Hello from the BBC World Service and welcome to the latest edition of the

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In December 1918 a limited number of women in the United Kingdom voted for the first time in national parliamentary elections

and although it would be another 10 years before all adult women were granted the right to vote in Britain,

it did signal a major turning point in a campaign for universal suffrage which had begun in the middle of the 19th century.

The struggle to be granted the vote

had been a long and hard one in the UK

and the women who'd campaign for change

became known as the suffragettes.

Because the doctor tortured me, you see, while he was, when he was going to force him to feed me.

The policeman who was beginning to arrest her, I thought was there in life.

So I, pummeled him, filled him to let him go, and I was arrested again.

Over the next hour we're going to hear their story.

It's totally untrue what all the cartoons made us out to be.

One of the things that we were told was that we were not to look like cranks.

In April of 1913, everybody was arrested, the whole staff, everyone at headquarters.

I was protesting against a government, so that's why I selected the tower, a place that was known all over the world, which was much better than the shop window.

I'm Jane Garvey, and for the BBC World Service, this is the Lost World of the suffragettes.

Britain wasn't the first country in the world to grant women the vote. Canada, New Zealand,

Finland, Norway, Australia and the Isle of Man. A tiny island off the coast of northwest England, all got there

...