'Doing a grand job”: Tasmanian Girl Guides and Their Service Across Two World Wars

In the closing years of World War Two, Tasmanian men repatriated from the front were 'swelling the ranks of Great War veterans'' as they participated in Anzac Day marches to cenotaphs around the state. In April 1944, the march through Launceston to the cenotaph and then onto Royal Park for the commemorative service was thought to have been the biggest ever seen. The persistent drizzle did little to deter the large crowd of onlookers lining the route. Miss Olga Morgan laid a wreath at the cenotaph on behalf of the Launceston Girl Guides' Association, with the Girl Guides numbering just one among many community organisations represented on that solemn occasion.1 The relatively low-key presence of the Girl Guides at this and similar marches around the state was a potent symbol of their unobtrusive service within and beyond Tasmania during World Wars One and Two, the interwar years, and in the aftermath of World War Two.