This page may be called Women Today but sometimes it’s important to remember the women of the past.

Last month marked 156 years since the birth of one of the most influential women in history – the feminist, political activist and suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.

But how much do we really know about her?

As women today, we owe her a debt of gratitude because of her tireless campaigning for helping women win the right to vote.

Emmeline was born in Manchester in July 1858, into a family with radical political beliefs.

Her mother started taking her to women’s suffrage meetings from a young age, but it would be Emmeline’s husband Richard Pankhurst who would provide much influence in her life.

Twenty-five years her senior, he was a lawyer and avid supporter of the women’s suffrage movement as well as the author of the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, which allowed women to keep earnings or property acquired before and after marriage.

Richard’s beliefs in the social and political emancipation of women did much to bolster the beliefs of Emmeline, and his death in 1898 came as a great shock to Emmeline, who had by this time already founded the Women’s Franchise League which fought to allow married women to vote in local elections.

In October 1903, she helped to found the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) – an organisation that gained notoriety for its demonstrations – which included smashing windows, arson and hunger strikes.

One WSPU member even killed herself by throwing herself under the king’s horse at the Derby, in protest at the Government’s failure to grant women the right to vote.

Emmeline emigrated to Canada in 1919 and stayed there until 1926. She joined the Conservative Party, and was selected as a candidate for Stepney but just weeks before the vote was granted to all women over 21 in 1928, she died - without ever seeing the change her campaigning helped to generate.