The right for all British women to vote in general elections was first granted in 1928. Manchester’s Pankhurst family were well-known leaders of the direct action Suffragette movement which fought for the vote during the early years of the twentieth century. Lydia Becker, the daughter of a German merchant based in Manchester, is much less well-known. It was Becker’s writing and campaigning during the Victorian era that provided much political motivation and inspiration to the generation of Edwardian women that followed – including a young Emmeline Pankhurst.