If I was asked to name something I knew about the fight for women’s suffrage, I would initially think of the suffragettes and suffragists and their differing approaches at the start of the twentieth century to gaining voting rights. The cartoons featuring depictions of ‘what a woman may be (mayor, nurse, mother, doctor, teacher, factory hand) and yet not have the vote’, as well as images of women being force fed under the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ often feature prominently within the national curriculum and become a lasting association of the women’s suffrage campaign. Yet Amanda Vickery’s rousingly titled new programme ‘Suffragettes Forever! The Story of Women and Power’ , reminds us that women’s fight for equality has been fought for centuries and continues to be fought today.

The opening minutes waste no time in launching into one of the most well-known events in the history of the women’s suffrage campaign – the Epsom Derby of June 1913 (not 1914 as stated in the programme ) and Emily Wilding Davison. The video clip of Davison slipping under the railings, dashing out on to the race track and being trampled by the King’s horse sends a chill down the spine and serves as an instant reminder in the run up to the next general election that less than a hundred years ago, women did not have the right to vote. Having petitioned and fought for years for women’s suffrage, Davison’s death came at the height of a campaign that had started to turn increasingly violent as women’s pleas were ignored.

Although the early twentieth century is often the focus of study on women’s suffrage, with the activities of the suffragettes and suffragists forming the focus of the argument, Vickery quickly draws us away from this period and retreats back several centuries.  She touches upon women being sold by their husbands at Hailsham Market in the early nineteenth century, a shocking picture of women being auctioned like cattle made even worse when it is added that this occurred as late as 1928, when a woman was sold for a pound in South Wales. By using examples of women from the 1600s onwards who were actively protesting against their restriction on involvement in the political world, Vickery is able to clearly reinforce within the first ten minutes of the programme that the fight for suffrage and gender equality is an issue that has raged throughout the centuries. With characters like Emily Davison, Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett so often the focus of discussion, it can sometime appear that the fight for women’s suffrage began and ended in the early twentieth century.

The opening section feels slightly disjointed, flitting back and forth between events in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a timeline of laws leading up to 1991, but soon settles in to tell an ongoing struggle in a more chronological format, with the first episode focusing on the long eighteenth century. The ‘Bonny Besses’ of the Cromwellian era are shown to have been early challengers to the ‘patriarchal status quo’, although the horrific tale from 1772 of Mary Wilson, who was partially strangled and then lowered into the flames of a roaring fire whilst still alive, highlights the perceived threat of women who upset the social order. Wilson had murdered her husband but was instead charged with petty treason and so received a punishment normally reserved for traitors.

The differing experiences of ordinary and wealthy women is briefly touched upon, with the widowed Frances, Viscountess Irwin used to show that women who inherited land, property and money could hold greater power than their married counterparts and could become part of the political machine by supporting and influencing members of parliament. However, just as with their less affluent counterparts, elite women’s influence on the parliamentary political stage could only reach so far, although as Elaine Chalus has highlighted, women’s involvement in social politics could provide another way in which women could be part of the political machine.

Vickery’s absorbing and extremely empathetic story continues on from Viscountess Irwin to show the humiliation and defamation of character women could suffer if they attempted to make a more public and prominent step into the political sphere. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ published in 1792, both suffered attacks on their sexual reputation and personal lives for their political involvement. They were lampooned in press and print, yet Wollstonecraft’s reputation could hardly have changed more in recent decades – she is often celebrated as the mother of the struggle for women’s rights and the first ‘feminist’, highlighting the importance of looking beyond the twentieth century for the roots of the suffrage struggle.

The importance of charitable work is revealed to have been an influential moment in the late eighteenth century, with Hannah Moore paving the way for women to get out of the house and become involved in Sunday schools and associations that slowly began to challenge men’s hold on public life. The programme flows into the nineteenth century, continuing to highlight the influence women could have within societies, particularly discussing the connection of women’s groups with the abolition of slavery. Such positivity is short lived however, when the horrific targeting of women at the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 is revealed, along with the disappointment of the amendments of the 1832 Great Reform Act, both of which show how quickly progress in the quest for equality could be slowed down.

The opening episode of ‘Suffragettes Forever!’ provides a fascinating insight into the often overlooked back story to the women’s suffrage campaign and the ongoing battle for gender equality. Vickery steers the viewer through the actions and achievements of women from different walks of life and considers their successes and sacrifices with a genuine passion that is engaging throughout.