, however remotely, from women's organisations, cushioned the impact of what some saw as the regimentation of women.

In September 1939 the female labour force was estimated at 180 000. Normal increase in four years would have made it 185 000, but by December 1943, 228 000 women were employed and 8000 others were in the armed forces.¹⁴⁰ The increase was both in women's traditional employments and in new ones. There were more women in teaching and nursing, in shops and offices, in factories where they had usually worked, such as clothing, footwear, woollen mills, biscuits, and confectionery; more women where previously there had been few or none, such as in the Public Service, banks, Post and Telegraph, railways, trams, engineering, canneries, farms, flax and rubber mills and driving work, plus a host of other places in which employers found a few girls useful substitutes for men—on milk rounds,¹⁴¹ as hotel porters,¹⁴² zoo attendants,¹⁴³ on domestic meter page 1075 reading,¹⁴⁴ trucking fruit and vegetables to city markets,¹⁴⁵ scientific work,¹⁴⁶ joinery,¹⁴⁷ brick works,¹⁴⁸ delivering coal,¹⁴⁹ announcing trains at stations,¹⁵⁰ and one even became radio officer on the Cook Strait ferry Tamahine¹⁵¹

At the war's end women straggled away from many of these occupations, but as the succeeding years brought soaring labour demands, not the expected recession, they remained in other areas, such as the Public Service and banks. In time they attained status as permanent employees, instead of being classed as temporary, with few rights; the vigilant ones worked towards equal pay.

Traditionally, New Zealand women on marriage left occupations even before having children, and did not return unless pressed by adversity or an unusual personality. Housekeeping was laborious: vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators and electric heaters were coming in but were by no means general. Open fires were widespread, clothes driers and deep-freezes unknown. The range of ready-made food was much less and frequent use of ‘tinned stuff’ was frowned on by many. Even without children, wives could be busy, especially if they were poor or thrifty. Trade unions and public feeling opposed a married woman keeping a job that might otherwise go to a workless girl and, as the long-established practice of paying women less than men could make them attractive to employers, trade unions watched with suspicion any extensions that might keep work from a man with a family or the prospect of one.

Wide differences between the pay of men and women, accepted by the majority as natural or inevitable, were part of and reinforced the marriage-exodus pattern. The Arbitration Court, in November 1936, fixed the adult basic wage at 76s a week for men and 36s for women and, though many awards gave substantially higher pay, the gap remained wide.¹⁵²

Thus in 1939 the minimum award rate for an adult male clothing trade employee was 92s 6d a week, and for a woman 50s; these rates had risen to 100s and 52s 6d respectively by 1942, plus cost of living bonuses amounting to 10 per cent, and by a further 2s 6d page 1076 each in 1943. A boot operator in 1939 received 91s 8d, a female 50s 10d, rising to 102s 6d and 57s 6d respectively, plus cost of living bonuses, by 1942. An adult male clerk in 1939 received at least 110s, a woman 65s, rates not officially increased till 1946 (by 10s each), though cost of living bonuses were paid.¹⁵³

With rare exceptions, women were not promoted to senior positions in clerical work, nor beyond the place of forewoman in factories. Thus rewards, both in money and satisfaction, did not make the struggle to combine work and housekeeping worthwhile. With higher taxes for double incomes aggregated and assessed as one, and the inevitable buying of goods ready-made, even ready-cooked, plus more clothes and fares, there was little economic incentive for a wife to battle with two jobs. Generally, only when a woman was widowed, divorced, deserted or had a sick or otherwise non-productive husband, would she return to work-bench or desk. More likely, she would do domestic work or cleaning, which would better accommodate such irregularities as children, and was available on a variety of meagre terms.

With husbands in the forces the rationale for non-working wives was gone and Service pay though regular was not generous.¹⁵⁴ On the other hand, there was the implication that women receiving money from Service husbands were working for the war effort, not for mere gain, and therefore modest rates of pay were in order; this could not, of course, affect areas governed by awards.

Early in 1940, enterprising girls began to move into war vacancies in banks, insurance companies, the Public Service and business firms Aside from merit, they were acceptable because they were paid less than the men they replaced and they were expected to be immune from conscription. Further, as it was legally necessary to give a serviceman his job again when he returned, there would be awkwardness if the position had been filled by another man, or successsion of men in turn moving into the forces, whereas a woman was expected to retire willingly when the war ended. If she were already the wife of a serviceman, especially from the same firm or department, the situation was streamlined.

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In April 1940 a former employee of the Auckland Power Board, her husband in the First Echelon, asked for her old job, saying that other local bodies and government departments were employing women such as herself. The Board decided to change its policy of not having married women on its staff.¹⁵⁵ By January 1942 the female infiltration of some offices had become an invasion: thus a leading insurance office had lost 75 per cent of its male staff and its 15 pre-war women had been increased to more than 40;¹⁵⁶ a bank had lost 57 men and its twelve women had become 40;¹⁵⁷ another, having lost 30 men, had replaced them with 30 girls, and yet another, whose pre-war staff of 53 included seven women, had lost 11 men and taken on seven more women.¹⁵⁸ In the Bank of New Zealand, throughout the country, 74 women were employed at the start of the war, nearly 700 at the end of it.¹⁵⁹

The Public Service was likewise filling vacancies with women, preferably servicemen's wives, though by February 1941 it was advertising widely for clerical wartime women. They would generally begin at £145 per year, with £13 cost of living allowance for women dependent on their own earnings.¹⁶⁰ A serviceman's wife, like most wives, did not qualify for this allowance.

Pre-war, the Public Service was a close-knit body, respecting seniority, and normally recruited young cadets, who worked their way up through 40 years, to retire on superannuation. Men of special merit could enter the system from outside by being appointed to particular positions, and to meet humbler needs there were thousands of temporary employees, not entitled to promotion or to superannuation, and subject to dismissal at short notice. In 1939 the male staff of about 18 700 included 4600 temporaries. There were also 2013 women, all temporaries, 1524 being typists and the rest clerical assistants. By 1941 the forces were claiming about 3230 of these men and 1460 more women were on the pay-roll.¹⁶¹ In mid-1942, with 6054 men away, many forms of work hitherto regarded as indispensable to safe and prudent administration had, under ‘pitiless scrutiny’, been discarded or postponed, and 3200 women, taken on for wartime duties, were playing ‘an impressive part’ in the State Services, showing adaptability and keenness to acquit themselves well, though many had not previously done any similar work or page 1078 even been in any regular employment.¹⁶² As a measure of the need for staff, towards the end of 1942 public servants due to retire could do so only with Cabinet consent, and advertisements called for married women to work a six-hour day with pay in proportion.¹⁶³

Growth of permanent staff was checked during the war, though work increased and varied. The Service departments increased markedly; new branches, and even new departments, notably National Service, developed, each with a framework of transferred senior officers; both old and new positions everywhere were filled with temporary men and women. By 1944 there were 10 353 men on the temporary staff and 7062 women, of whom only 2189 were typists.¹⁶⁴ In 1945, the temporary staff totalled 17 601: men, includeing those absent in the forces, numbered 10 524 and there was a slight rise in the number of women–7077, of whom 2184 were typists.¹⁶⁵ There was a marked decline in the following year: there were 10 270 male temporaries and 2234 typists, but the total of women employed had fallen to 5699.¹⁶⁶ Thereafter, long-sought changes took place, and thousands of temporaries, including female clerks and typists, became permanent officers.

Back in 1942, however, only a few thought of such possibilities. Women's pay varied with age and qualifications, but it was not high: the general starting rate for an adult woman was about £3 a week and sometimes less, approximately half the male rate. The official view was that all permanent–temporary, male–female anomalies must wait till the position stabilised after the war, but from 1942 onward the more militant women, through women's branches within the Public Service Association, pressed against their limitations, a good part of their effort being directed towards arousing other women. The majority was not trade union minded, and the Association itself strongly respected seniority, which of course meant male seniority. As early as September 1942 the basic arguments of the battlers were set forth in the Press by Caroline Webb,¹⁶⁷ who declared that in the Public Service ‘women are employed in conditions not short of scandalous. Although the Public Service Act makes no discrimination between the sexes, regulations and administrative procedure have been used to keep women on the lowest grades of the services, to pay them consistently lower rates than men, page 1079 and to appoint them only as temporary members of the service.’ The war meant that many women would find their life's work not in marriage but in industry, the professions, the Public Service. The only satisfactory basis was economic equality between men and women, plus family allowances, which would be a more effective way of providing for children than that of paying every adult male as if he had a wife and three (only three) children.¹⁶⁸

The Post and Telegraph Department took on women in hundreds, beginning in mid-1940 with wives of Post and Telegraph men in the forces.¹⁶⁹ They started with clerical jobs, then moved outdoors, uniformed telegraph girls appearing in Wellington at the start of July 1941, and in Auckland about three months later.¹⁷⁰ In the post-Japanese entry pressure, some began to drive postal vans¹⁷¹ and many shouldered mail bags. Hamilton, in January 1942, was the first town to have women on its mail rounds, closely followed by Wellington, then Auckland,¹⁷² and other centres such as Christchurch and Palmerston North, in March.¹⁷³ The women started in cotton frocks,¹⁷⁴ but wore the WWSA's khaki drill where obtainable,¹⁷⁵ while the Post Office pondered the styling of its grey gabardine or navy serge. In the 1980s mails are regularly delivered by variously garbed ‘posties’, but in the 1940s livery for such tasks was thought necessary, was earnestly devised and even revised. Wellington postgirls, followed by Auckland's, soon acquired frock coats of steel-grey light gabardine, undershot with brown,¹⁷⁶ while Christchurch with its bicycles debated the merits of slacks or divided skirts.¹⁷⁷ Divided skirts of gabardine were issued, but a year later navy blue trousers with battledress tops were optional.¹⁷⁸

By March 1942 about 2500 girls were engaged for the duration as office assistants, drivers, postwomen and lift attendants, with a page 1080 few in automatic telephone exchanges and departmental workshops; a year later there were 4000.¹⁷⁹ In September 1942 at the Chief Post Office, Christchurch, in a staff of 650 there were 308 women where normally there had been about 50; on the postal rounds there were 49 men and 53 women.¹⁸⁰ Telegram girls remained scarce, and although during 1944 some men returned from the forces, adults, both men and women, performed this task hitherto reserved for the young and agile and traditionally for entrants to the permanent staff of the Department.¹⁸¹ In the following year, while staffs at some offices remained stable, at others women were leaving faster than they could be recruited, and again there was a shortage of telegram delivery staff.¹⁸² By 1946, with regulars streaming back, many of the temporary women were leaving or being eased out, though some obtained permanent positions.¹⁸³ Outdoor delivery work remained popular with women, and postgirls of the 1980s are probably unaware that till 1942 this was a man's job.

In the Railways before the war, women on typing, clerical and refreshment duties numbered 627 in a total staff of 25 765.¹⁸⁴ As they occurred, various clerical vacancies were filled by women, and early in 1941 a few girls were even started on skills such as plan-tracing. Pay was not excessive: towards the end of 1943 at Wellington full-time shorthand typists were offered £80–£165 a year as starting salary, and office assistants with a knowledge of typing £65– 165, according to age and qualifications, plus cost of living bonus and a lodging allowance for juniors obliged to live away from home;¹⁸⁵ there were, however, worthwhile travelling concessions after three months' service. Towards the end of 1941 women appeared at parcels and reservations counters¹⁸⁶ and, on 13 January 1942, the Press reported that in the Christchurch railway district more than 23 per cent of the total office staff were women, where previously there had been only a few typists. In April 1942 they moved out from the desks and counters: strong women of 21–35 years were invited to work as porters and guards' assistants, wearing navy serge frocks similar in design to WWSA uniforms, with three large pockets, an action back, silver buttons down the front and peaked caps. page 1081 Wages were £3 a week, plus cost of living bonus, for a 40-hour week, on rotating shifts between 6 am and 10 pm.¹⁸⁷ In place of the traditional training—following an old hand around—they had a short course on signals, distances, fares and the issuing of various written tickets. They could not become guards.¹⁸⁸

Women's traditional cleaning skills were first applied to trains in March 1943 at Auckland, when 26 women were chosen from 100 applicants. In trousered overalls, they worked an eight-hour day and a 40-hour week, with one day off in rotation each week (plus Sundays) and a three-day weekend every six weeks. With cost of living and shift allowances, they were paid £4 5s a week. Despite the Union wish that they should have equal pay, their rate was ls 9d an hour, while male cleaners got 2s 4d, but they shared the privilege of paid annual holidays and free travelling for themselves and their families.¹⁸⁹

In all, by mid-1943, the Railways had taken on 1400 women in a total staff of 22 550¹⁹⁰ and this was the peak figure. Much railways work was too muscular, too dangerous for women and needed more all-round experience than they could readily acquire. Railway manpower tangles were eased somewhat in mid-1943 by the return from overseas of the skilled men of two demobilised railways operating companies.¹⁹¹

Since 1938 there had been legal provision for having women on general duties in the police force, but not until mid-1941, with the war's social problems noticeably increasing, were the first 10 accepted for training, from 150 applicants. They were between 30 and 35 years of age, physically fit, with full powers to arrest. By September 1941, Auckland and Wellington each had three plain clothes policewomen, while Christchurch and Dunedin each had two, concentrating on the detection of sly-grog, especially in night-clubs and dance halls, where they could gain admittance as patrons; on juvenile delinquency, women's welfare work, venereal disease, and park duty. They also handled problems arising from association with the troops, such as women haunting hotel lounges when they should have been at work in essential industries.

As policemen were barred from the armed services, it being considered that they were more valuable in their own work, women did page 1082 not invade the police force as they invaded business and public services. Concern about young girls in the cities, children on the streets late at night and sexual irregularities argued for more policewomen.¹⁹² Another 12 were distributed by February 1943, while Auckland, which was described as a garrison city, received eight more in March 1944.¹⁹³

The interplay between customary attitudes and the demand for labour was finely developed in the trams. During 1914–18 in Britain women had boarded the buses as conductors, and from 1940 photographs showed their return, brisking about London double-deckers. The Auckland WWSA suggested, in October 1940, that some women should be trained for work on the trams but the Auckland Transport Board, with more firmness than tact, said that the time was not appropriate, there was no shortage of men, indeed there was a waiting-list, and women were needlessly trying to get into uniform. For the WWSA Mrs W. H. Cocker replied that the Board would not admit that an emergency could occur except after adequate notice.¹⁹⁴

By mid-1941 there was a shortage of conductors, with passengers waiting at stops while grossly over-crowded trams clanked past. Wellington's City Council, while admitting the future probability of using women, wanted to delay the extra expenditure on ‘restrooms and so on’ for as long as possible by having men on overtime at rush hours. Several councillors questioned the delay, and Mrs Knox Gilmer declared that women would not want grand restrooms.¹⁹⁵

In January 1942, and again in April, the New Zealand Tramwaymen's Union rejected the combined transport authorities' proposal that their members should work longer hours at ordinary rates, as an alternative to the employment of women. The latter, said the Union, would be preferable to losing the 40-hour week. Further, as their award did not specify that conductors must be male, any change in pay or conditions simply because a conductor was a female would be regarded as a breach of the award.¹⁹⁶

In February the government authorised a six-day week for tramway men, with the extra day at time-and-a-half.¹⁹⁷ Auckland authorities, while assuming that 120 women would be needed to page 1083 do the work of 100 men, reckoned that even so it would be 30 per cent cheaper to employ women than to work men on the sixth day; they therefore resolved to take on women when the cost of the sixth day became large enough to warrant the building alterations involved.¹⁹⁸ By then, amid the pressure of defence works and air-raid shelters, the separate messrooms and conveniences envisaged at surburban terminals¹⁹⁹ were a tall order, mainly postponed. But, when Auckland's decision to employ women was announced on 14 April, serious thought was given to the uniform, and women eagerly applied.²⁰⁰

On 8 June, the first tram girls appeared at Auckland. Neat in black skirts, with greatcoats and peaked caps, they showed that ‘they could jack up a car and swing a trolley pole with the best men in the service’.²⁰¹ They started in Wellington two weeks later,²⁰² daringly be-trousered in dark blue, with battledress tops.²⁰³ Dunedin followed within a month²⁰⁴ and Christchurch in mid-August,²⁰⁵ both providing skirts. Presumably the majority agreed with the Auckland transport engineer-manager, A. E. Forde, that skirts were more suitable because they used less cloth than slacks and provided a maximum degree of protection by virtue of their being a ‘dignified womanly uniform’; on some women, he added, slacks would be incongruous.²⁰⁶ The women worked on equal terms with men, receiving £5 0s 6d for a 40-hour week, to which overtime or broken shifts could add a pound or two.²⁰⁷

The accommodation that had alarmed the city fathers was modestly accomplished: at Dunedin a house next door to the tram sheds was bought as the women's headquarters, giving the comforts of a carpeted lounge, with chairs, writing desk and heater, a dining room with orange-painted tables, lockers, hot water, tea makings and even a small oven.²⁰⁸ At Auckland, in the Gaunt Street depot, a room was altered so that women could rest and make tea, at the direct expense of their male colleagues who were then expected to eat their lunches in an unventilated drying room.²⁰⁹

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Women's work on trams was not classified as essential and when Manpower direction got under way possible recruits were deflected, notably at Wellington, where female labour was acutely and chronically short. Perhaps this was why the Dominion reported, on 11 March 1943, that tram girls varied in character and stamina, the zeal of some wore off after a month or two and, since New Year, 17 had begun clipping tickets but 27 had given up;²¹⁰ Dunedin reported no such loss of enthusiasm.²¹¹ Wellington's trams then had about 140 women but wanted 200, and an inspector went to New Plymouth, Wanganui and Napier to interview recruits.²¹² They had to be tall enough to reach the bells, slim and strong enough to push through crowds and narrow spaces; some provincial candidates were refused because they were too short or too wide.²¹³ Auckland then had 166;²¹⁴ Christchurch with 54 wanted more but could get very few past Manpower.²¹⁵ At Dunedin by July 1943 the original 12 girls were still at work and had been joined by 43 others.²¹⁶ Women also cleaned trams in the depots at night, again for the same pay as men cleaners, earning more than £5 a week gross, a wage that drew abundant applicants.²¹⁷

Except for a few on the flat runs of Christchurch, women were not accepted as drivers of trams, because of heavy work on hill routes;²¹⁸ nor were they allowed to repair the rails. During 1943, with maintenance work greatly reduced and traffic heavy, tram tracks grew dilapidated. The road surface touching the rails was broken by vibration and in wet weather ever-growing puddles, squelching as each tram passed, eroded the foundations of the rails. In Wellington, where damage was particularly bad, a gang of men persistently tamped metal chips and bitumen into the ragged holes, trying to check the mischief, often patching the same piece over and over again, and unable meanwhile to get on with more fundamental repairs.²¹⁹ On 31 July, a discreetly worded advertisement offered interesting men's work, full or part-time, to strong women of 25– 40 years.²²⁰ Despite assurances from the work committee that they would not be doing heavy work, such as lifting rails or digging page 1085 them up, but merely sealing and tamping, and despite references to what British and Russian women were doing, there was a good deal of uneasiness. Sundry persons, including members of the City Council, were perturbed about women doing pick and shovel work: one councillor even offered, as an alternative, to put in a couple of days himself, if other councillors would do likewise.²²¹ The women worked for less than a week. McLagan, Minister of Industrial Manpower, saw the use of women gangers, and publicity about them, as a device by the Mayor of Wellington to show what a muddle the government had made of manpower, and on 20 August issued an order prohibiting the employment of women on tram track maintenance. Charges, denials and counter-charges between the Mayor and the Minister appeared in the next few days, culminating on 15 September with McLagan's claim that a press photograph of the women at work had been intended for National party election propaganda.²²² Meanwhile it was agreed on 21 August that the women would be diverted to more suitable occupations and enough men would be provided to cope with the tram tracks. These repairs became a priority job, particularly at Wellington, where 70 men, some ex-3rd Division, were directed during 1944.²²³ Towards the end of 1944, rather more men being available while the shortage of women in all Industry was acute, recruitment of women conductors ceased²²⁴ and most gradually disappeared, though some stalwarts remained for years.

Taxi driving was one of the new fields into which a few score of women ventured. Before the war this wras, except in very isolated cases, a man's job, but on 2 July 1940 in New Brighton, Christchurch, a women took over her soldier husband's taxi licence, as did another at Rotorua some weeks later.²²⁵ In December 1941, with four women drivers working the same shifts as men and proving satisfactory, a Dunedin company foresaw an increasing place for women in the taxi business.²²⁶ At Wellington the first appeared, for day work only, on 20 January 1942, and 20 were on the job by March,²²⁷ though a year later the number had dropped to 12.²²⁸ In March 1942 Christchurch firms inviting women applicants for day page 1086 work found a ready response,²²⁹ and at the start of 1943 the Woman's Weekly reported that taxi driving was very popular there among younger women who were not trained for any job but who had previously driven their own cars. Forty were employed by one firm alone.²³⁰ In Greymouth, the first woman took over her husband's taxi in June 1942, and in Nelson where women had driven taxis for years, five were working in August.²³¹ Probably the occupation seemed less of an innovation in smaller centres than it did in cities.

At Auckland, there were no applications from women for taxi licences up to 19 May 1942,²³² and the authorities were cautious. An application in July to use women drivers was refused by the City Council on the advice of the Public Safety Committee, and two taxi companies stated that there was no shortage of male drivers. However a rule, proposed in September by some local bodies that women should not be licensed unless it was proved that no men were available, was rejected by the Council; it decided that, though in existing conditions night driving was not suitable for women and though there might be difficulties if a roster system became necessary, it would grant licences to women approved by the police.²³³ The first of four women receiving licences appeared soon after, driving her husband's taxi and saying that she was not afraid of being hit on the head but would prefer day duty. Other Auckland women had worked taxis from their homes, but she was the first on the rank.²³⁴

Concern about women driving at night was fairly widespread,²³⁵ though only Wellington, from the start, ruled that they could not drive between sunset and sunrise.²³⁶ At Dunedin, where there were more women driving than in any other city,²³⁷ a proposal by the Mayor that women on night duty should be given selected work only and not after 11 pm was soundly defeated: some 300 women on night shift in woollen mills and other war-working factories had to be taken home by taxi, and without the women drivers this would be very difficult.²³⁸ The Mayor's suggestion had been triggered off by a minor stabbing incident²³⁹ which was taken quite calmly, but page 1087 a few weeks later a woman driver in Ashburton was murdered on a night call²⁴⁰ and thereafter uneasiness outweighed any difficulties: in July, regulations established that throughout the country women could drive taxis only from half an hour before sunrise till half an hour after sunset.

At the war's start there were a few hundred women in the Engineers and Allied Trades Union, notably 150 on light drills and enamelling in car assembly work at Auckland,²⁴¹ but war brought no organised effort to train women for engineering work. Feeling that this would not be worthwhile²⁴² changed to some extent and, following overseas experience, it was decided to train some specially selected girls, apt in precision handwork, for tool and gauge work in the Physical Testing Laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.²⁴³ As men were taken for the forces and needs grew, various employers found women unexpectedly useful, sometimes better then the lads they replaced. They were, such employers reported, prepared to stick at set jobs; they were also highly adaptable, and good at intricate assembly; they managed drills and milling machines without a great deal of tuition. They showed special skill in making cores for cast-iron moulds needed, for instance, for hand grenades, a task which one employer likened to making scones, using sand and oil instead of flour. They even stood up to the strenuous processes of rubber-manufacture.²⁴⁴ For the routine of munition making, hundreds of untrained girls were directed into factories at Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and other places. Others were employed in the many improvised workshops here and there that made various parts for munitions and weapons.²⁴⁵ This, being obviously front-line work, had straight patriotic appeal, and was not unpopular.

Advertisements drew others into many unaccustomed places. As early as February 1941, young ladies interested to learn the construction of radio receivers were invited into Philips Lamps,²⁴⁶ and two years later columns were sprinkled with notices such as: ‘Young woman wanted for light Press Work in sheet metal trade, also for page 1088 soldering; no experience required.’²⁴⁷ ‘Girls for light engineering work (or power press) wanted, comfortable working conditions and good wages.’²⁴⁸

Traditionally, shops employed many young women and slightly more men than women. In 1939–40, more than 13 000 of the estimated 28 404 shops had no assistants, while the rest employed 26 579 men and 25 324 women.²⁴⁹ By 1943–4 there were an estimated 26 140 shops, 12 560 run without assistants, while the others employed 19 050 men and 26 000 women and there was little change in the following year.²⁵⁰ Thus men in shops were fewer by about 7500, while the number of women had increased by less than 700 As shortages grew, those who left were not replaced: assistants, like the goods they sold, were spread out more thinly. Further, the women behind the counters changed. Shops were not essential services, and were therefore milch cows for Manpower, especially in the industrial towns; they were also the recruiting grounds for 21 per cent of the women's Auxiliaries. Many adaptable young women moved out, directed by Manpower or ahead of it, their places taken by juniors and the ubiquitous older women. By 1945–6, in the estimated 28 138 shops (13 228 without assistants) there were 22 842 men and 29 759 women; that is, both men and women shop workers had increased in numbers almost equally, women by 3759, men by 3792.²⁵¹

The number of women employed in registered factories had increased by more than 10 000 during the 1930s, from 18 500 in 1931–2 to 28 900 in 1938–9. In the next six years they increased by another 10 000: 31 300 by March 1940, 39 000 by March 1945.²⁵² Before the war, apart from social pressures towards employing men rather than women, the acceptability of women was lessened by the long standing legal protective measures barring them from shiftwork and limiting overtime. Normally, women's overtime had to be authorised by an inspector of factories and could not exceed three hours of any day, two consecutive days in a week or 90 hours in a year, though in exceptional cases the inspector could permit 120 hours. Early in the war, the Industrial Emergency Council directed that this too could be exceeded with due enquiry as to page 1089 health and conditions.²⁵³ On 17 December 1941, a regulation suspended any restriction on women and boys working on any holiday or half-holiday, provided that the extra hours were paid at time-and-a-half and that the total overtime in any one week was not more than 12 hours; this would apply to any industry or factory that the Minister of Labour might from time to time determine, according to need. Overtime for women was still further extended in at least one factory: by a special regulation in July 1942, at the Islington works the maximum for female meat preservers became two hours a day from Monday to Friday inclusive, and four hours on Saturday, paid for at time-and-a-half with a minimum rate of Is 6d an hour.²⁵⁴

In 1939 the total hours of overtime worked by women and boys under 16 in factories was 950 140. By 1940, this increased to 1 241 807 hours; by 1942, to 1 549 635 (with 3902 women and 34 boys working 235 212 hours in excess of the legal maximum, 120 hours a year). By 1943, the overtime total was 1 776 462 hours (with 4983 women and 42 boys working 455 934 excess hours); and by 1944 it rose to 1 786 352 hours (with 4288 women and 22 boys working 392 493 excess hours). In 1945 their overtime declined to 1 529 704 hours, 2672 women and 22 boys contributing 207 421 excess hours.²⁵⁵

For more than 40 years women had been prohibited from working at night, ie, between 6 pm and 8 pm, which precluded shift arrangements. This restriction was removed when necessary in particular industries: munition works and woollen mills in June 1940; biscuit-making, 25 June 1941; bread packing, 14 May 1942; brushware for two Auckland firms, and the laundry workers of the Auckland Hospital Board also in 1942.²⁵⁶ Shift allowances were paid, sometimes Is 6d a shift, sometimes 3-f; refreshments were prescribed and for women finishing late at night the firm had to provide transport home, even by taxi.

The following table²⁵⁷ includes the women employed in all factories large and small:

Year	Factories	Working Occupiers	Male Employees	Female Employees	Total
1939–40	18141	16649	81507	31332	129488
1940–41	17940	16300	82316	34291	132907
1941–42	17421	16509	80469	37111	134039
1942–43	16408	15714	76754	38092	130560

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Year	Factories	Working Occupiers	Male Employees	Female Employees	Total
1943–44	16010	13985	80369	38245	132599
1944–45	16537	15114	84444	39042	138600
1945–46	17289	15899	88190	37663	141752

Other figures from the Government Statistics of factory production, which exclude many small establishments included above, show the numbers of women in the larger factories month by month:²⁵⁸

Month	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945
Janyary	20 759	24 020	26 885	29 060	29812	29 240	29 440
February	22 344	25 262	28 394	29 940	30 538	30 450	30 694
March	22 737	25 469	28761	30 511	30 797	30 746	30 866
April	22771	26 422	28 967	30 750	30 845	30 979	31016
May	23071	26 644	29294	30577	30721	30 977	30838
June	23 587	27 146	29317	30 502	30 624	30949	30 497
July	24011	27 548	29 607	30 038	30 485	30 925	30 393
August	24347	27 554	29 649	30 090	30410	30901	29997
September	24 535	27868	29653	30 168	30 369	30 942	29 878
October	24761	28 142	30 094	30 226	30 284	30 887	29 545
November	24 840	28 181	30 188	30 367	30 351	30855	29 386
December	24 686	28057	30 133	30 576	30 287	30 922	29082

January is normally the month of lowest employment, substantially lower than the preceding November—December. But in January 1940 the decline was a mere 666, and throughout 1940 the average increase of each month over the equivalent month in 1939 exceeded 3300; this relative increase fell to about 2400 in 1941, to just over 800 in 1942 and to less than 400 in 1943, though the actual peak of employment came in that year.²⁵⁹ That is, in the larger factories, those more immediately concerned with production induced by the war, the rate of increase in women workers was greatest in 1940 and 1941, before the Pacific war and the Manpower regulations of 1942. The first set of figures also shows the main increase in female factory employment as occurring before March 1942. These women went into the factories not because they were pushed, but because they wanted the money, they wanted occupation and they wanted to help the war effort, with the proportion of these motives varying from person to person.

Towards mid-1941 Webb was entreating ‘women of the middle classes’ to tackle factory work.²⁶⁶ During 1941, and even more in 1942–3, many older women, their families off their hands, often women who had never done paid work before though they had laboured hard and thriftily in their own homes, emerged in answer to the appeals and advertisements. They were not ideal for factory work as, despite their willingness, they lacked experience and could not learn as quickly or acquire the same skill as young girls, but they were steady. Some mastered the simpler operations on machines, and some did hand-finishing. Others were welcomed into work of less direct patriotic appeal, in factories such as jam or soap or biscuit making, in domestic work in hospitals and hotels, in laundries, in shops and routine office jobs, often replacing girls who had moved to more socially desirable or better paid positions.²⁶⁷

For many middle-aged women, bored as the pressure of young families receded, being out at work was stimulating despite the fatigue and the struggle with trams and buses. To receive their own pay packets, even slender ones, increased their self-respect and offset the nag of rising prices, even allowed them to buy work-saving devices such as electric heaters. They liked being with other women on the job, away from the silence and well-worn home routines, and page 1092 there was the sense of doing one's bit for the war. Previously such work would have touched their pride, or the pride of their husbands, but this was different; neighbours felt respect, not pity or criticism.

Demands from industry and the Services drew off women and girls, both directly and indirectly, from the domestic area.²⁶⁸ On 18 February 1941 a Press article²⁶⁹ had noted that women could apply for more than 50 per cent of the situations advertised the previous Saturday, compared with 30 per cent two years earlier, but of those specifying women half concerned domestic service of some sort. Many girls who previously had perforce taken such work in private homes, institutions, hotels and restaurants found other jobs now open to them. The change was most marked, firstly near places of industry which were more widespread than in peacetime,²⁷⁰ and secondly in some country districts which girls left in order to combine the excitement of living in a city with the virtue of helping the war effort. Not all domestic workers downed brooms and dusters; in particular many stable, middle-aged women both in towns and in the country continued to work for ‘their’ families, unmoved by either inclination or Manpower officers. Otherwise, with usually brief lamentations, most suburban ladies, busy mothers and hard-pressed farmers' wives realised anew that there was a war on, and shaped their domestic patterns according to their own energy. Some gracious living persisted, however, or tried to: in the New Zealand Herald 21–6 February 1942, and again on 11 April, a Remuera home advertised for a house-parlourmaid who would have her own sitting room and radio and £2 a week. Other private domestic advertisements on 11 April were for another house-parlourmaid, ‘four adults, cook kept, good home, £1 17s 6d clear’; for ‘General, capable, all duties, finished bagwash, 30s’; also ‘Woman, one day weekly, 11s and fares’.

An article in the Herald of 16 May 1942, commenting on the domestic labour shortage and the special reluctance to work with old people and sickness, pointed to an unfilled situation offering £2 a week for five days of four and a half hours, beginning at 3.15 pm, and another in a childless house for a cook-general who could take a child with her.²⁷¹ On the other hand a serviceman's wife with two children explained in the Auckland Star why ‘self-respecting’ women shunned domestic work: for half a day's work—a week's washing page 1093 for six, cleaning bath and basin, scrubbing bathroom, lavatory and two porches, polishing living room and hall—she was given morning tea and lunch in the kitchen by herself and paid 6s 3d.²⁷²

During the 1930s some Rarotongan girls had been brought to New Zealand for domestic work and, following the outbreak of war, the number of employers seeking them increased rapidly. The main influx was to Wellington where, towards the end of 1942, they numbered about 50. Arrangements were made through the New Zealand Commissioner in Rarotonga, though there was no official sponsorship. The girls were certified medically fit and spoke a little English. They came for domestic duties only, to approved employers, with whom they lived. Wages were generally about 25s a week less Social Security tax.²⁷³ The fare and a warm outfit, together costing about £23, were advanced by the employer, then deducted from wages by instalments; in sickness, or at the end of employment, the return fare would be paid by the employer. The girls were quite untrained but, once their initial shyness and strangeness had been overcome, were quick to learn, reliable and especially good with children. In Wellington their numbers gave companionship, club facilities were arranged and it was usual for employers to agree on a certain day for their weekly afternoon off.²⁷⁴ Not many such girls were available, and this prospect of domestic relief faded in April 1943 when the government decided not to admit any more.²⁷⁵

The managers of hotels and restaurants, who faced increased demands with diminished and ‘independent’ staff, were constantly before Manpower officials with pleas and complaints; some had much more trouble than others.²⁷⁶ The provision of meals for the public was made an essential industry, but this did not solve the problem. Labour difficulties helped to shut down two large Wellington restaurants,²⁷⁷ others closed at weekends, while James Smith's closed its tea rooms on Saturday mornings.²⁷⁸ At others, rows of tables were out of use, lunches limited to pies, sandwiches and cakes,²⁷⁹ and self-help, cafeteria-style service increasingly replaced the serving page 1094 of meals at tables.²⁸⁰ Even so, proprietors went grey over lack of staff, absenteeism, tantrums and rudeness, plus the unsettling effect of large American tips. In restaurants and milk bars servicemen sought not only food but girls, and it was very easy for them to disappear for a few hours, or even days, not singly but several at a time. It was nothing to have 12 out of 30 girls away on one day, or to have six or eight girls at work one week and two the next.²⁸¹ Increased wages did not ensure gratitude or improvement: a typical lament was that while the award rate for waitresses was £2 1s 5d, plus meals, for 44 hours, an owner paying 11s 6d more could still have his girls walk off without notice.²⁸² Apart from gallivanting, girls left for other jobs: the women's Services, luring them off to a uniformed, carefree life, were seen as special hazards.²⁸³ Such problems led in turn to dirty eating houses, complaints and occasional prosecutions.²⁸⁴

However difficult for hotels and restaurants, for hospitals it was even harder to find domestic staff; their work was poorly paid,²⁸⁵ there were broken shifts and no tips or enthusiastic servicemen. In mid-1942 the Wellington Hospital Board was driven to entreating women to give one day a week or more as cooks, scullery maids, housemaids, waitresses, wardsmaids or laundry workers, for award wages and wartime zeal.²⁸⁶

Mid-1940 had no industrial places for those eager to work but untrained; by 1943 even inexperienced women who could work only part-time were keenly sought. Anxious to tap the labour of women with families who would not otherwise be in industry, the Controller of Manpower and other officials urged these women to apply for such work and employers, by adjusting their organisation, to make use of them, pointing out that in England part-time work was well developed. Women need not fear that they would be caught for the duration; if a part-time worker found she could not carry on, Manpower would not hold her.²⁸⁷

Newspapers were studded with persuasive advertisements. On 6 August 1943 in Wellington, Adams Bruce, a cake, chocolate and page 1095 biscuit-making firm, wanted packers, full or part-time; Chers, coatmakers, wanted needleworkers, full or part-time; Woolworth's wanted shop assistants, preferably full time, ‘but if you have domestic responsibilities we have available part-time work between 9.0 a.m. and 4 p.m.… Congenial, easy to learn and interesting. Previous experience not essential, Woolworths do the teaching. Morning and afternoon tea provided.’²⁸⁸ Lever Brothers offered essential soap-packing work for women and girls, in pleasant conditions, mornings, afternoons, or 10 am to 3–45 pm.²⁸⁹ A clothing firm had part-time work for female pressers, experience preferred but was prepared to train women who could work four hours a day or more in pressing and folding smocks for the WAAC and WAAF and men's shirts and pyjamas. Another firm offered work to ‘experienced machinists or non-skilled workers who will be trained by experts.’ Yet another wanted ‘table hands and machinists and also women for sewing on buttons.’²⁹⁰ In a new building, with the most up-to-date factory dining-room in New Zealand, Hannah's specially besought experienced footwear machinists to spare a few hours daily, but were prepared to engage and teach any suitable girl or woman; ‘you can, by sparing a few hours each day, help your fellow-New Zealanders to keep their feet dry and warm while working for Victory—Top wages paid.’²⁹¹

In mid-1943, to meet particularly pressing demands in the tobacco industry, the Labour Department organised relays of evening workers. Two firms in the Hutt and Wellington, which together processed most of New Zealand's tobacco and normally employed between 600 and 700 women, during 1940–3 employed about 850 and needed more. In the first half of 1943 this need grew sharper; nearby hospitals, laundries, munition works, clothing and other factories all competed for local women and any who could be brought in, while extreme shortage of housing and rooms added to the difficulty of cajoling girls from a distance; the existing staff was already wearied with overtime, and the minimum target was 700 000lb of processed tobacco a week. Although called a luxury by many, the national importance of tobacco was indicated, on 1 September 1943, by the Liverpool miners going on strike till the neighbourhood tobacco famine was relieved, which happened that same day. The Labour Department, recalling earlier clamour for direction to spare-time war service, in July broadcast appeals and advertised for women already employed to spend one to three evenings a week on light, well-paid page 1096 work of national importance.²⁹² Public servants were encouraged in this enterprise, provided it did not interfere with their own duties.²⁹³ Some hundreds of women came forward, to produce a substantial increase in tobacco output.²⁹⁴

Before the war there was strong feeling that a mother's place was with her children, and the war eroded this very little. Even in the excitement of mid-1940 crèches were scarcely considered: an Auckland letter suggesting that local halls should be used as child-care centres, freeing women for industry,²⁹⁵ woke no response, nor did the suggestion from the Wellington Manufacturers Association that, in order to bring skilled women back to factories, it was willing to co-operate with recognised women's organisations in arranging care for their children.²⁹⁶

Wellington already had a Citizens' Day Nursery in Cambridge Terrace caring for the children not only of working mothers but also of those who were sick or travelling or having babies.²⁹⁷ The war postponed a new building in Vivian Street but renovations on that site gave greatly improved quarters in mid-19 40. There were then about 600 daily attendances each month.²⁹⁸ Late in 1943, as there was a long waiting list, the Nursery was enlarged.²⁹⁹

In November 1941 Webb, Minister of Labour, praising war-working women who left their children with others, said that the government might have to arrange nurseries where philanthropic women could care for the children of those on war-work,³⁰⁰ but such co-operation was not developed. Again, in 1943, when labour demands were at their highest and young married women with earlier industrial experience had proved their worth, combining skill with steadiness, a Christchurch manufacturer declared that his firm was prepared to start a creche,³⁰¹ but no factory crèche appeared. In general, an unknown number of skilled workers, particularly those with only one child, made their own arrangements with relatives or page 1097 friends,³⁰² while children of school age were packed off betimes, with neighbours or the children themselves in charge of the last hours of the afternoon. As pressure persisted, part-time work for mothers of school-age children seemed the most feasible advance. This was strongly urged by Manpower authorities, while in 1944 the New Zealand Employers Federation declared that, in consideration of the future generation of workers, no restriction should be placed in the way of a mother who wanted to work shorter or staggered hours.³⁰³

Only in Wellington, where demand for female labour was greatest and where there happened to be a sufficient number of forward-minded and educationally influential people, was there effective, though small-scale, provision for the care of pre-school children whose mothers were at work. One nursery was a community effort, two were State-made extensions of existing kindergartens.

Early in 1942 some Karori parents acquired a house with pleasant grounds in Raine Street, as an all-day place for the children of working mothers. The local play-centre, little more than a year old, decided to amalgamate with it rather than compete. With a trained Plunket nurse as matron, a Karitane nurse, a kindergarten teacher and mother helpers, Raine Street provided both a morning kindergarten and an afternoon play-centre, plus all-day care, including a cooked mid-day meal and a rest period, for pre-school children of mothers at work. Siblings up to eight years old could come for lunch and after school till 5 o'clock.³⁰⁴ With various changes, this nursery was to persist well into the Fifties.

The Education Department, whose Director, Dr C. E. Beeby, was more concerned with pre-school education than were most of his contemporaries, moved to help the pre-school children of working mothers in the industrial areas of Wellington. The Department announced, early in 1943, that with the co-operation of the Kindergarten Association it would develop nursery schools solely for children of mothers in work of national importance, beginning in Wellington where the need was greatest, and proceeding to other cities if this proved necessary. Existing kindergartens at Taranaki Street and Petone would be extended to take between them 100 children of 2½–5 years, from 7.30 am to 5.30 pm, five days a week, charging 1s 3d per child daily, including meals. The Minister of Education, Mason, while regretting that mothers of young children page 1098 needed to go to work, said that government must accept that it was unavoidable in some cases and see that the children suffered as little as possible. Hundreds of nursery schools had been opened in Britain to meet such needs and this was an important step in New Zealand.³⁰⁵

The modified kindergarten at Taranaki Street was opened in mid- 1943, then at Petone in November.³⁰⁶ Industrial mothers proved fewer than expected, but supervisors could claim that such places were a ‘godsend’ to some families living in desperately crowded conditions, where sending the pre-schooler to the nursery gave much needed relief to both mother and child.³⁰⁷ In mid-1944 the Education Department reported that ‘although there had been great public demand for such nursery schools, the response once they opened, was fairly slow.’ One had a short waiting list, the other was not yet full, which suggested that in normal times there would be little real demand for them outside one or two areas in the main cities.³⁰⁸ It must be remembered that apart from sickness, always a problem when young children are together in numbers and more so in the pre-antibiotic era, the effort of taking children to and from a nursery with no cars, and with trams and buses overcrowded, was formidable.

In Auckland, the Education Department's offer to pay for structural alterations and additional staff needed to convert some kindergartens into day nurseries was firmly rejected by Auckland's Kindergarten Association. A leading member, Mayor J. A. C. Allum, declared that it was most undesirable that mothers of young children should be diverted from their primary task of looking after their families and that, judging by the many young women still in government departments and other work not directly connected with the war, there was no need yet to put mothers into essential industry. Other speakers feared that if day nurseries were provided more mothers would be attracted from home duties to industries offering ‘phenomenal wages’, while some children, including those of servicemen, might be deprived of normal kindergartens.³⁰⁹

A manufacturer commented that, rightly or wrongly, mothers were in industry, their children under ‘scratchy, individual’ arrangements with relatives and friends instead of organised schemes; lack of proper care for these children was the cause of much absenteeism.³¹⁰ A page 1099 woman social worker, familiar with industry, suggested compromise: nurseries could be provided for existing needs only, not for expansion; and, though her concern was mainly for older girls, she strongly opposed anything that would encourage women into industry. ‘The problem of young girls in Auckland is grave… and it all goes back to lack of parental control. If we are righting for the future of our race, we must look after our race. There is something wrong in our planning if we have to ride to victory on the backs of our 12- year-olds.’ She added that as Auckland was less industrialised than Wellington the need for nurseries was less.³¹¹

Among speakers critical of mothers being employed out of their homes were Wellington members of the National Council of Women in conference during December 1942, who thought that it was not wholly an economic matter. Women needed interests outside the home, but this could be carried too far and home life, with all its influence, seemed in danger of disappearing.³¹² The WDFU, in a mid-1943 conference, decided to seek government support in making mothers realise that their first duty was to their children, and not to making extra money while their husbands were overseas.³¹³ The Auckland Star on 24 April 1943, noted that at Wellington, where lack of accommodation precluded bringing in outside labour, National Service was urging women into part-time work. It asked, ‘Has the stage been reached when mothers of children should be officially urged, or permitted, to go into industry, even on a part-time basis? Their homes and children must suffer if they do.’ Full use should be made of the thousands of young women registered for national service, or refusing to register, before women with family responsibilities were asked to volunteer for essential work. ‘They are doing essential work now.’³¹⁴ The attitude of the Roman Catholic Church was forthright:

If [said the director of Catholic education, Dr N. Gascoigne] there be one mother in this country today who has to work in a factory to make ends meet financially or through any misguided estimate that a mother in overalls is doing work more for the prosecution of the war than if she were at home, it is high time that the State ceased placing a financial barrier on motherhood, and that the true significance of motherhood in the well-being of the nation is recognised.³¹⁵

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Established opinion was firmly against mothers volunteering into regular employment, and those perturbed about young persons' behaviour usually attributed it to lack of parental control, due to fathers being away and mothers at work. But there are no records of the number of such mothers. The idea of institutional arrangements for children was not popular, as was proved by the nursery-kindergartens at Wellington. Efforts led by Mrs J. A. Lee at Grey Lynn to care for school-age children of working mothers remained little known,³¹⁶ though successful youth programmes were run in this area.³¹⁷ An article in a woman's magazine advocating day nurseries proved a damp squib: the Woman's Weekly of 29 April 1943, pointing to the wide use of day nurseries in England, America and Russia, claimed that it was not enough to employ women as a last resort. The war must be won, and women would do their share if a large amount of their working power were released through the centralisation of nursery care. This produced no discussion in the next two issues, but on 24 June one letter suggested that mothers of school children might work two or three hours a day if factories would have them and another writer could not understand how anyone could want to be parted from her baby.³¹⁸

Holidays accentuated problems for working mothers, and not only for them. Various efforts to meet these needs are discussed elsewhere.³¹⁹ War conditions also heightened the need for stay-at-home mothers and pre-schoolers to have small breaks from each other, giving rise to the play-centre movement.³²⁰

During 1942 the Services and essential industry seriously reduced the number of men available for jury panels in the Supreme Court, men between 21 and 60 years, of good fame and character. The Chief Justice in July suggested that jury service should be rated as essential and that the age limit of 60 might be raised.³²¹ The Auckland Star pointed to Britain where jury members had in war time been reduced from 12 to 7 and where they could be women.³²² Already Mary Dreaver, Labour member for Wakemata, had on 8 May brought in a Bill to allow women to be eligible for this duty, as they had been in Britain for about 20 years. As a private member's bill requiring appropriation, it was found ultra vires by the page 1101 Speaker, but it was re-introduced, by Governor-General's message, in October. It provided that women of between 25 and 60 years might serve on juries on the same terms as men, except that they would be placed on the jury roll only if they made application. In Britain this service was compulsory for women but in New Zealand it would be voluntary, thus avoiding the problems of exemptions. Mrs Dreaver believed that a woman, until 25 years old, had not enough sense or knowledge of the world to be fit for jury service and that, although men were eligible at 21 years, in practice there were very few jurors of less than 25 years.³²³

The Act was passed without opposition but it did not attract much attention nor was there a flood of volunteers. By April 1943 in the Wellington district 17 women had applied for admission to the jury roll;³²⁴ in Hawke's Bay two women applied and were approved.³²⁵ In Auckland 15 women joined about 8000 men on the jury list.³²⁶ In Christchurch, the Star–Sun noted on 21 January that no local women had applied, but by 3 February eight had done so.³²⁷ On 20 October 1943 at Auckland Miss Elaine Rebecca Kingsford became the first woman juror, in a house-breaking case.³²⁸ A year later, two women were on Auckland jury panels for the session in November 1944. The first was challenged on each occasion her name was called for a specific case, but in the following week another woman, unchallenged, sat on another house-breaking case, being the second to serve.³²⁹

In 1940, with eyes on Britain, a keen few wanted a woman's land army. The Mayor of Hamilton, H. D. Caro, believed that there were 400–500 women in the district ready to work unpaid on the land.³³⁰ Others were dubious:³³¹ the Minister of Agriculture, Lee Martin,³³² said that women's labour was not yet wanted; several farmers' spokesmen said that the would-be helpers should work in page 1102 farm homes and with the children, so that farmers' wives or daughters, already knowledgeable, would be more free to care for stock and crop.³³³ Many farm houses (some yet without electricity) were laborious to run, without washing machines or vacuum cleaners. There were no stainless steel and formica surfaces. Much cooking was done on black-leaded, wood-burning stoves; coppers, wash-tubs and hand-turned wringers were the normal washing equipment, and for cleaning there were carpet sweepers, brooms, mops and scrubbing brushes. In the farmers' paper Point Blank, in mid-1941, letters discussing the ‘labour problem in the farm house’ urged women to make more use of electricity: an electric hot water service was rated by some as the biggest single factor for saving time and energy, and washing machines were highly rated. The painting of tables, benches and shelves with enamel to save scrubbing was also advocated. Letters advised readers to acquire labour-saving devices and ways of living and to forget about outside help.³³⁴

In August 1940 the WDFU, saying that hundreds of girls were already working on family and neighbours' farms, thought that a land army should be under the direction of a government department and pledged support for any ‘practicable plan’, stressing that service would be domestic where necessary.³³⁵ But neither town nor country girls showed any enthusiasm for farm dishes and wash-tubs. Thousands of girls were aching to do useful patriotic work, stated the Woman's Weekly of 3 April 1941, ‘yet going out to do domestic work is degrading and a social come-down to many.’ It suggested that the ‘psychological effect would be altogether different’ if girls worked for farmers' wives under some ‘patriotic government-organised scheme’, were called war workers, wore uniform or at least insignia, and received their money indirectly from the farmers through a government agency.

Though a few women took over management of farms for brothers and husbands, the strength of the feeling that farming was a man's business was indicated by the reluctance of young farmers clubs to admit women to their meetings.³³⁶ The woman's page in the New Zealand Herald of 23 May, however, noted that since the war began a small number of country girls familiar with farming but ‘not “land army” girls in the popular sense of the term’ had offered to work for farmers, who had ‘shown no hesitation in accepting their services’. Dairy farmers, used to the help of wives and page 1103 children with milking, feeding calves, etc, worked with women more readily than did other farmers.

One line of dairy work was opened in 1940 and extended in early 1941 when herd improvement associations invited young women with farm experience and preferably able to drive both a car and a horse to become herd testers. At first there was a short training course at agricultural colleges, but soon the girls were learning the work at the milk depots. Pay was £11 a month, and they largely lived on the job save for a few days' leave at the end of each month. A girl would arrive in the afternoon at one of her 26 farms and stay overnight, weighing each cow's yield at morning and evening milkings and taking individual samples that were tested for butterfat content, either on a Gerber machine carried with her or later at the milk depot. If she had her own car, petrol and running expenses were paid, and to help girls buy cars, cheap finance was arranged. Otherwise a horse and buggy were provided free, and after Japan's entry most herd-testers turned to the horse. These girls proved acceptable and efficient.³³⁷ They were carefully chosen, the ‘flirtatious type’ definitely banned,³³⁸ preference being for the active commonsense adaptable sort, able to cope with a variety of horses, carts, roads, cows, farmers and farmers' wives. During the 1941–2 season, of the 220 field employees of the six herd testing associations, 180 were women;³³⁹ by 1943 there were only about a dozen men in the service, though many girls were lost to it because they married farmers.³⁴⁰

In the latter half of 1941 the government, in consultation with the Farmers' Union and its Women's Division, sought to meet the growing shortage of labour with plans for a land corps attracting girls to the land and farmers to the girls.³⁴¹ In the reluctance of farmers to consider women as workers, traditional conservatism was reinforced by uneasiness about wages: if they had to pay men's award wages to women who could not do some tasks, such as heavy lifting page 1104 or killing sheep, they would not be getting their money's worth.³⁴² This problem was met, on 6 November 1941, by regulations establishing wage rates for WWSA-selected girls of 18 years and more: on dairy farms 35s a week plus keep for the first six months, and 42s 6d plus keep thereafter; and on other farms 30s increasing to 35s. The next day the Prime Minister announced that the WWSA was to form a land corps, recruiting women to replace young men called up from farms. With an inexperienced girl, the government would pay 15s a week subsidy during the first six months. Each girl would be given a pair of overalls and, after a month's satisfactory service, a WWSA uniform with a green tie. On every farm concerned, there must be a man able to do the heavier work.³⁴³ For welfare and discipline purposes, the WWSA would be in charge, but the Labour Department's placement service would co-operate in placing girls suitably. Girls working on the farms of close relatives were excluded from the scheme, for the aim was to direct a new stream of labour towards the land.

The Farmers' Union gave temperate approval: they could not, said its secretary, A. P. O'Shea, expect women to be as important as in Britain, where farming was more intensive with more light jobs; the scheme would be a considerable help to dairy farmers, but on sheep farms it would be a full year before an inexperienced girl was really useful.³⁴⁴ The Press thought the pay good enough to attract hundreds of women, and fair enough to the farmer if the right type of girl were selected.³⁴⁵

A month later, before anything had got under way, Japan's entry greatly sharpened the need for labour, but both girls and farmers were apathetic. As an article in Straight Furrow of February 1942 explained, farmers were ‘hard up against the brute fact that disengaged fit male workers—single or married, experienced or inexperienced, are simply not to be had’; even at the end of November 1941 the vacancies recorded by the State placement scheme totalled 848.³⁴⁶ But farmers were still reluctant to face this fact while there was any chance of military service appeals succeeding, as a good many did in 1942–3. Among the first girls who applied many were town-bred; often to those with a country background farm work was too familiar to be interesting when set against a city job or a Service page 1105 uniform.³⁴⁷ As for the farmers and their wives, an ex-typist or hairdresser was about the last thing many wanted in their cow-sheds and paddocks, though they made many inquiries through the WWSA for women with farm experience who could milk.³⁴⁸ Some farms that normally employed young men offered good living quarters, on others conditions were too rough for a girl. Many farmers' wives, especially those without young children, would rather work harder themselves, fitting more farm chores into their days, than be invaded by land girls. A page of photographs in the Auckland Star of 18 March 1942 headed ‘Women take their place on the work front of the Allies’, showed a Russian girl at a machine drill, an English woman welding, an Auckland Post and Telegraph girl in roomy slacks driving a mail van, and a woman behind the plough on a Waikato farm: sturdy, middle-aged, with muscular arms, gumboots, floral frock, apron and wide-brimmed hat.

By mid-January, more than a dozen girls had enrolled in Canterbury and two had been placed on farms;³⁴⁹ and by the end of the month the Auckland branch of the Land Corps had 19 suitable young women but no requests for their services.³⁵⁰ In North Taranaki, one young woman ‘from a responsible position in a New Plymouth drapery emporium’ was working on a Tikorangi farm.³⁵¹ Semple, Minister of National Service, openly disappointed with both girls and farmers, warned that the male farm labour situation was likely to get worse and urged both parties to make the Corps a success; he also urged women with experience to take farm work, beginning at the top rate, £2 2s 6d a week on dairy farms, £1 15s on others, both plus board.³⁵²

The farming community still felt that women were more needed in the domestic area, and it was noted that a few girls on their own initiative accepted jobs with both house and outdoor work.³⁵³ By 31 March 1942, only 104 women had been placed on farms under the Land Corps scheme, which was officially admitted to be disappointing.³⁵⁴ The Controller of Employment told farmers that even women might soon be unobtainable: the Army, Navy and Air Force were taking them, there were many openings in the towns, there was talk of women working on trams, and ‘who knows what will come next’. As most of these jobs offered more attractions than page 1106 farming, ‘you stand a chance of being left unless you act pretty promptly’.³⁵⁵

The approach of spring and the march of the ballots, even though military calling-up was now delayed for farm workers,³⁵⁶ made some change. On 3 June, with 30 girls on Canterbury farms, the local placement officers called the scheme a success. A month later, in the Auckland area, with applications outnumbering Land Corps girls, an organiser said that the placing of the first girl in a district was difficult, but thereafter applications from nearby farmers followed quickly.³⁵⁷ ‘If 20 girls were to volunteer for farm work today they could be placed immediately,’ said a WWSA organiser early in August.³⁵⁸

Farmers were also seeking women workers directly through advertisements, a few from as early as mid-1940.³⁵⁹ In the ‘farm labour wanted’ column of the New Zealand Herald on 25 July 1942 there were 17 advertisements apart from those seeking married couples or men with special skills such as fencing. Of these 17, nine asked for or accepted girls: ‘Boy or Girl, milking and light farm work’; ‘Girl, milk and light housework, £2 clear’; ‘Man, Youth or Girl, good in shed and general’; ‘Land Girls, 2 mates preferred, capable full charge 70 cows. Willing assist in house. Wages, £3 per week each, plus bonus end of season’; ‘Land Girl, experienced for dairy farm, small herd, light farm work, good home, working conditions and wages’. Within the Land Corps itself, in July 1942, there were 203 girls employed, 13 awaiting placement, 8 applicants not yet accepted, and there were 71 vacancies on farms.³⁶⁰

Meanwhile the clothing issue had proved quite inadequate, especially beside the generous uniforms of the WAAF and the WAAC. Girls were complaining of the expense, in both money and coupons,³⁶¹ of the heavy clothes and boots they needed.³⁶² It was obviously necessary to upgrade the land girls in clothes, pay and status.

In September 1942, the re-organisation of the Land Corps scheme as the Women's Land Service, was announced. Starting pay on dairy page 1107 farms was now 4ls a week plus keep, rising in six months to 48s 6d; on other farms 36s, rising to 42s 6d. The subsidy for inexperience was slightly increased: 20s weekly for the first three months, and 12s 6d during the next three months, instead of 15s a week for six months. The clothing issue was substantially improved. At the start, each girl would receive three overalls, an oilskin, sou'wester, straw hat, leather jacket, five pairs of socks, boots and gumboots if available. After a month's satisfactory work the walking-out uniform would be awarded: a two-piece light brown costume with felt hat, tie, gloves, shoes, stockings and great-coat. Clothing would be replaced free or an allowance of 4s a week paid. There were holiday arrangements, giving not less than seven days every 12 weeks.³⁶³ Farmers' applications had to be approved by Primary Production Councils and girls approved as regards health, morals, etc, by the WWSA, but appointments were to be made, with district Manpower consent, through the National Service Department which held a country-wide list of applicant farmers and available girls. As before, a solitary girl must have her own room in the homestead, two or more could live in separate quarters, suitably fitted up; the government now offered to rent huts to farmers for this.

Girls working on relatives' farms had previously been excluded from the scheme, which had concentrated on attracting and subsidising inexperienced labour, not concerning itself with farmers' daughters already firmly employed. Now such girls, if paid for fulltime work, could be members of the Land Service, receiving the very worthwhile clothing allowance.³⁶⁴ The idea was to popularise the service and keep these girls on the land, though of course no subsidy was paid.

With these improvements in hand two members of Parliament, Mesdames A. N. Grigg³⁶⁵ (National) and M, V. Dreaver (Labour), in land girl uniform toured the country, appealing for women to replace many of the 23 000 men held on farms.³⁶⁶ There was still no great rush to cow-bails and tractors. In June 1943 there were, according to Mrs Grigg, 699 land girls, half being farmers' daughters working on family land; 127 applications had been withdrawn, which she attributed to laggardly issuing of uniforms. It appeared that even working clothes had not been fully supplied: 650 girls had overalls, 550 had working shirts, 645 had working hats, 592 page 1108 had waterproof coats but only 343 had working boots. Dress uniforms had not yet appeared; National Service advised that dress shoes and hats had been issued, but stockings and blouses were being held ready to go out with the two-piece suits and overcoats, which would be available ‘within the next week or two’.³⁶⁷ By September 1943, there were 954 land girls, 488 of whom were on relatives' farms,³⁶⁸ and the Director of National Service had remarked that providing clothes for farmers' daughters was proving very costly, while the original purpose of directing inexperienced girls, a fresh stream of labour, on to the land was being lost.³⁶⁹

There was pressure from Primary Production Councils³⁷⁰ and elsewhere for girls working full time on fruit and vegetable farms to be admitted to the Land Service, thereby obtaining official recognition, clothing allowances and travel concessions. Between September 1942 and the following February these girls were admitted, but thereafter the National Service Department asserted that, as originally planned, the scheme was restricted to dairy and general farming.³⁷¹ Clothing was far from plentiful, and expensive: the outfit cost ‘at least £25 per head plus £10 per annum upkeep allowance’.³⁷² The Department was aware that admission of farmers' daughters already working on dairy and general farms to the uniform and privileges of the Land Service had increased its numbers by more than half, with expenses in proportion, without thereby increasing farm labour. It was reluctant to add to this situation by admitting girls already working in market gardens, fruit and tobacco farms, many of whom also were on their parents' land. Had they been admitted, the 400 girls employed by the Department of Agriculture on vegetable growing for the Services would have had an equally strong claim.

In October and November, a brisk press and radio campaign urged women landwards, with slogans such as ‘food for freedom’ and ‘food production is war production’, while shop windows displayed the uniform. Advertisements in large type called for thousands of women to relieve thousands of men; over the radio came letters from land girls telling of interest and satisfaction, of a real and healthy life. In Straight Furrow, another article urged farmers to consider anew the growing answer to their labour needs. It pointed page 1109 to Britain's increased production and her 60 000 land girls, saying that most of New Zealand's girls were doing magnificently, and that after one or two came to a district, more were wanted there. Many farmers, the article chided, were wholly unaware of the possibilities of female labour, others never failed to decry it, though they would watch their own wives doing a man's work; some, believing labour unobtainable, renounced all effort to find it.³⁷³

This campaign produced some critical letters, showing several attitudes. One complained that a paternal government, having with gay uniforms, high wages and short hours seduced farmers' daughters away to the towns, was earnestly appealing to town girls to go on the land, but the farmer and his wife would not be grateful for an utterly inexperienced girl who must never do housework and must have frequent holidays.³⁷⁴ There was a good deal of objection to the an on domestic work. The president of the Otago Farmers' Union, referring to publicity about a girl, previously in a bank, now killing sheep, said that it showed the principle behind the employment of land girls to be altogether wrong. ‘A farmer can order a land girl to do almost anything outside, while he himself might have to remain inside to help prepare the meals. While a great deal of use can be made of land girls, I do think that farmers' wives should have assistance first’.³⁷⁵ Canterbury farmers thought it anomalous that country girls were in an inferior position to town girls in obtaining admission to the service, and the member for Hurunui, W. H. Gillespie,³⁷⁶ said that the service would not be popular so long as the farmer's wife had to be maid-of-all-work to the land girl.³⁷⁷ Timaru farmers said that employing a land girl put extra burden on an overworked wife and that this was very largely the cause of the reluctance to apply for them.³⁷⁸ Others complained of being constantly afflicted with land girl propaganda on the radio, painting over-attractive pictures of farm life; they did not need girls for such pleasant tasks as riding round sheep, but needed experienced men to drive tractors, lift grain on to trucks, haul lime, fence, shear, crutch and to grub gorse. Except on dairy farms, land girls would not improve production one iota, while if all the persuasion and energy were directed to getting the girls to help the farmers' wives, a tremendous burden would be lifted.³⁷⁹ The New Zealand Manufacturers Federation considered that land girls should be drawn from non-industrial areas page 1110 to avoid encroaching on the resources of essential industry and increasing civilian shortages such as blankets and pyjamas; their uniforms were a further burden to manufacturers.³⁸⁰

On the other hand, a Press correspondent said that no farmer's wife was asked to be maid-of-all-work to a land girl, only to cook for her, as she would for a man or boy employed, adding that girls could not be blamed for not taking up domestic work: ‘what they ought to do first is to train the employers.’³⁸¹ To the Auckland Star it was astounding that while farmers were crying out for labour, they hesitated to employ land girls. This could only be accounted for by deep-seated prejudice or by unwillingness to provide suitable accommodation. From earliest colonial days, women had done their share on the land and in the milking sheds, on thousands of farms. Land Service girls had shown first class ability after very brief training; Britain had found work for thousands of them and New Zealand women were not behind the British in energy and adaptability.³⁸² Again, five months later, a Star article commented on farmers complaining of labour shortage while not making full use of land girls, seemingly from prejudice, expressed in such remarks as ‘I wouldn't have one on my mind.’ This attitude came partly from the objections of farmers' wives who thought that they themselves, if freed from the kitchen, would do better on the farm than any imported land girl, but the farmer himself thought female labour no solution to his problem, however satisfactory both locally and in Britain. Compared with Britain, on a population basis New Zealand should have 2500 land girls³⁸³ instead of half that number, though the British figure included workers on poultry, fruit farms and market gardens, all barred from New Zealand's Service.³⁸⁴

By December 1943 there were 1592 land girls, of whom 847 were on relatives' farms, and a peak of 2088 (relatives, 1226) was reached in September 1944.³⁸⁵ Complaints were made, largely by the WWSA, that some farmers' daughters were not genuine full-time workers but were collecting the clothing and other allowances while avoiding the attentions of Manpower officers.³⁸⁶ At the same time, farmers were distinctly unwilling to take Maori girls, 46 of whom in March 1944 were waiting for places on dairy farms.³⁸⁷ In page 1111 June 1944, when there was difficulty in placing girls already accepted and with men about to return from the Pacific, no more girls from relatives' farms were admitted. However, those farmers' daughters already in the Service stayed longer than the outsiders: in March 1945 they numbered 1149 of the total 1850, and a year later were 848 of the total 1228.³⁸⁸

Throughout, more women were on dairy than other farms: in September 1944 there were 1153 (relatives, 691) on dairy farms, and 935 (relatives, 535) elsewhere. From the outset to the end, 4290 girls applied to join, 1582 being already on relatives' farms; and 2711 passed through the Service. They attended in all 2963 farms (relatives, 1297). In June 1945, in line with other pay increases, their wages rose by 10s a week. All recruiting ceased with hostilities in August 1945 and the Service was disbanded on 30 April 1946.³⁸⁹

Given that more than half of New Zealand's land girls were in farmers' families, they were a minor feature in the war scene. Deep-rooted antagonism between town and country was presumably a main cause; fear of emotional and sexual entanglement was probably another. In New Zealand's movement towards equality for women, the war years were too early for land girls to be accepted, or to act, merely as farm workers and not as women working on the land. Nor has this yet become general. Only on fruit, hop and tobacco farms and in shearing gangs is the post-war increase of women workers a notable feature.

In January 1941 the Air Force opened its doors to women for service in New Zealand as clerks, typists, telephone operators, dental and medical assistants, cooks, waitresses, drivers and aircraft cleaners. They should be of 18–45 years, and would volunteer for the duration. Promptly, 2000 did so,³⁹⁰ some giving up good jobs for a 48- hour week at pay ranging, with sundry allowances, from 4s 6d a day as a second-class aircraftswoman to 7s a day as a supervisor; plus the uniform and a sense of really ‘being in the show’. Employers were soothed with assurances that neither their stenographers nor women already filling the place of men in the forces would be filched away; that the wives of servicemen and women not already at work or in jobs not important to the war could release an airman from civilian-type duties.³⁹¹

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The girls applied through the WWSA, which made provisional judgments on suitability and was represented on Air Force selection committees.³⁹² At the start, as no sleeping quarters were provided, only those whose homes were near air stations were accepted, but later there were hostels on the stations.³⁹³ The first 180 girls made their debut at Rongotai in April 1941. They wore belted jackets made of air force officers' cloth, with four pockets and straight skirts with pleats in front, grey lisle stockings, serviceable black shoes and blue-grey felt hats turned up at the back.³⁹⁴ The hats were replaced by berets later.³⁹⁵ The Rongotai women were firmly approved and other air stations soon had their own sections of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.³⁹⁶

In February 1942, while the Air Force was renewing its call for women, it was announced that the Army and, on a smaller scale, the Navy, wanted women for similar duties, at the same pay range but for 44 hours weekly. As before, enlistment was to be through the WWSA, which would make provisional selection.³⁹⁷ The enrolment rate, especially for the Army, which wanted large numbers, was disappointingly limp. There were several reasons: the keenest had already hastened into the WAAF, which remained more popular; publicity was poor;³⁹⁸ increasingly, better civilian jobs were open to women; it was now realised that Service pay, despite travel concessions, etc, was meagre, especially if one had to live away from home, and there were even murmurs for equal pay.³⁹⁹ There was also discontent with WWSA screening: a writer in the Press said that it was time that the WWSA's powers were curtailed. ‘Why should a woman wishing to join one of the services have to join the WWSA before she can even be considered for her chosen service?’ It was superfluous, a waste of time, and until Army and Navy officers put their respective feet down in the matter, the results of their appeals would continue to be disappointing.⁴⁰⁰ An article in the Auckland Star pointed to another deterrent: ‘The woman over 45 today, fine though she is, thoroughly competent though she may be, is not the woman to put in command of large numbers of young girls. Their problems are not, and never have been, hers.’ Many young girls, seeing the women prominent in recruiting, had stated that they hoped page 1113 their officers would not be so old. ‘This may sound harsh, but it is a fact that the fear of an old point of view at the top might have been a deterrent up till now in the recruiting response. Girls want young virile women as their leaders.’⁴⁰¹

Enlistment procedures, involving essential industries and Manpower officers, as well as the WWSA and the Services themselves, had certainly become very complex, and by July 1942 there were only 600 girls in the Womens Auxiliary Army Corps.⁴⁰² Thereafter, in the interests of speed and efficiency, WWSA membership and interviewing were tactfully eliminated, and the way to the Services was straight through the National Service Department.⁴⁰³ The WWSA disapproved of this diminution. The Dominion Secretary explained that some districts had expressed great dissatisfaction that enlistments no longer came through the WWSA, which could comment on the suitability or otherwise of the girl applying, but were now made through Manpower or direct to the Army. With the latter, some ‘Very definite preferential enlistments’ were taking place, while some undesirable women had been taken on and then released. If the WWSA handled all enlistment, ‘it could more or less be the selecting body for the Army’.⁴⁰⁴ This suggestion was not taken up.

In October 1942 regulations which legally constituted the WAAC, WAAF and WRNZNS (Women's Royal New Zealand Naval Service) as parts respectively of the Army, Air Force and Navy furthered severance from the WWSA. These regulations applied appropriate areas of Army, Navy and Air Force law to the women, and provided for commissioned and NCO rank with insignia, saluting, etc. Grades such as section leader and supervisor had seemed adequate in the early stages, but with increasing numbers and mobility ranking badges gave inter-service recognition and incentive.⁴⁰⁵ Despite these regulations, the WWSA retained its influence at headquarters: the commandant of the WRNZNS,⁴⁰⁶ Miss Ruth Herrick⁴⁰⁷ of the Girl Guides, was on its Dominion Council, as was Mrs V. Jowett, late of the Plunket Society, commandant of the WAAC.

Enrolment quickened in the latter half of 1942, suggesting that girls were relieved at not having to pass through the portals of the page 1114 WWSA and that Service selectors were less finicky. Other pressures certainly helped this quickening. Publicity was improved: girls were photographed on parade and on anti-aircraft guns, news articles described life in training camps and on stations. Manpower officers were becoming tougher in their directives, and many girls, rather than risk meat works or woollen mills or hospital housework, hurried into uniform, which also provided a refuge from the trials of clothes rationing and shortages. The snowball of enlistment got rolling and by the latter half of 1943 more than 8000 women were in the forces.

For the WAAF, 8000 volunteered and 4753 served, 135 going overseas. Its peak strength was 3746 in August 1943 and by VJ Day, two years later, was still 2500 and 629 in March 1946.⁴⁰⁸ Besides the driving, domestic and clerical jobs to which they were originally invited, some did skilled technical work as wireless operators, instrument repairers, parachute packers, Link Trainer instructors and in radio-location and meteorology.⁴⁰⁹ In the WAAC 5000 actually served and 920 went overseas; peak strength was 4589 in July 1943, subsiding to 2500 by VJ Day and by March 1946 to 969, with 91 still overseas.⁴¹⁰ The WRNZNS was modest in size, and selective: of 1459 women who applied, 640 actually served. It reached peak strength of 519 in October 1944, and had shrunk to 297 by March 1946. Most served ashore in clerical and domestic work, but a few manned motor launches in Auckland harbour.⁴¹¹

Where did they come from? In mid-1943 a survey of 2118 WAAC girls showed that 11.5 per cent were married but without children, the rest were single; 59 per cent were less than 24 years old. Before enlisting, 17.8 per cent had lived at home, not employed; 21 per cent had worked in shops, 26.3 per cent in offices, 17.3 per cent in secondary industries; 10.6 per cent came from hotel, domestic and catering work, 3.5 per cent from the professions, mainly dental and other nursing.⁴¹²

The New Zealand Army Nursing Service (NZANS) drew its volunteers from those already trained in hospitals, care being taken not to deplete any section or area too severely, while to replace them other girls were encouraged to begin training. In general, Service patients in New Zealand were treated in civilian public hospitals, page 1115 where fluctuating pressures taxed staffs heavily; there were 65 positions staffed by the NZANS in home medical Service units at hospitals in military camps, Air Force stations, the naval base and, from November 1944, the Polish children's camp. Overseas service claimed 602 nurses, who held rank as officers; staff nurses were 25–40 years of age, sisters 25–45, matrons 35–45 years. Their organisation and activities have been recorded professionally;⁴¹³ to their skill and devotion the bodies and minds of their patients bore witness.