THE tale of how two gutsy Black Country women created history when they stood for Parliament in 1918 will be recounted at a talk at Sandwell Council House tomorrow (Wednesday February 20).

Black Country chain makers' champion Mary Macarthur and Suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst chose to take on the men and stand for Parliament at the first opportunity after women were allowed to vote and to seek election to become an MP.

Mary Macarthur stood in Stourbridge, which included Warley Woods, Oldbury and Halesowen back then, as a Labour candidate.

Christabel Pankhurst stood as a Coalition Woman's Party candidate for Smethwick.

Both lost, but created the precedent that women could stand for Parliament on the same basis as men.

Former Sandwell councillor David Hallam, who has written a book entitled 'Taking on the Men - the first women parliamentary candidates 1918', will be giving a talk about the historic race to the polls to the Sandwell Town Twinning Association at Sandwell Council House, Freeth Street, Oldbury, starting at 7.30pm.

Macarthur and Pankhurst were among just 17 women who stood for election that year when more than 700 seats in the House of Commons were up for grabs across the country.

Margery Corbett Ashby also fought for Ladywood, Birmingham, as a Liberal but lost to future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Mr Hallam, a former Labour Member of the European Parliament who researched the first female race to the Parliamentary polls as part of his Master of Arts course at Birmingham University, said: “The 1918 General Election was like no other. It was called within weeks of the Armistice. Polling took place on Saturday December 14 and the count a fortnight later to enable servicemen to cast their votes by post.

“The most successful candidate was Christabel Pankhurst for the Women’s Party in Smethwick. Her mother Emmeline worked hard to ensure that she had the support of the London newspapers and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

"However, she was up against a well-known trades union official, who won with a majority of 775, a margin of just 4.4 per cent."

In the case of Mary Macarthur's election campaign, Mr Hallam said: "The returning officer insisted she could not use her maiden name, Macarthur, by which she was known, but had to be described on the ballot paper as Mrs Anderson. This is believed to have contributed to her defeat."

'Taking on the Men' - which is published by Brewin Books and available to buy on Amazon - includes a section on the 17 women candidates with full results and a short biography - and the manifestos of the three women from the West Midlands are reproduced in full.

Admission to the talk is £1 for members and £2 for non-members. Everyone is welcome.

To find out more check out Sandwell Town Twinning Association on Facebook.