The three-day conference was organised by a committee formed by The Sydney Stock and Station Journal women's editor, Florence Gordon, with support from her newspaper and Sydney politician Dr Richard Arthur, who first conceived the idea of the conference in 1919 because of growing concerns about the poor quality of life and limited services available to women and children living in the country.

[3] The organising committee was chaired by Grace Emily Munro of Keera cattle station, who was elected founding President of what became the Country Women's Association of New South Wales.

[4] The Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) was formed five months later, in August 1922, at another bushwomen's conference held in Brisbane.

Its founding president was Ruth Fairfax, who played a remarkable role in the development of the CWA in both Queensland and NSW, and the Associated Country Women of the World.

[6] South Australia followed in 1926, initially as the "Burra Country Women's Service Association" with Mary Jane Warnes as its founder and first President.

[13] The icing, spiced with rum from Bundaberg, Queensland, was made by D de Mars, an instructor in cake decoration at East Sydney Technical College.

The local police called in pastry chef Shaul Petrushka,[15] who made good the damage before the cake continued its journey to London.

Due to CWA being entirely self funded, unlike men's sheds, some individual branches did not have enough members to continue paying for their upkeep, including council rates, insurance, electricity, water and maintenance.

[19] South Australia and its president, Helen Withers, carried the mantle the following year[20] and then, in June 1947, Bertha Mac Smith from NSW took on the role.

[21] The CWA of Australia officially ceased to operate in early 2022, with the organisation explaining that this was (in part) as a consequence of increasingly enhanced avenues of communication, which meant a single point of contact was perceived to no longer be required.

[26][27] A 2007 ABC-TV documentary Not All Tea and Scones, written and directed by Carmel Travers and dealing predominantly with the NSW branch, has been released on DVD by Roadshow Entertainment.