A Skirt Through History

Anne Lister, an outwardly conventional gentlewoman living in Halifax at the beginning of the last century, had a secret life that would have shocked local society. Her diaries, written in such a complex code that they were not deciphered until the 1980s, reveal that she was really a lesbian Don Juan.

The drama-documentary series about the lives of extraordinary women continues with a look at two pioneering journalists. In 1858, Victorian editor Bessie Parkes founded the first newspaper run by women for women. Fifty years later, Emilie Peacocke became one of the first women reporters to work in Fleet Street.

The remarkable stories of two women who became the subjects of experiments by men. Dr James Barry was born a girl but lived most of her life disguised as a man. And Hannah Cullwick , a working-class woman, turned into a high-class lady.

In 1912 Sarah, age 52, and 54-year-old composer Ethel Smyth shared neighboring cells in Holloway Prison. Their crime was breaking windows - a tactic used by suffragettes to draw attention to their fight and win the vote for all women. Sarah Benett 's recently discovered diary sheds light on their remarkable tale.

Seventeenth century Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi has been remembered more for being a loose woman than a talented artist. At the age of 17 she was raped, and the record of the trial reveals how her reputation as a woman and a painter was ruined.

In 1801 Lady Maria Nugent was "playing governor's lady to the blackies" in Jamaica. She described her 39 slaves as "so good-humored and merry that it is quite comfortable to look at them". Meanwhile, Mary Prince, who was born into slavery in Bermuda in 1788, was enduring barbaric treatment.