The GFS Overseas

5GFS/2/120 Flyer for the GFS Lodge, Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). A 1910 appeal for funds to build a new lodge stated, 'Colombo is a great place of call - (and shifting population, as regards Europeans). Several cases of women and girls being temporarily stranded...have come to our notice - The number of girls (often without relations) working as typists, secretaries, shop assistants is increasing - it is highly important a good boarding house or Lodge be started for them.

Soon after the parent Society was formed, the GFS also became established in other parts of Europe, the USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Until the late 1940s the Constitution allowed only British nationals to hold official positions in the GFS, and in the early years the focus of the overseas Societies was British expatriates. In 1883 an Emigration Department opened to assist girls and women seeking employment in Britain's growing colonies. An Emigration Correspondent was appointed to ensure emigrants received 'the proper salaries and wages in each colony,' and by the end of her first year in office she had supervised the emigration of 94 Members.