Stop Press: The best books on women's history that inspired me
Why am I passionate about these books? I am a feminist author, having written about women's history for nearly half a century. Living in Oldham, I began researching the history of the radical suffragists across industrial Lancashire. Later, moving across the Pennines to Halifax, I learnt of Anne Lister – and became gripped by her diaries. Read more
Book Events: spring 2025
This is a hybrid programme: for Anne Lister, As Good As A Marriage, the sequel to Female Fortune which inspired 'Gentleman Jack', came out in 2023.
Meanwhile, the centenary is looming of women winning equal political rights with men - in 1928. At long last! And given the intrepid campaign on both sides of the Pennines by suffragettes and radical suffragists, it's never too early to celebrate this heroically fought victory.
January 2025
Votes for Women Across the North of England
Wednesday, January 22, 6:00 - 7:30 pm, The Portico Library, Manchester.
The Portico Library is delighted to welcome Jill Liddington to ask why was the Lancashire story for votes for women so well-known and the equally dramatic Yorkshire story neglected for so long?
Tickets £10 admission. Book here. 57 Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3HY (See map)
Jill Liddington moved to Manchester area in 1974, and in 1978 her co-authored book, One Hand Tied Behind Us. was published by Virago. It quickly became a Votes for Women classic, remaining in print ever since. It told the tale of the radical suffragists who, unlike the Pankhursts' suffragettes, flourished in the cotton weaving towns of Lancashire.
Then in 1980, she moved across the Pennines to West Yorkshire - and thought it would also take just a few years to tell Yorkshire's Votes for Women story. Not so. It proved very different - and much more difficult.
This talk asks why, compared to the Manchester region, the dramatic story of the Yorkshire campaign was neglected for so long. Despite her best efforts, Rebel Girls wasn't published till 2006, nearly 30 years later. What makes history research so unpredictable - yet, in the end, so often wonderfully rewarding?
Come to this magnificent library and join a wonderful audience - Portico members, Sorbonne graduate students, and members of the public from either side of the Pennines.
Not exactly a book event, but important news:
Archivists and historians:
Alan Betteridge 1942-2024.
Dr Alan Betteridge, Calderdale Archivist, brought Anne Lister and her journals out into the open – for the very first time. It was Alan's deft re-cataloguing of key letters that revealed how Anne Lister's secret diary code had been cracked c1892. Jill's obituary of Alan Betteridge will be published in History Workshop Journal shortly – to honour this remarkable yet modest man.
March-April
Saturday 29 March – Sunday 6 April.
Anne Lister Festival 2025, Halifax.
The programme will be released on 11 January 2025. See website
As Good As A Marriage: the Anne Lister diaries 1836-38 came out in paperback last July.