We may all know of Emmeline Pankhurst, but what of other suffragettes - especially those in the North-East? Women's Editor Sarah Foster talks to one determined student who means to find out who they were.

LIKE many youngsters, when Sue Jones was just a child she had a fascinating aunt. Sue remembers her as old and with a knack for telling tales. Her one regret is that she didn't ask her more.

"She used to talk to me about being in London just before the First World War and witnessing suffragette activities," recalls Sue, now 59. "She was in a dormitory in a teacher training college and the girl in the bed next to her was an active suffragette and a member of the Labour Party, and she and her mother and sister were accused of trying to poison (the then Prime Minister) Lloyd George during the First World War as a result of their pacifism.

""I've discovered only recently from a letter that my aunt was taken along to suffragette meetings by this girl because they were not allowed to go out on their own - they had to go out in twos. I didn't get the impression that she approved really. I think it interested rather than galvanized her."

As a girl, Sue found these stories irresistible.

When she grew up she came to see just how significant they were, and when she started teaching history her early interest only grew. Yet it has taken many years for her to act on her obsession.

"I was head of history at a school in Durham and I decided a few years ago that I wanted to do some

research on this for my own benefit" she says.

"I'd always wanted to do a PhD so I gave up work. I started two years ago and I'm registered at Leeds Metropolitan University, so I'm a properly registered part-time PhD student. I've got all sorts of lines of inquiry at the moment - probably too many"

As Sue explains, she has a quite specific remit: to find out how the Labour movement was involved in women's suffrage.

She's fixed her gaze on the North-East.

"One has the idea that the male stereotype in the North-East would not have been interested in women's suffrage and I wondered whether that was true and how far women could get involved in both movements" she says.

"I think the links between Labour and women's suffrage in the North-East have perhaps been overemphasised in the past - I'm not sure how strong those links were. But on the other hand I know there were women in both.

"There were militant women who were arguing that there should be more rights for all mankind, and therefore women's suffrage was part of that, yet there were women who thought it was important that some women got the vote before everybody got the vote, because not all men had the vote. Some

socialist men didn't think that women should be prominent in their campaigns."

What's pretty clear is that it's hard to make distinctions.

Does Sue believe that suffragettes were here at all? "There was definitely activity - it's just trying to find this relationship with the Labour movement that's more complex," she says. "I can list and list names, and stories and characters begin to emerge, but the tantalising thing is I can't always tie them up, find out what backgrounds the women come from.

"In the urban centres, by using trade directories and the 1901 census, I can sometimes find out what occupations husbands or fathers were involved in but I could do with the 1911 census, and that hasn't been released yet. In the villages it's even more difficult."

Yet much as Sue has faced a struggle, she has made inroads in her search. With help from David Neville's book on women's suffrage in the north she's come to know of certain characters involved.

Now she's determined to unearth those who have yet to be exposed.

"The book has been a very valuable starting point but it's very much Newcastle-centred," she says. "My first job was to comb the microfilm of national women's suffrage newspapers and find any mention of North-East activities. I've set up a database and I'm recording the names of all the women who were mentioned, where meetings were held and the topics of meetings.

"I'm not just looking at the militants but also those on the constitutional wing who were prepared to petition but weren't prepared to be violent in any sense."

Among the places where activity took place are some not far from where Sue lives, in rural Durham. As she explains, there were some quite malicious stunts. "In this particular area I've found out that there was quite a lot of Labour activity and women's suffrage meetings in Cornsay and Quebec," she says.

"There was a socialist society at Waterhouses and women did election work - for example in the general

election in 1910 the women went and spoke at an open air meeting in West Auckland.

"There were a couple of active women in Chester-le-Street - one called Isa. I think her name must have been Isabella, or Bella, Faulkner.

"I don't know whether it had anything to do with her or her friends, but certainly telegraph wires were cut at Chester Moor as part of suffragette activity, and the cricket pavilion was burned. I think Bella was a member of the independent Labour Party and she was definitely a member of the suffragettes"

If things were blurred in the North-East, then this was also true elsewhere. As Sue explains, the suffrage movement wasn't just a single group.

"There were two major societies - the Emmeline Pankhurst lot, which was the Women's Social and Political Union, or the WSPU, and the NUWSS, which was the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies," she says. "Both were based in London but had organisations in the North-East. NUWSS were the peaceful lot, but actually worked extremely hard.

"Women wouldn't campaign on their own, they would belong to a group, but on the other hand they very often had to take the initiative to set up the group and then ally themselves either with the

militant or the peaceful lot."

Whichever one they chose, even to stand up for a cause was rare for women at the time. "The very earliest film clip of the suffragettes is from October 1909, when Lloyd George visited Newcastle, and there's a picture of a procession with various groups and banners," says Sue.

"It took courage because even women selling suffrage newspapers could be spat at or abused, so it was a courageous thing to be so public. A woman's role was not seen as public in any sense, so to take a political role and be seen to do that demanded courage."

At last, in 1918, the fight was won to some degree and women over 30 got the vote. Such was the impact of this change and of the cause from which it flowed that Sue hopes some in the North-East might cherish memories of the time.

"If people say 'oh yes, my grandmother used to talk about that' or 'my grandmother was involved', that's what I'd like to know," she says. "It doesn't matter if it's oral memories - it all adds to the picture. I've got the bare bones but I would love to put the flesh on all these stories."

l Anyone who can help with Sue's research, which covers the period 1893-1914, can contact her on 0191-373-2710 or email scjones47