Temporary Migrants: Home, Abroad, and Home Again, 1945–1964

Abstract

Following the war, the Society shifted its efforts towards Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Due to the nature of travel to Africa, the Society’s safe travel and aftercare services were in high demand, pulling them into the kind of work that they had tried to move away from in Australia. In the age of decolonisation, however, the British government increasingly questioned the necessity of sending professional women abroad and by the late 1950s the SOSBW faced a reduction in its funding. After trying to reinvent itself as the Women’s Migration and Oversea Appointment Society in the early 1960s, its funding was withdrawn at the end of 1963, leading to a cessation of operations soon after.