The role of a self-confessed “Cardross rebel” in the women’s suffrage movement will be celebrated in Helensburgh next week.

Helensburgh Heroes Centre is hosting a debate marking 100 years of the movement which won women the right to vote.

Foremost in everyone’s mind at the EqualiTeas event will be the key role played by Eunice Guthrie Murray, of Cardross, who was an extremely important and active figure in the movement.

Eunice was just 17 and living at home with her parents in 1895 when she became outraged by the inequalities of the time.

Extracts from her diaries give a fascinating insight into attitudes that prevailed in the day:

February 1905 - “I dined last night at Keppoch, (a large house in Cardross).

“All of the men there and most of the ladies are very angry with these ‘wild bad women’, this being the way they describe women who desire justice, but really their arguments were so futile and silly they made me smile, nothing worse.

“Says Mr Denny, ‘No woman should wish for anything beyond domesticity’.

“Said Mr Kerr, “Indeed no nice woman wants anything but a husband.”

October 17, 1905 - “The press declares that the women are disgraceful and Cardross opinion concurs. God bless them! They’re out of date.

“I hereby vow to take my stand beside the women who mean to act - not to ask men to grant justice.

“Behold even in quiet Cardross lurks a rebel! I am on the side of progress, justice and equality. I have made my vow and I’ll vow we’ll win.”

An act of parliament in 1918 allowed women over 30 to vote, but it took another 10 years for that age restriction to be lowered to 21.

The EqualiTeas event on June 22 will include a debate “Are We Equal?”, involving Argyll and Bute MP Brendan O’Hara and his SNP colleague Alison Thewliss, MP for Glasgow Central and winner of the “Best Scot in Westminster” prize at the 2018 Scottish Politician of the Year Award.

Phil Worms, trustee of Helensburgh Heroes Centre, which has exhibits describing Eunice’s campaign for equality, told the Advertiser: “Tea parties have a long tradition as part of the campaign for equal votes and, historically, were hotbeds of political activism.

“It was one of the few ways women could meet without men to discuss and plan.

“The bravery and determination of women such as Eunice must never be forgotten.

“One hundred years later and we still have significant areas where improvement needs to be made in the fight for equality, gender pay gaps being a very current example.

“We owe it to all the suffragettes not to become complacent.”

A limited number of tickets are still available from the Helensburgh Heroes website or in person from the centre on Sinclair Street. The event is free.