To mark International Women's Day on Monday, March 8 the mayor of Bridport wants to find out more about the first woman elected to the town council.

Councillor Ian Bark enlisted the help of Cllr Karen Hunt - a historian, chairman of Bridport Museum Trust and a founding member if Bridport Women's History Group - to learn more about Agnes Suttill. It was Cllr Hunt who discovered that in 1921 Agnes had become one of the country's first generation of elected women councillors.

Cllr Bark said: "Yet, Agnes Suttill, this pioneering woman, is not celebrated in Bridport. The nearest we have to a memorial does not name her. It currently hangs in the WI Hall in North Street, which she gave in memory of her husband, John Suttill - a town councillor who died in the flu pandemic in 1919."

So why do so few of us know her name or her achievements?

Cllr Bark added: "Agnes Suttill appears behind a number of veils in the historical record. As a married woman the convention was to record her name as Mrs J. Suttill, so even tracing her life and finding her voice involves a great deal of detective work. There were other Mrs Suttill's in Bridport and this was not Agnes' only surname across her lifetime."

Who was Agnes Suttill and why did she become Bridport's first woman town councillor?

"She was born and brought up in Glasgow," Cllr Bark said, "and was aged 38 when she married John Suttill, a netting manufacturer in Prestwick and moved to set up a home with him at 24 West Street. By this stage of her life, she had attended Bedford College, had worked as a teacher and sems to have been civically engaged as a member of Monkton and Prestwick School Board and the Scottish Women's Liberal Federation Executive. How the paths of John and Agnes crossed is not yet clear.

"In Bridport… Agnes soon became active in a network of middle-class women who were able to take part in the public life through local charitable and civic organisations.

"Agnes' husband was a leading employer in the town's dominant rope and netting industry, but was also a town and county councillor, magistrate and Bridport's mayor from 1912-14. Agnes was therefore the town's mayoress for the years before the First World War."

As a woman, Agnes did not qualify to vote in parliamentary elections

"And as a married woman, she would not have been able to vote in council elections unless she separately owned a rateable property," Cllr Bark added.

"This exclusion mattered to Agnes Suttill. In 1910, she and other local women formed the West Dorset Women's Suffrage Society to fight for the vote. They were part of the non-militant National Union of Woman's Suffrage Societies.

"Unlike many suffrage organisations, they were not only active before the war but continued to argue for women's rights across the war until they renamed themselves the West Dorset Society for Women Voters after the achievement of women's partial enfranchisement in 1918.

"Finally, Agnes Suttill appeared on the electoral register in 1918 at the age of 49. However, she only got the vote through her husband's occupation of their home, 24 West Street. At the same time, she now became qualified to vote in local elections.

"Like other newly qualified women voters, Agnes's first chance to exercise her new right occurred in the general election of December 1918. Yet Agnes and all the other new women voters of Bridport didn't get their chance: the long-standing Tory MP for West Dorset, Sir Robert Williams, stood unopposed.

Historic election for Bridport

"The municipal election on November 1, 1921 was a historic one for Bridport. Not only was this the first time a woman had stood as a candidate – an achievement in its own right - but this pioneering woman was elected to Bridport Town Council," added Cllr Bark.

"When Agnes Roberta Robertson Suttill (as she styled herself on her election address) of 24 West Street presented herself to the voters of South Ward, she sought their support because:

• Women who form so large a proportion of the inhabitants, have hitherto been without direct representation on the Council, though by general consent, the aims and interests of women in the community are at least equally important to those of men.
• I therefore appeal with confidence to all Electors, men and women, to give me their votes, and promise if elected to do everything in my power to promote the best interests of the whole community.

"Agnes was elected and took her place amongst a sea of male faces. She served one term and was not joined by any other women during that time nor was her example immediately followed by others."

There is still a lot to piece together about Agnes Suttill, the biggest being it is still not known what she looked like.

Cllr Bark said: "Agnes is still hidden from history, but Bridport Council wants to commemorate her life and achievements and are looking for imaginative ways to celebrate this pioneering Bridport woman in the centenary of her election to the council."

Can you help uncover her? Cllr Bark can be contacted with information at [email protected]

Find the mayor's blog in full here.

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