Edith Rigby's fight for women's rights still shapes city 75 years on

Whilst the campaign continues to save No. 28 Winckley Square, the former home of local suffragette Edith Rigby, it is pleasing to see, writes Keith Johnson, that local artist Shawn Sharpe is busy producing a pioneering mural dedicated to her in the Harris Quarter 75 years after her death.

- Keith Johnson

Work in progress on Shawn Sharpe's mural next to Animate in Preston

Born in October 1872 at 1 Pole Street she was a sister of Doctor Arthur Rayner, a well known surgeon, physician and radiologist at the old Preston Royal infirmary. As a young woman she was always keen to help others, treating even the lowest of servants as an equal and cycling, swimming and gardening were amongst her favourite pastimes.

It was in early 1907 that she formed the Preston branch of the Suffragette movement which was run from 28 Winckley Square where she lived with her husband Doctor Charles Rigby whom she had married in 1893, aged 20.

The campaign to secure votes for women had begun decades earlier, but it was Emmeline Pankhurst's creation of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903 that transformed it into a militant movement.

By 1906 her followers, many of them educated middle-class women, were taking increasingly direct action.

Preston soon felt the impact. In February 1907 more than 700 suffragettes marched on the House of Commons in a demonstration that turned violent when police blocked their way.

Over 60 women, including Mrs Pankhurst, her daughter, and Edith Rigby, were taken into custody and brought before the magistrates at Westminster Police Court. It was Edith's first major confrontation with the law, but far from her last.