Rose Venn Brown was the first Australian woman to sign on for war work in France. She would also be the last to leave. When war broke out, Rose was working as the Assistant Registrar at Sydney Hospital. But Rose Venn Brown believed her duty lay elsewhere. She procured a passage to London and was appointed to AIF Medical Records.

Just a month later, Rose began working for the Red Cross. She was in France long before the AIF was sent there. Rose Venn Brown spent five years on or near the battlefields. She often risked her life distributing comforts in forward sections of the line.

With war’s end, Rose became the first woman to join the War Graves Commission and worked in what were called the ‘devastated areas’. She set up a digger’s club, dispensing tea and good cheer to the men who worked there.

Rose stayed in Villers-Bretonneux when it was not much more than a ruin. Over the graves of her countrymen she planted roses, daisies, and forget-me-nots, spreading warmth and colour across the moonscape of the Somme. And she took photographs of the resting places of hundreds of Australian men to send to their families, mindful that most would never make that journey themselves.

Many of the accolades of Rose Venn Brown describe her as a ‘dutiful daughter’ of Australia. But that description does not quite ring true. ‘Dutiful’ does not convey the independence and initiative of Rose Venn Brown. Following the war, she continued to travel, exploring remote parts of Asia, and advocating the interests of Australian trade. Dressed in mannish uniform, she transgressed traditional and restrictive gender boundaries, boldly asserting there was nothing a woman couldn't do.

Rose Venn Brown’s story alerts us to the many and diverse forms women’s work could take in wartime and the way it involved both physical and emotional labour. It highlights both the opportunities and constraints war presented for women and signals the erosion of restrictive gender roles. Finally, Venn Brown herself demonstrates the way war empowered the ‘new woman’ of the twentieth-century; it extended horizons, encouraged the acquisition of new skills, and enabled a greater degree of mobility than ever before.