Book Events: autumn 2025 - spring 2026
Anne Lister certainly isn't going away! As Good As A Marriage, the sequel to Female Fortune which inspired 'Gentleman Jack', came out in paperback last July. Meanwhile, the 2028 centenary is looming of women winning equal political rights with men - at long last! And given the intrepid campaigns by both suffragettes and radical suffragists, it's never too early to celebrate this heroically-fought victory.
October
Saturday 11: Writing Women Up North - Ilkley Literature Festival, 7.30.
When we think of women writing in the north, we usually think of the Brontes. Yet there have been so many other Northern women who wrote compellingly about their own lives. Join Jill Liddington for a revealing talk on some of the fascinating northern women writers celebrated in her books. They range from such icons as Anne Lister, whose five-million-word diaries were written partly in her own secret code; to radical suffragist Selina Cooper, one of the 29,000 Lancashire women cotton workers who signed their suffrage petition which she took down to Westminster in 1901.
Venue: Ilkley Playhouse, Wildman Theatre, Weston Road, LS29 8DW.
Book-signing session: talk/Q&A will be followed by a signing session, courtesy of Ilkley's Grove Bookshop.
Tickets: £12/£9. More info. Or phone 01943 816714. Don't delay: tix are going fast!
November
Saturday 15: Lancashire Local History Federation 'At Home', Preston.
Jill joins local historians talking about the treasures in the Lancashire Record Office at Preston, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Here, she deposited the archives of Selina Cooper of Nelson. These shed an invaluable light on the radical suffragists' campaign for Votes for Women across industrial Lancashire – recorded for the first time in One Hand Tied Behind Us (Virago 1978 & more recent editions).
Venue: Lancashire Archives, Bow Lane, Preston PR1 2RE. 9.30 for 10 am start..
January 2026
Tuesday 20: Anne Lister: what did she ever do for Calderdale? Todmorden.
Jill Liddington, author of Female Fortune which inspired TV's 'Gentleman Jack', is joined by Rachel Lappin, Calderdale's Anne Lister Programme Coordinator.
We say: Anne Lister did lots! Her magnificent five-million-word diary with its secret code is now included in UNESCO's UK Memory of the World register. International recognition indeed! And when Sally Wainwright's 'Gentleman Jack' aired on BBC1 and on HBO in the US, it attracted a global audience - many of whom now head to Halifax to celebrate Anne's birthday each April. So, yes, Anne's done an amazing amount for Calderdale!
Venue: Todmorden Antiquarians, Todmorden Community College, Burnley Road, OL14 7BX. 7 pm for 7.30.
Bookstall with Anne Lister book-signing session.
Tickets: for visitors: £3.
February
Wednesday 11: Votes for Women across the North – Saddleworth.
Saddleworth lies mid-way between Lancashire and Yorkshire: both were key textile regions, yet each so very different. In the Lancashire towns, no fewer than 90,000 women were well organized in cotton trade unions. Annie Kenney from nearby Oldham was swept up by the Pankhursts as a suffragette, while socialist Selina Cooper from Nelson became a radical suffragist. Both campaigned for Votes for Women. Yet their tactics differed dramatically.
Across Yorkshire, with its more mixed industrial economy, textile trade unions were less powerful. While Huddersfield recruited many textile workers as suffragettes, elsewhere in cities like York middle-class Liberal women were prominent.
Venue: Saddleworth Historical Society, Museum, High St, Uppermill, Saddleworth OL3 6HS.
Time: 7pm for 7.30 start.
Bookstall with suffrage book-signing session.
Friday 20: Votes for Women in Halifax – and across Yorkshire. Halifax Civic Trust.
Halifax's suffragettes campaigned very actively: women like Poor Law Guardian Mary Taylor and textile worker Lavena Saltonstall. In 1907, these local suffragettes went down to Westminster – where they were arrested and sentenced to 14 days in prison. As it happens, we know more about the Huddersfield suffragettes – because miraculously their WSPU minute book has survived. And artist Florence Lockwood from nearby Colne Valley recorded her life as a local suffragist in her autobiography, An Ordinary Life (1932), which came out in a new edition in 2024.
Booking details to follow.
March
Sunday 8: Isabella Ford and Votes for Women campaigns – Leeds.
To mark International Women's Day, June Hannam, biographer of Isabella Ford, speaks on Leeds' eminent suffragist. A pioneer member of the ILP, Isabella also bravely joined the 1909 suffrage caravan tour which took the Votes for Women message out to the remotest Yorkshire dales.
Jill Liddington's Rebel Girls: their fight for the Vote (2006) tells the tale of suffrage campaigners right across the vast Yorkshire region. Of particular interest to Ford-Maguire members is the 1912 labour-suffrage pact: National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) suffragists even set up an Election Fighting Fund to support Labour candidates fighting elections.
Venue: Holbeck Working Men's Club, Jenkinson Lawn, Leeds LS11 9QX.
The Ford-Maguire Society seminar: further details to follow.
Bookstall with suffrage book-signing session.
April
First week of April: Anne Lister Festival, Halifax. Programme details to follow.