FARNHAM MP Jeremy Hunt wore suffragette colours alongside his NHS badge on Tuesday in a special Commons debate to mark 100 years since the law that let women vote for the first time.

The MP for South West Surrey was among a number of MPs to pay tribute to the suffrage movement, pinning a purple and a white flower to his lapel.

The Museum of Farnham also commemorated the occasion this week, sharing on Twitter a Farnham Herald article from December 21, 1918, recording that the first people to vote in the historic December 14, 1918, election were both women, Mrs Crow and Mrs Heath.

This was the first general election after the Representation of the People Act of 1918 was passed.

The Herald cutting reads: “The polling opened at eight o’clock, and it is interesting to note that two ladies were the first to enter - Mrs Crow, of Tanfield, East Street, and Mrs Heath, of West Street.

“The former got her ballot paper first, but she lost a little time in recording her vote, and Mrs Heath whipped in and got her ballot paper first in the box.”

The museum in West Street also announced the opening of a new temporary exhibition ’Out of the Doll’s House’ this week, exploring how women’s fashions have changed during the last 100 years since first getting the vote in February 1918.

A former secretary of the Farnham Suffrage Society and the first woman to become Mayor of Cambridge, Eva Rayner Hartree, was also celebrated online by the Hartree Centre, a Cheshire-based research institute named in honour of her son Douglas Hartree.

The centre posted on Twitter: “Today we celebrate a vital part of our heritage, Eva Rayner Hartree. Eva championed equal rights at Cambridge University, was secretary of Farnham Suffrage Society and the first woman to become Mayor of Cambridge in 1924.”

The institute’s website adds Eva “had a passion for working with refugees and championed women’s equality as secretary of the Farnham Suffrage Society, eventually going on to become president of the British National Council of Women, an organisation which fights to give women rights and a voice in both national and international affairs.”