members, to make them more effective campaigners. Peak of power At its peak in World War I, the AWNL had 500 registered branches and more than 54,000 members across Australia. Using its massive membership base as a platform for achieving its objectives, it was very active in electoral politics, initially supporting male candidates and forming an important part of conservative political efforts across Australia. They employed women as paid political organisers, raised large amounts of money, and actively supported candidates, who sometimes had to go through a preselection process to attract the League's support. Some years after women had obtained the right to vote and to run for office, most of the first women candidates in Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria were members of the League. While they generally worked with conservative political parties, on occasion they did not. In one instance, when one of their favoured candidates in Queensland was not endorsed as they had demanded, they ran their own candidate, Irene Longman, who became the first female member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland in 1929. Actions such as these, the vast size of the League, and its highly-skilled political operatives, made it one of the most effective and feared political organisations in Australian politics at the time. Male journalists complained at the time about the power of the group: "Political godmothers rule UAP (United Australia Party) with haughty mien ... the political fate of the electorate was controlled by women." Merger with the Liberals In 1944, the AWNL actively supported the newly created Liberal Party of Australia and merged with it in 1945. The League's leaders at the time – including Dame Elizabeth Couchman and future senator Ivy Wedgwood – negotiated a tough deal with Sir Robert Menzies which ensured that women were equally represented throughout the structures of the Liberal Party, long before the era of affirmative action. It was agreed that the Liberal Party would reserve certain positions for women, that there would be a Woman Vice-President of the party, and also a Federal Women's Committee, the president of which would also sit on the party's Federal Executive. Menzies regarded Couchman very highly and observed: "She would have been the best cabinet minister I could have wished for". Some argue that the League had a major impact on the Liberal Party's direction leading up to the election in 1949, which the party