VALUABLE WEDDING GIFT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21326, 29 October 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

VALUABLE WEDDING GIFT

WOMAN OFFICIAL'S MARRIAGE RETENTION IN CIVIL SERVICE DISTINGUISHED CAREER Somewhere in the Mediterranean Mrs. Annie Catherine Mary Gulland in September was 011 her And the Treasury had given her a wedding present in the shape of a formal announcement in tlie London-Gazette that she was to be retained in the Civil Service! Mrs. Gulland is described as a " charming little woman," rather below medium height, fair and slim. It is a description that would fit many women. But Mrs. Gulland has distinguished herself. She has made Civil Service history, because she has retained her post as a first-class officer after marriage—she is only the second married woman to do so in 11 years—against the strong opposition of Civil Service organisations. She has done this, says the Evening News, because she is a " very capable " woman at her work of inspection for the Labour Ministry among women and children. Mrs. Gulland is 43—ages are not hidden in the Civil Service—and a Londoner Her husband is 60, a Scotsman from Glasgow, also engaged in the Labour Ministry in a grade two steps below tliut of his wife, and is entitled to retire on pension. Mrs. Gulland's salary is about £6OO a

year, but that is not her maximum. Her husband's salary is about £SOO. The case cf Mrs. Guliand has boon in the nature of a test case, because the only precedent is that of a woman medical officer, Dr. Sybil Overton, who is doing highly specialised work as a medical inspector in the Home Office. Mrs. Guliand has reached her present high grade in the Service in nine years. She entered Government service in 1916 as a temporary clerk in the Ministry of Munitions. She went to the Ministry of Labour in a similar capacity in 1917. In 1923 she passed the ordinary clerical examination for the Civil Service and became established. The salary for that rank would then be about £135. In 1925 she was promoted to the grade of third-class officer; in 1929 she became a second-class officer; and early this year she was elevated to her present rank of first-class Until her last promotion Mrs. Guliand was engaged primarily in the important work of trade boards, which regulate wages in selected industries. Civil Service organisations which want the marriage bar in the Service made absolute objected to her retention after marriage on the ground that her work could be done by another officer, and that it impeded promotion for others. Sir Francis Floud, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, contended, with the approval of the Treasury, that the retention of Miss A. C. Richmond, now Mrs. Guliand, was " in the

interests of the public service," and that, owing to the strict enforcement of the marriage bar, the supply of qualified women to fill the higher ranks was too small. So Mrs. Gulland may now conquer fresh worlds in the Civil Service. And, judging by the praise of her competence, even by the opposition, she will do so.