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In Victorian era days of New Zealand, the European population could be grouped in three classes, based on their source of income. First, families whose income was derived from the wage-earner's labour; second, the small farmer, the trades-people and the civil service group; and third, the wealthy land-occupier, those in the professions or in politics.

It is difficult today to appreciate just how different life was in New Zealand society one hundred or more years ago. Apart from the material things, such as transport commonly being by horse and coach or, where they existed, by steam-trains, the culture of those days was so entirely different. In just one example, today when we go into a bank or a post office, our wants are seen to from behind the counter by women. The manager may be a man or a woman. It is not too many years ago that there were mostly men behind the office counter, and the manager was always a man!

The great social changes of the 1890s such as women's suffrage, the introduction of the first state-funded pension schemes and the opening of wide areas of land for small farm settlement, seem to have accelerated changes in New Zealand's social mores and culture. But it took the sacrifices demanded of many families during the 1914–1918 War to break down class distinction, and introduce the more willing acceptance of women into the civil service and professional areas.

In the Victorian era, the male income earner was usually dominant, and it was difficult for women to be accepted as equals. This was just as true of employment opportunities, including the banking and the civil service groups. It also seems to have been true of the early teaching profession, as early lists of teachers are very largely comprised of men. But, as more and more independent and strong-minded women commenced carving out careers for themselves in the several professions, it became easier for other women to enter those areas of the workforce.

The Post Office is an excellent example of the change from a male dominated profession in the 1850s, to a service far more gender balanced by the 1950s. Though post offices have been operating in New Zealand from 1840, at first they were mostly "add-on" duties. When the Department was formed in 1858, the first fee full-time salaried employees were all men. Likewise, with the formation of the Telegraph Department in 1864, the staff were all men. By the time the offices were merged in 1881, to form the Post and Telegraph Department, a few women had achieved appointment.

It needs to be appreciated that most post offices commenced as agencies, operated out of a settlement's general store. Not until the telegraph office arrived did the agency move to a "staffed" office. In country areas, the telegraphist was also the Lineman, who had the responsibility of maintaining the line for miles in either direction. He was also usually made the postmaster, taking over from the store. The departmental policy was that the appointee preferably be a married man, so that when he was out working on the lines, his wife could run the office; no extra pay of course!

The telegraph line reached Nelson, from Blenheim via Havelock, in March 1866 when a telegraph office was opened in Nelson. The Provincial Council sponsored an extension line to Motueka, which opened on 27 May 1872 under 21-year old Charles Edmund Nicholas. When extended over the ranges to Takaka, the service was at first operated by telephone. Joseph Francis Fabian, who had already had ten years experience in isolated localities on the Wellington – Hawkes Bay line, opened the Takaka office on 1 April 1881.

In the south, a line had worked its way up the Buller from Reefton, reaching Lyell in page 311874. In 1876 a line was constructed south from Nelson, to link up at Lyell. The route followed the railway construction south to Foxhill, then struck overland to Tophouse, before swinging back to head for the Buller. From Tophouse another line ran through the Wairau to Blenheim. Arthur Fitchett was the first lineman at Foxhill, 1 August 1876, with William Jabez White at Tophouse 1 May 1876.

At this time Lyell was an important goldmining centre, with both Postmaster/Telegraphist, and a lineman. The latter was Lyvian Warne, who was moved to establish the key lineman's station through the Buller at Longford on 1 March 1878.

Though I have not located the names of the wives of these pioneer appointments, we can be sure that they had the responsibility of looking after the office in their husband's absence. The country post office building in the mid 1870s was a standard design of a combined office/residence, single storey and built of timber. The front room was used as the office and, as business grew and more rooms were taken over, the family was squeezed into what was left, until an alternative residence was taken up.

It was actually quite expensive to erect a small office/residence and to employ a skilled man, and when it was found, around 1881, that telephones could be used over telegraph lines, the local storekeeper-postmaster was made a telephonist, in preference to opening a telegraph office. The first women telegraphists had entered the service, in the South Island, in 1874, but it was not until the opening of more and more telephone exchanges, in the 1890s, that they were able to enter the service in greater numbers, through becoming exchange-attendants.

Miss Barbara Mouat, then aged a little under 20, appears to be the first woman in New Zealand to have been accepted in the Telegraph Learner's Gallery in Wellington, starting on 1 January 1874. After her three month's training, she was sent to the Nelson telegraph office as a cadet, on a salary of 75 pounds a year. Two years later she was brought back to Wellington as telegraphist and, in September 1877, was sent to Dunedin. She was later appointed the first salaried or permanent staff postmistress in New Zealand, taking over the South Dunedin office from 1 February 1884. Even then she was listed separately, in the non-clerical division, and not amongst the men!

The "liberalisation" decade of the 1890s also saw women being appointed as full-time salaried postmistresses, usually in small country settlements. On the civil service becoming "classified" for salary and promotion purposes in 1894, such few women were described as "Extra-classified", though they were still listed amongst storekeeper agencies. Their maximum annual salary of 65 pounds was less than that paid to the men, and they faced other restrictions.

A slowly increasing number of post offices became extra-classified and, in 1908, opening of access to civil service superannuation schemes for women forced re-examination of their status.

The following notice regarding the employment of women was gazetted in 1907: