Women's fight to win the vote was not just about high- profile feminists like the Pankhursts. It also involved an almost forgotten army of mill girls, as JENNY SCOTT reports. . .

THE phrase "Votes for Women" evokes dramatic scenes of middle-class protesters chaining themselves to railings, starving themselves in prison or throwing themselves under horses.

An altogether less likely image is of the low-profile, working-class woman, trudging through her long day in the mill and then going out in the evening to fight for a cause she believed in.

Yet this picture was once a familiar scene in East Lancashire and this month, exactly 100 years after the setting up of the Pankhursts' Women's Social and Political Union - otherwise known as the suffragettes - local historians have been looking back at the many facets of the fight to win voting rights for women.

Dr Derek Beattie, a history lecturer at Blackburn College, has been researching the subject for his book Blackburn: The Development of a Lancashire Cotton Town, which is due out next year.

He claims the dramatic actions of the suffragettes were just part of the picture.

"In reality there were many women who didn't believe in militant action, who were known as the suffragists.

"They still wanted to push for votes for women, but through the usual channels of collecting petitions and contacting MPs.

"In May 1900, Blackburn was the town chosen to start off a massive petition of mill girls who wanted the vote.

"They managed to get 30,000 signatures from across Lancashire and the petition was eventually posted to the Prime Minister."

Not that Blackburn was left untouched by the suffragette movement.

In 1914 a Miss Reeder, from Preston, set off for Blackburn on the tram with a bomb hidden in her fur hand warmer, which she managed to plant in one of the town's parks.

The terrific explosion caused mass panic among townsfolk who, because World War One was looming, feared the Germans had arrived.

Miss Reeder then made her way to Blackburn Rovers Football Club where she lit a fire on the empty grandstand. But according to Derek, such actions arguably impeded women from winning the vote.

"Everyone always remembers the suffragettes because of their militant action," he said.

"People like Emily Davison throwing herself under the king's horse at Epsom are still remembered today.

"But some people argue their actions actually prevented women from getting the vote for a few years because the government could not be seen to give in to militants."

Instead, the more orthodox tactics adopted by the working women of East Lancashire and elsewhere may have proved more effective in securing voting rights.

"Although the Pankhursts were from Manchester, a lot of their work was centralised down in London," said Derek.

"Up here in Lancashire, it was mainly a working women's movement.

"And it was the women in the mills who were responsible for extending the campaign to include all women. What the middle-class women were demanding was equality with men.

"At that time the only men who had the vote were the head of households so, if equality had been granted, it would only have been a very small section of women who got the vote.

"But the women in the mills wanted votes for all women.

"Campaigning was very difficult for them. After working long hours, they would have to go to meetings.

"Some mill owners allowed them to leave their petitions at work to be signed by other workers, but most women had to go round and knock on doors and collect signatures one by one."

What's more, the women who grafted in the factories and armed services in World War One were a major factor in the government's decision to give women over 30 the vote in 1918. This right was extended to women over 21 in 1928.