For the dedicated campaigners for women's suffrage, no price was too high to pay to secure the right to vote.

Women over the age of 30 were granted the right to vote in 1918 but it was not until a decade later, on July 2, 1928, that thanks to the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act, women were at long last, able to enjoy the same voting rights as men – to be able to vote at the age of 21.

There will be national celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of this landmark victory and locally the historic day will not pass unnoticed either.

In fact, Calderdale author Jill Liddington will be taking to the road to commemorate the remarkable achievement of the suffragettes, on a journey which will follow in their very footsteps.

Jill, of Mytholmroyd, is the author of Rebel Girls, the story of Yorkshire's lost suffragettes. Girls whose names may not be as famous as those of Emmeline Pankhurst, the leading British women's rights activist or Emily Wilding Davison, who died after throwing herself under King George V's horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby of 1913.

The rebel girls – some as young as 16 – worked tirelessly to further the campaign for women's suff- rage and rejected the deadening conventions of their Victorian elders to demand new freedoms and rights.

They left the relative safety of their confined worlds to take their message across Yorkshire and beyond, down to the corridors of power at Westminster.

Jill is now on a major tour, speaking about her book and the stories of the campaigners.

Significantly it is a tour which began in the seaside town of Whitby.

"In 1908 a horse-drawn caravan set off from Whitby harbour to take their 'Votes For Women' message out to the remotest Yorkshire dales and market towns," she says.

Jill describes the "sturdily constructed caravan with attractive side-windows, white-painted and shuttered, a small chimney and front porch-roof" in her book, which also includes a photograph of it – a gathering of suffragettes in the foreground.

"The picture was taken on the harbour front and in the background you can see all the little cottages with St Hilda's Abbey behind them – just as it is today. It's amazing to stand there today and be at the very place where they stood," she says.

After Whitby, Jill followed the caravan trail to Pickering for further book signings.

The tour will also take her to Manchester at the end of June and during July she will address audiences in Liverpool as part of the Women's Festival celebrations, as well as giving talks at Sheffield Hallam University and Todmorden Library.

"There has been a lot of interest in the book – and it's not always women who come along to the events, although they do form the majority," says Jill, who has given around 60 talks since publishing Rebel Girls two years ago.

The book reveals the long-forgotten stories of the suffragette movement's unsung Yorkshire heroines, including that of Lavena Saltonstall, born in Hebden Bridge in 1881. She worked as a tailoress to earn her keep.

But, after moving to Halifax and encountering a new world and better wages by becoming a weaver, she began to take an interest in politics, the labour movement and suffrage campaigns.

The idea for Rebel Girls coincided with Jill's move across the Pennines to Calderdale in 1980.

Two years earlier she wrote One Hand Tied Behind Us, charting the rise of the women's suffrage movement which brought her critical acclaim. The book looked at the stories of Lancashire suffragettes and Jill was anxious to discover whether there were any Yorkshire stories to be told.
"Everyone has heard of Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Wilding Davison but there were many more women who fought equally hard in the suffragette movement and deserve not to be forgotten," she says.

• Jill Liddington will speak about her book Rebel Girls at Todmorden Library on Monday, July 7, 7.30pm and Halifax Central Library, on Thursday, October 9, 7.30pm. For more details ring details 01422 392629.