An international search for the poster girl of the WWII British home front effort has ended in a Hobart nursing home.

At 22, Audrey Harper put her Swiss finishing school behind her for the physically demanding and dirty work of a canal woman.

She spent almost three years ferrying coal and war supplies.

"It was probably some of the best years of my life," she said.

Researchers have been looking for the war effort poster girl for years, finally tracing the 91-year-old to her Hobart nursing home.

Writer Tim Coghlan says of the 120 women who signed up for canal work, only 33 lasted more than six months.

"Where these people were different was the physical labour, so few of them could take it," he said.

Mr Coghlan plans to use Mrs Williams' story in a book to be released next year.