FACTS AT A GLANCE

1918 November: Suitably qualified women can stand for election to Parliament. December: Seventeen women stand for Parliament, including Christabel Pankhurst who stands for the Women’s Party in Smethwick. She is defeated by a male Labour candidate. Only Countess Markievicz is elected, the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons. An Irish Republican, she refuses to take the oath of allegiance to Britain and the royal family so does not take her seat.

1919 November: Conservative Viscountess Lady Astor is elected to the House of Commons, becoming the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. Annie Lile, of 13 Pevensey Road, St Leonards, becomes the first woman to be elected to Hastings Borough Council. 1923 Geologist and women’s rights activist Maria Gordon stands unsuccessfully as Liberal parliamentary candidate in Hastings. 1924 Muriel Matters stands unsuccessfully as a Labour Parliamentary candidate.

1992 Hastings and Rye elects its first woman MP, Tory Jacquie Lait.

2010 Hastings and Rye elects its second woman MP, Tory Amber Rudd

2017 General election: A record 208 women are elected to the House of Commons. They still make up only 32% of MPs. Women still have a long way to go before they are equally represented.

“Women voted extraordinarily well in all wards and quite disapproved the idea that they would not take sufficient interest to vote.”

Hastings and St Leonards Observer on local women voting for the first time. December 1918