On International Women's Day read about Hitchin Suffragette, Elizabeth Impey.

The piece details the struggles the inspirational Elizabeth faced in her determination to secure equality for women - and how she was shunned by many in Hitchin because of her principled campaigning, that saw her sent to prison.

The article was written by Richard Whitmore in July 1958 and published that month in the Hertfordshire Express.

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On Monday afternoon an elderly Hitchin lady with a very young heart went to the House of Commons to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the Women's Suffrage Movement.

It was for her an event of bitter-sweet memories of 50 years ago when, as Hitchin's principal suffragette, she suffered imprisonment, ridicule and assault in her fight for the right of women to vote.

It was in March 1906 that Mrs Elizabeth B Impey, now of "Westover" Benslow Rise, Hitchin, went to prison for a fortnight after being found guilty of "disorderly conduct and resisting the police" while campaigning in London.

When I went to see her during the weekend, she told me of some of the incidents which took place in this allegedly sleepy hollow of Hitchin – events which to today's younger generation are "eye-openers."

Before 1905, when the Suffragette Movement got under way, Mr & Mrs Arthur Impey were active members of the local Liberal Association and they played a large part in returning Mr Bertram as Liberal MP for Hitchin.

At the same time Mrs Impey was working in a quiet way for associations interested in the enfranchisement of women.

You will understand her horror, therefore, when the man whom she and her husband had helped to get into Parliament immediately voted against a Bill that would have meant votes for women.

She became a member of the Women's Social and Political Union and was eventually elected secretary of the Hertfordshire branch, working alongside Lady Constance Lytton of Knebworth House.

Her husband became one of the first members of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage.

Prior to Mrs Impey's imprisonment, things had been fairly quiet in Hitchin.

It was after her release that the ordeal began. But first, those 14 days in Holloway Gaol. Mrs Impey told me that her arrest came while she and two friends were on their way to a rally.

They were walking three-abreast with arms linked. A policeman – who later told them he was known as "Big Ben of Lambeth" – asked them not to walk down the road with arms linked.

They refused his request three times and this apparently constituted "disorderly conduct and resisting the police."

They were arrested, bailed and later appeared at Rochester Row Police Court. While Mrs Impey was waiting for her case to be heard the friendly "Big Ben" sat on the courthouse steps with Elizabeth – sharing her sandwiches!

"At Holloway we were in either second or third class cells," Mrs Impey recalled. "We had to sleep on a mattress only an inch thick on stone floors. Because we were considered political prisoners we were not allowed newspapers."

But her real ordeal came after her release from prison. Mrs Impey became a social outcast in Hitchin.

An active church worker before her imprisonment she was now actively discouraged from even worshipping at her church.

Former friends snubbed her and the more petty-minded – horrified that a woman from Hitchin should have been to gaol and, in their eyes, made an exhibition of herself – now looked upon her as a criminal.

Yet, Mrs Impey carried on with her work. The bitterness shown towards her by Hitchin townspeople made her even more determined in her efforts.

She organised visits by prominent suffragette leaders and caused near riots at political meetings.

On several occasions mounted police reinforcements had to be brought in from other parts of the county.

The Impey's house in Whinbush Road was once stormed by a large crowd of anti-suffragette men and women . . . fortunately just after she had left to stay with a friend.

At one meeting at Hitchin Town Hall, where Bertram the MP was speaking, the suffragette heckling led to a major disturbance in which "many young Labour and Conservative heads were broken" she said.

"The police, having anticipated trouble, had a troop of mounted policemen waiting in the yard behind the Cock Hotel. At a given signal they stormed the Town Hall."

On another occasion at a suffragette meeting in Hitchin Corn Exchange the crowd was in such an ugly mood that the police had to smuggle Mrs Impey out of a side entrance.

The crowd waiting for her had to content themselves with pelting other suffragettes with eggs and tomatoes. "The Superintendent was really concerned," Mrs Impey told me. "He said he was frightened that the crowd would lynch me."

Although most people have now forgotten those happenings it was many years before Mrs Impey found her life had returned to normal.

Today she has many souvenirs of those hectic years.

She showed me her autograph book containing the signatures of fellow suffragettes and such writings as "In Holloway from February 1 to February 27 for attempting to see Mr Asquith at 10 Downing Street."

There is the signature of Lady Constance Lytton, who went to prison five times in all and who told the police that she was "Jane Warton, a seamstress" to ensure that she would receive the same treatment as her fellow suffragettes.

Earlier, when she had been arrested, the police had released her as soon as they found out who she really was.

I asked Mrs Impey if she knew why the people of Hitchin had taken such a dislike to her after she came out of prison.

"I think it was because of a small band of people who started spreading rumours about me," she said. "There was such a lot of bitterness towards our movement."

It is ironical that years later, after women had been given the vote, Mrs Impey became President of Hitchin Liberal Association and a member of several county welfare committees.

Her husband Arthur, who died in 1942, was a director of William Ransom & Sons Ltd, the manufacturing chemists.

Formerly Elizabeth Chambers Mrs Impey had three sisters living in the district, one of whom married Matthew Foster, a director of the Hitchin building firm.

For the past few years she has been in Hitchin very little, having spent most of her time in Hove.

Last September she returned to her native town and bought "Westover" in Benslow Rise.

Does she plan to stay permanently this time? "That's difficult to say, but if it's any indication I have got my winter supply of coal in" she told me with a smile.

(c) Richard Whitmore 1958

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Nub News note: With thanks to Ros Allwood, North Herts Museum. For more on Elizabeth Impey visit the museum on Brand Street.

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International Women's Day is a global celebration hailing the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The annual event is also to raise awareness and call for accelerating gender parity.