The 1920s Shrewsbury dream which died with Mabel Billson

But that journey which began in 1919 amid hope was to end in tragedy and an unrealised dream.

Miss Billson, who was lined up as the Liberal candidate in a seat in which the party had a real chance, died before the next general election came around.

"We will never know if Mabel would have won that election, but it seems with the respect that so many women had for her, and the chance to put a woman into Parliament, that she would have," says Henry Orr, a teacher of sociology at Ellesmere College who has researched her story.

"She would surely have had a statue erected for her somewhere in Shrewsbury, or a plaque. Would Shrewsbury schoolgirls know her name? Would there be a Billson scholarship? It's all speculation."

Henry's research has been for the Qube, a community and arts centre in Oswestry, which in 2017 was awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund for Homefront Heroines, a project commemorating the centenary of the Great War.

The project focuses on the lives and stories of local women during the conflict and will culminate in an exhibition at the Qube in March, featuring stories, photos and artefacts uncovered during the research.

The recently-end Great War had transformed the prospects and expectations of women, along with a new climate created by the ability of women to vote at last in Parliamentary elections.

"Many women became involved in political and social movements, and in the Shrewsbury area in 1919 to 1921 one woman was to stand out above the others, the remarkable Mabel Billson, a sort of radical whose views would not be out of place today," says Henry.

"Mabel came from a long line of radicals. She described herself as a 'born and bred Liberal.'

"Her father, Alfred Billson, had been an MP himself. Representing various constituencies, he had become a tenant of Rowton Castle, west of Shrewsbury."

In August 1919 she was chosen at a meeting at the Granville Club, Shrewsbury, to become the Liberal prospective Parliamentary candidate for Shrewsbury.

She was a woman with politics in her blood from a young age, who had helped her father in his work, and was President of Shrewsbury Women's Liberal Association, although by this time she was living in London. She had taken a keen interest in social conditions.

She may well have been the first female prospective Parliamentary candidate for any party in Shropshire.

Henry, who has so far not been able to turn up a photo of Miss Billson, says that she was quoted as saying that the prospect of fighting the cause appealed to her more than the prospect of winning, and she would spare no effort.

As good as her word, she threw herself into public meeting after public meeting, and was rated an able and convincing public speaker.

"In 1920 at Wyle Cop schools in Shrewsbury she addressed an audience of women.

"Thanking them for her invitation, she went on to say that it was a 'new departure to ask a woman to represent a constituency but there was real definite work for women to do in government. She was born and bred in liberalism which stood first and foremost for the freedom of the people'. "

In July 1921 the Border Counties Advertiser, referring to a speech she made in Shrewsbury, said she made as good a case as was possible to put up in favour of extending the number of women in the House of Commons.

It went on to say, says Henry, that the chief difficulty was getting local associations to have the courage to adopt a woman. The Shrewsbury Division of Liberals had proved an exception to the rule, "but then Miss Billson is a very exceptional candidate, being well versed in political science and gifted with rare power to express her views, to command the confidence of the electorate of which about half are now members of her own sex."

But it seems she was already ill. A couple of months later she went into a Liverpool nursing home, and her left arm was amputated.

And at the beginning of October 1921, that illness forced her to give up her candidature.

"Sadly, Mabel’s operation in Liverpool did not go well. After making a good recovery, she relapsed and died suddenly on October 26.

"She had previously written only 10 days before her death that she hoped to have recovered enough to visit her brother in Hoylake. Her friends were shocked and grieved that she had passed away."

Her place as Shrewsbury's Liberal candidate was taken by Joseph Sunlight, who was beaten by 1,598 votes by the Conservative, Viscount Sandon, in the general election of November, 1922.

However, there was another general election just over a year later, in December 1923, and this time Sunlight won for the Liberal cause, beating Sandon by 549 votes.

So a Liberal victory for Mabel, had she lived, was not a fanciful notion.

"Mabel was not to realise her and other women’s hopes. She was though to rest with her father in the grave at Kensal Rise cemetery, with beautiful flower tributes from her Liberal friends in Shrewsbury," says Henry.

Shropshire did not have to wait long to have a woman MP, with Edith Picton-Turbervill taking The Wrekin for Labour in 1929.

Shrewsbury, though, is still waiting.