By1900, the possibility of employing girls as messengers was being considered. The Brisbane Courier of 11 April 1901 reported a situation as follows:
TELEGRAPH GIRLS.
"The telegraph messenger-girl has arrived (says the " Daily Mail") and there is just a possibility that one of these days telegraph messenger boys will be an extinct species. She has arrived at St. Anne's-on-Sea, the Lancashire resort. There are at present four of her and soon there may be more. Nearly every boy in St. Anne's is a golf-caddie and by a happy thought, the local postmaster one day got the Postmaster-General's sanction and engaged two bright little girls who had passed the required standard to be eligible for work. They were so successful that two more were engaged and St. Anne's is now as proud of its nice little telegraph girls as Blackpool is of its tower. When summer comes, there will probably be an army of telegraph girls and the idea is likely to spread to other golf-stricken neighbourhoods.
Probably, in time, the girl messengers will have given them the same facilities as "learners" as are now the privilege of the boys. At any rate, they are said to make better messengers than boys, either by foot or on bicycle. They are paid a penny a journey and a minimum of 5s. a week. They average 8s. a week.
Mr. Laycock, the enterprising postmaster, says that the girls have never to be reprimanded for delay. They are veritable Mercurys. Applications for vacancies have been received from Bristol, Manchester and other places but preference will bo given to local candidates. St. Anne's people think there is a great future for the telegraph girl. If she is better than the telegraph boy, as is proved at St. Anne's, why should she not be better elsewhere"?
The Federal Public Service Act was proclaimed on 15 December 1902 and was proclaimed as from 1 January 1903. Various classes of public servants were exempted from the Act including "Persons employed in non-official post-offices, contract post-offices, and non-official receiving offices ... officers' wives and others acting occasionally as postal assistants and remunerated by annual allowances, female telegraph messengers assisting in country post-offices, line repairers and linemen other than those on the permanent staff on January 1, 1903 ...".
Press announcements about the employment of girls as Telegram Messengers clearly an unusual practice - started to become more frequent during World War 2. The following examples are taken from newspapers in various localities"
| Broken Hill, NSW | June 1942 | Valarie Larssen | 1st in Broken Hill TO. | |
| October 1942 | Toti Stacey | |||
| Singleton, NSW | May 1942 | Daphne Lambkins | 1st in Singleton TO. | |
| The Argus 17 February 1945, p. 5 |
Girls As Telegraph Messengers. GIRLS WANTED - 14 to 20 years of age - for employment Melbourne and Suburban Post-Offices. Application should be made in writing or in person to |