Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes
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Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (15 October 1880 – 2 October 1958) was a British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for eugenics and women's rights. She made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and coal classification, and was the first female academic on the faculty of the University of Manchester. With her second husband,
Humphrey Verdon Roe Humphrey Verdon Roe (18 April 1878 – 27 July 1949) was a British businessman, a philanthropist, aircraft manufacturer and the usually unacknowledged co-founder of Britain's first and most successful birth control clinic along with Marie Stopes, ...
, Stopes founded the first
birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
clinic in Britain. Stopes edited the newsletter ''Birth Control News'', which gave explicit practical advice. Her sex manual '' Married Love'' (1918) was controversial and influential, and brought the subject of birth control into wide public discourse. Stopes publicly opposed abortion, arguing that the prevention of conception was all that was needed, though her actions in private were at odds with her public pronouncements. As a supporter of eugenics one of her stated aims was "to furnish security from conception to those who are racially diseased". In reaction to this attitude,
Marie Stopes International MSI Reproductive Choices, named Marie Stopes International until November 2020, is an international non-governmental organisation providing contraception and safe abortion services in 37 countries around the world. MSI Reproductive Choices as an ...
in 2020 changed its name to "MSI Reproductive Choices" with no other changes.


Early life and education

Stopes was born in Edinburgh. Her father,
Henry Stopes Henry Stopes (1852 in Colchester – 5 December 1902, in Greenhithe) was an English brewer, architect and amateur palaeontologist of repute in late 19th century London. He amassed the largest private collection of fossils and lithic artefacts in Bri ...
, was a brewer, engineer, architect and palaeontologist from Colchester. Her mother was
Charlotte Carmichael Stopes Charlotte Brown Carmichael Stopes (née Carmichael; 5 February 1840 – 6 February 1929), also known as C. C. Stopes, was a British scholar, author, and campaigner for women's rights. She also published several books relating to the life and wor ...
, a Shakespearean scholar and women's rights campaigner from Edinburgh. At six weeks old, her parents took Stopes from Scotland; the family stayed briefly in Colchester then moved to London, where in 1880 her father bought 28 Cintra Park in
Upper Norwood Upper Norwood is an area of south London, England, within the London Boroughs of Bromley, Croydon, Lambeth and Southwark. It is north of Croydon and the eastern part of it is better known as the Crystal Palace area. Upper Norwood is situated ...
. Both of her parents were members of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...
, where they had met. At an early age, she was exposed to science and was taken to meetings where she met the famous scholars of the day. At first, she was home-schooled, but from 1892 to 1894 she attended St George's School for Girls in Edinburgh. Stopes was later sent to the North London Collegiate School, where she was a close friend of
Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (19 October 1881 – 1962) was a Dutch spiritualist, theosophist, and scholar who gained recognition in the 1920s. She lived in Switzerland for most of her life. Early life Olga was born in London, the first child of Dutch paren ...
. Stopes primarily focused on her science career in her 20s and 30s. Stopes attended the University of London in 1900, at University College London as a scholarship student, where she studied botany and geology; she graduated with a first class
B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...
in 1902 after only two years by attending both day and night schools at
Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...
. Stopes' father died in 1902 leaving her family in financial ruin. Her
paleobotany Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeogr ...
professor, Dr. Francis Oliver, took her under his wing and hired her as his research assistant in early 1903. This is what sparked her interest in paleobotany, building a platform to begin her career. Dr. Oliver was on the verge of debatably one of the greatest finds in paleobotany when he took Stopes on as a research assistant. Initially, it was thought that most of the fossil plants found in
Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
Coal Measures In lithostratigraphy, the coal measures are the coal-bearing part of the Upper Carboniferous System. In the United Kingdom, the Coal Measures Group consists of the Upper Coal Measures Formation, the Middle Coal Measures Formation and the Lower Coal ...
were ferns, Marie was tasked to find the specimens that showed better connection with the seeds of fern fronds. It was discovered that some of the "ferns" bore seeds. "Seed ferns" became known and recognized as the missing link between ferns and
conifers Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extan ...
. They later became known as the
pteridosperm The term Pteridospermatophyta (or "seed ferns" or "Pteridospermatopsida") is a polyphyletic group of extinct seed-bearing plants (spermatophytes). The earliest fossil evidence for plants of this type is the genus ''Elkinsia'' of the late Devonian ...
. Marie was provided the opportunity to work with the world’s leading experts in paleobotany at the time. Within the same year she won the Gilchrist scholarship from University College London, with the help of Dr. Oliver and her geology professor, Edmund Garwood who provided incredible references. Following this, Stopes earned a
D.Sc. Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...
degree from University College London, becoming the youngest person in Britain to have done so. In 1903 she published a study of the botany of the recently dried-up
Ebbsfleet River Ebbsfleet River in Kent, south-east England, is a tributary of the Thames Estuary. It joins the Thames at Northfleet, opposite the container port of Tilbury Docks. Today, the river gives its name to the Ebbsfleet Garden City which is currentl ...
. After carrying out research on Carboniferous plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and at University College, London, she put the money she received from the Gilchrist Scholarship towards a year's worth of funding her study on the reproduction of living cycads at the University of Munich. There, she worked with Karl Goebel, who was a leading paleobotanist on cycads. Stopes used this study as her doctoral dissertation, she presented her dissertation in German and received a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
in botany in 1904. She was, in 1904, one of the first women to be elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and was appointed a demonstrator in order to teach students. She was also a fellow and occasional lecturer in paleobotany at University College, London until 1920.


Scientific research

At age 23, Stopes secured her first job in the world of academia, holding the post of Lecturer in Paleobotany at the Victoria University of Manchester from 1904 to 1910; in this capacity she became the first female academic of that university. It was during this period that she met William Boyd-Dawkins and Frederick Ernst Weiss. Dawkins was a friend of her father and a board member at the University, and advocated for her teaching position when members of the senate opposed the concept of having a woman teach young men. Stopes was known around the campus as a partier: she would socialize freely with staff, colleagues, and a few students, or ‘flirt’. During Stopes' time at Manchester, she studied coal and
coal ball A coal ball is a type of concretion, varying in shape from an imperfect sphere to a flat-lying, irregular slab. Coal balls were formed in Carboniferous Period swamps and mires, when peat was prevented from being turned into coal by the high am ...
s and researched the collection of '' Glossopteris'' (Permian seed ferns). This was an attempt to prove the theory of Eduard Suess concerning the existence of
Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...
or Pangaea. A chance meeting with
Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...
explorer Robert Falcon Scott during one of his fund-raising lectures in 1904 brought a possibility of proving Suess's theory. Stopes's passion to prove Suess's theory led her to discuss the possibility of joining Scott's next expedition to Antarctica. She did not join the expedition, but Scott promised to bring back samples of fossils to provide evidence for the theory. Scott died during the 1912 ''Terra Nova'' Expedition, but fossils of plants from the Queen Maud Mountains found near Scott's and his companions' bodies provided this evidence. Her study of
Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
coal ball A coal ball is a type of concretion, varying in shape from an imperfect sphere to a flat-lying, irregular slab. Coal balls were formed in Carboniferous Period swamps and mires, when peat was prevented from being turned into coal by the high am ...
s with Dr. Francis Oliver during her time at University College London proved pivotal, and coupled with Dawkins’ and Weiss’ influence at Victoria University of Manchester, helped spark Stopes’ intrigue in this area of research, aided, in part, by her close proximity to coal seams in the north of England. These seams held calcareous nodules that preserved the anatomical structure of the permineralized peat that formed the coal balls. Her motive behind this research was driven, in part, by the importance of coal to the British Empire as its main source of fuel. The mines for these coal balls were close to Manchester, and Stopes became distinct from other paleobotanists by directly going to these mines and observing the coal on site. During this period of her research, Stopes first worked with James Lomax, a manufacturer of petrographic thin sections. She and Lomax didn’t get along; as a result, she decided to work with David Meredith-Seares Watson, one of her undergrad students. Together, they investigated the coal-bearing
strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...
of northern England. Their findings led them to hypothesize that the coal balls native to the area were formed when marine water permeated carboniferous peat mires. They proved that the coal balls had formed in situ, and the nodules had not been transported, which was being claimed at the time. With the coal balls being closely associated with overlying marine bands, they Stopes and Watson came to the conclusion that the carbonate in the coal balls washed into the coal swamps from adjacent seas. This was contested while showcasing at conferences, but eventually the evidence became sustainable enough that this finding became one of the greatest contributions to the field. Continuing in the vein of coal ball research, Marie expanded her studies to include those from the Mesozoic era. This represented an exciting new area of study for Stopes, as little evidence of anatomically preserved Mesozoic plants had been found at that time. Seeking advice from other academics in the field, she received leads for areas of potential study in India and Japan, the latter of which would become important later on. The most promising region at that time proved to be much closer to home, and on 22 March 1907, during the middle of a massive heat wave, Stopes and Watson departed for the Jurassic coast of northeast Scotland, to the coal-mining town of
Brora Brora ( , gd, Brùra) is a village in the east of Sutherland, in the Highland area of Scotland. Origin of the name The name ''Brora'' is derived from Old Norse and means "river with a bridge". History Brora is a small industrial village, ha ...
, on the
Moray Firth The Moray Firth (; Scottish Gaelic: ''An Cuan Moireach'', ''Linne Mhoireibh'' or ''Caolas Mhoireibh'') is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotl ...
. Stopes theorized that Brora would harbor the type of Mesozoic coal balls she was in search of. This form of geological prediction, ‘geoprophesy' as Stopes called it, is formally known as biostratigraphy, and was originally formulated by 17th century Danish scientist Nicholas Steno. Upon arriving in Brora, they discovered the town’s coal mining operations were still in full operation, and as a result, were unable to gain access to the mines. Instead, the pair set their sights on the coastline, and despite finding some fossil specimens of interest, were unable to locate any coal balls. Despite this setback, the flora fossils they did recover were the first
Middle Jurassic The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare, but geological formations co ...
period specimens to be uncovered in that region, and demonstrated a biostratigraphic link between the Scottish and north east English coasts. After returning home to Manchester in April 1907, Stopes set about processing her Bora discoveries for publication. However, a previous endeavor from the year before would come to bear fruit. During her Brora research, Stopes had been in correspondence with several high-profile Geologists of the time, including
John Wesley Judd John Wesley Judd (18 February 1840 – 3 March 1916) was a British geologist. He was born in Portsmouth the son of George and Jannette Judd and educated at the Royal School of Mines, where he later became Professor of Geology. He was elected ...
and Albert Charles Seward, and these two men helped Stopes secure her first major grant, which she had applied for in 1906. The purpose of this £85 grant was to allow her to conduct her research into Mesozoic coal balls in Japan, and on 19 May 1907, it was granted by the Royal Society. In six weeks, Stopes concluded her Brora research, and made arrangements to depart for Japan on 3 July 1907. She spent eighteen months at the Imperial University, Tokyo and explored coal mines on Hokkaido for fossilized plants. As with the Brora study, Stopes failed to locate any Mesozoic coal balls in Japan either, but did manage to discover many important fossils, such as the Cretaceous
angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
floras, which she wrote about in her 1909 article “Plant containing nodules from Japan” for the
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society The ''Journal of the Geological Society '' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Geological Society of London. It covers research in all aspects of the Earth sciences. References External links * Proceedings of the Geologica ...
, London. She also published her Japanese experiences as a diary, called "Journal from Japan: a daily record of life as seen by a scientist", in 1910. In 1910, the Geological Survey of Canada commissioned Stopes to determine the age of the
Fern Ledges A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except ...
, a geological structure at Saint John, New Brunswick. It is part of the Early
Pennsylvanian Pennsylvanian may refer to: * A person or thing from Pennsylvania * Pennsylvanian (geology) The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesca ...
epoch
Lancaster Formation The Lancaster Formation is a geologic formation in New Brunswick. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period. See also * List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in New Brunswick This is a list of fossiliferous stratigraphi ...
. Canadian scholars were divided between dating it to the
Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...
period or to the Pennsylvanian. Stopes arrived in North America before Christmas to start her research. On 29 December, she met the Canadian researcher
Reginald Ruggles Gates Reginald Ruggles Gates (May 1, 1882 – August 12, 1962), was a Canadian-born geneticist who published widely in the fields of botany and eugenics. Early life Reginald Ruggles Gates was born on May 1, 1882, near Middleton, Nova Scotia, to a fa ...
in St. Louis, Missouri; they became engaged two days later. Starting her work on the Fern Ledges in earnest in February 1911, she did geological field work and researched at geological collections in museums, and shipped specimens to England for further investigation. The couple married in March and returned to England on 1 April that year. Stopes continued her research. In mid-1912 she delivered her results, finding for the Pennsylvanian period of the
Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
.. (also printed in ''The Role of Women in the History of Geology '' edited by C. V. Burek & B. Higgs published by the Geological Society, London (2007) pp. 232,236). The Government of Canada published her results in 1914. Later that year, her marriage to Gates was annulled. During the First World War, Stopes was engaged in studies of coal for the British government, which culminated in the writing of "Monograph on the constitution of coal" with R.V. Wheeler in 1918. The success of Stopes' work on marriage issues and
birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
led her to reduce her scholarly work; her last scientific publications were in 1935. According to W. G. Chaloner (2005), "between 1903 and 1935 she published a series of palaeobotanical papers that placed her among the leading half-dozen British palaeobotanists of her time". Stopes made major contributions to knowledge of the earliest angiosperms, the formation of coal balls and the nature of coal macerals. The classification scheme and terminology she devised for coal are still being used. Stopes also wrote a popular book on palaeobotany, "Ancient Plants" (1910; Blackie, London), in what was called a successful pioneering effort to introduce the subject to non-scientists.


''Married Love''

Around the start of her divorce proceedings in 1913, Stopes began to write a book about the way she thought marriage should work. In July 1913, she met
Margaret Sanger Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control ...
, who had just given a talk on birth control at a Fabian Society meeting. Stopes showed Sanger her writings and sought her advice about a chapter on contraception. Stopes's book was finished by the end of 1913. She offered it to
Blackie and Son Blackie & Son was a publishing house in Glasgow, Scotland, and London, England, from 1809 to 1991. History The firm was founded as a bookseller in 1809 by John Blackie (1782–1874) as a partnership with two others and was known as 'Black ...
, who declined. Several publishers refused the book because they thought it too controversial. When
Binnie Dunlop Binnie Dunlop (3 August 1874 – 15 July 1946) was a Scottish doctor and advocate of eugenics. Dunlop, the son of a Glasgow doctor, studied medicine at Glasgow University, graduating M.B. (1898) and Ch.B. However, he never practiced medicine, ins ...
, secretary of the Malthusian League, introduced her to
Humphrey Verdon Roe Humphrey Verdon Roe (18 April 1878 – 27 July 1949) was a British businessman, a philanthropist, aircraft manufacturer and the usually unacknowledged co-founder of Britain's first and most successful birth control clinic along with Marie Stopes, ...
—Stopes's future second husband—in 1917, she received the boost that helped her publish her book. Roe was a philanthropist interested in birth control; he paid Fifield & Co. to publish the work. The book was an instant success, requiring five editions in the first year, and elevated Stopes to national prominence. ''Married Love'' was published on 26 March 1918; that day, Stopes was visiting Humphrey Roe, who had just returned with a broken ankle from service during the First World War after his aeroplane crashed. Less than two months later they were married and Stopes had her first opportunity to practise what she preached in her book. The success of ''Married Love'' encouraged Stopes to provide a follow-up; the already written ''Wise Parenthood: a Book for Married People'', a manual on birth control that was published later that year. Many readers wrote to Stopes for personal advice, which she energetically endeavoured to give. ''Wise Parenthood'' was aimed at married women, as Stopes believed birth control to be necessary for married couples to help protect mothers against the exhaustion of excessive childbearing. Although many considered Stopes’ advocacy of birth control to be scandalous, ''Wise Parenthood'' printed ten editions and was a successful sequel to ''Married Love''. The following year, Stopes published ''A Letter to Working Mothers on how to have healthy children and avoid weakening pregnancies'', a condensed version of ''Wise Parenthood'' aimed at the poor. It was a 16-page pamphlet and was to be distributed free of charge. Stopes's intended audience had—until this work—been the middle classes. She had shown little interest in, or respect for, the working classes; the ''Letter'' was aimed at redressing her bias. On 16 July 1919, Stopes—pregnant and a month overdue—entered a nursing home. Stopes and the doctors clashed over the method of birth—she was not allowed to give birth on her knees. The child was stillborn; the doctors suggested the incident was due to
syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...
, but an examination excluded the possibility. Stopes was furious and said her baby had been murdered. She was 38 years old.


''Marie Stopes: Her Work and Play''

Aylmer Maude Aylmer Maude (28 March 1858 – 25 August 1938) and Louise Maude (1855–1939) were English translators of Leo Tolstoy's works, and Aylmer Maude also wrote his friend Tolstoy's biography, ''The Life of Tolstoy''. After living many years in Russi ...
, acclaimed writer and Tolstoy expert, was brought into the home of Stopes and Gates in an effort to support their financial needs. While already having a troublesome marriage, Maude’s interjection in the household only added more tension to the marriage as Stopes' flirtatious nature caused Gates more jealousy and frustration. Maude and Stopes remained friends long after her separation from Gates in 1914, and the intensity of their relationship was reflected in a letter he wrote immediately prior to her second marriage to Humphrey Roe: “My dearest Una aude’s pet name for Stopes I have been bothering you with letters recently… Still I cannot let the eve of your ''third'' marriage pass without sending you my most cordial good wishes and fondest greetings.” Maude's biography,
The Authorized Life of Marie C Stopes
, was published in 1924. The book was not well received (''The Spectator'' described it as “a panegyric and not a biography”) and it may even have been written by Stopes herself. When Stopes blamed Maude for the book's poor sales, he replied: “you so impressed on me the importance of getting the Life out quickly, and I evidently rushed it to the point of scamping it and failed to correct some of the errors in your rough draft.” The book was republished in 1933 as
Marie Stopes Her Work and Her Play
. While the later book included an account of the Stopes ''v'' Sutherland libel trial of 1923, questions have been raised about its credibility. For instance, significant aspects of the story of Stopes' visit to Professor McIlroy in disguise and being fitted with a cervical cap (the same device about which McIlroy had been so critical during the High Court trial) have been shown to have been fabricated, and McIlroy's treatment of Stopes has been shown to have been consistent with her testimony in the High Court.


New Gospel

When Stopes had sufficiently recovered, she returned to work in 1920; she engaged in public speaking and responding to letters seeking advice on marriage, sex and birth control. She sent Mrs. E. B. Mayne to disseminate the ''Letter to Working Mothers'' to the slums of East London. Mayne approached twenty families a day, but after several months she concluded the working class was mistrustful of well-intentioned meddlers. This lack of success made Stopes contemplate a different approach to taking her message to the poor. A conference of Anglican bishops was due to be held in June; not long before the conference, Stopes had a vision. She called in her secretary and dictated a message addressed to the bishops which began: "My Lords, I speak to you in the name of God. You are his priests. I am his prophet. I speak to you of the mysteries of man and woman." In 1922, Stopes wrote ''A New Gospel to All Peoples''. The bishops were not receptive; among the resolutions carried during the conference was one aimed against "the deliberate cultivation of sexual union" and another against "indecent literature, suggestive plays and films ndthe open or secret sale of contraceptives". The Catholic Church's reaction was more strident, marking the start of a conflict that lasted the rest of Stopes's life.


Family planning

In 1917, before meeting Marie Stopes, Humphrey Roe offered to endow a birth control clinic attached to St Mary's Hospital in Manchester. He proposed all patients would be married and that no abortions would be done, but his offer was declined. This was a serious issue for Roe; after their marriage, he and Stopes planned to open a clinic for poor mothers in London.
Margaret Sanger Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control ...
, another birth-control pioneer, had opened a birth control clinic in New York but the police closed it. In 1920, Sanger proposed opening a clinic in London; this encouraged Stopes to act more constructively, but her plan never materialised. Stopes resigned her lectureship at University College London at the end of 1920 to concentrate on the clinic; she founded the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress, a support organisation for the clinic. Stopes explained that the object of the Society was:
"...to counteract the steady evil which has been growing for a good many years of the reduction of the birth rate just on the part of the thrifty, wise, well-contented, and the generally sound members of our community, and the reckless breeding from the C.3 end, and the semi-feebleminded, the careless, who are proportionately increasing in our community because of the slowing of the birth rate at the other end of the social scale. Statistics show that every year the birth rate from the worst end of our community is increasing in proportion to the birth rate at the better end, and it was in order to try to right that grave social danger that I embarked upon this work."
On the printed notepaper is a list of prominent supporters which include the militant suffragette Lady Constance Lytton, feminist novelist Vera Brittain, Emily Pethick-Lawrence (former Treasurer of the Women's Social and Political Union), Rev Maude Royden (Women's Suffrage Societies). Later supporters included eminent economist John Maynard Keynes. Three months later she and Roe opened the Mothers' Clinic at 61 Marlborough Road,
Holloway A hollow way is a sunken lane. Holloway may refer to: People *Holloway (surname) *Holloway Halstead Frost (1889–1935), American World War I Navy officer Place names ;United Kingdom *Holloway, London, inner-city district in the London Borough of ...
, North London, on 17 March 1921. The clinic was run by midwives and supported by visiting doctors. It offered mothers birth control advice, taught them birth control methods and dispensed Stopes own "Pro-Race" (and "Racial") cervical caps. The free clinic was open to all married women for knowledge about reproductive health. Stopes tried to discover alternatives for families and increase knowledge about birth control and the reproductive system. Options included the
cervical cap The cervical cap is a form of barrier contraception. A cervical cap fits over the cervix and blocks sperm from entering the uterus through the external orifice of the uterus, called the ''os''. Terminology The term ''cervical cap'' has been ...
—which was the most popular— coitus interruptus, and spermicides based on soap and oil. Stopes rediscovered the use of
olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: f ...
-soaked sponges as an alternative birth control. Olive oil's use as a spermicide dates to Greek and Roman times. Her recipe proved very effective. She tested many of her contraceptives on patients at her clinics. Stopes became enthusiastic about a contraceptive device called the "gold pin", which was reportedly successful in America. A few months later, she asked
Norman Haire Norman Haire, born Norman Zions (21 January 1892, Sydney – 11 September 1952, London) was an Australian medical practitioner and sexologist. He has been called "the most prominent sexologist in Britain" between the wars. Life When Norman was bo ...
, an Australian doctor, whether he would be interested in running a clinical trial of the device, as she had two correspondents who wanted to use it. Haire had already investigated the device and found it to be dangerous. Haire became involved in another birth control clinic that opened in Walworth in November 1921; later a rivalry between Stopes and Haire erupted in '' The Lancet''. Haire brought up the gold-pin episode, even though Stopes' clinic had never used it. The issue of the gold pin device resurfaced in the Stopes-Sutherland libel case a few years later. In 1925, the Mothers' Clinic moved to Central London, where it remains . Stopes gradually built up a small network of clinics across Britain, working to fund them. She opened clinics in Leeds in April 1934; Aberdeen in October 1934; Belfast in October 1936; Cardiff in October 1937; and
Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...
in January 1943.


The Marie Stopes International organisation

The clinics continued to operate after Stopes' death, but by the early 1970s they were in financial difficulties and in 1975 they went into voluntary receivership.
Marie Stopes International MSI Reproductive Choices, named Marie Stopes International until November 2020, is an international non-governmental organisation providing contraception and safe abortion services in 37 countries around the world. MSI Reproductive Choices as an ...
was established a year later as an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) working on sexual and reproductive health. The global partnership took over responsibility for the main clinic, and in 1978 it began its work overseas in New Delhi, India. Since then the organisation has grown steadily; today it works in 37 countries (2019), has 452 clinics and has offices in London, Brussels, Melbourne and in the US.


Opposition and libel case

In 1922, Dr
Halliday Sutherland Halliday Gibson Sutherland (1882–1960) was a Scottish medical doctor, writer, opponent of eugenics and the producer of Britain's first public health education cinema film in 1911. Private life Halliday Sutherland was born in Glasgow, Scotland ...
wrote a book called ''Birth Control: A Statement of Christian Doctrine Against the Neo Malthusians''.Halliday Sutherland, Birth Control: A Statement of Christian Doctrine against the Neo-Malthusians New York, PJ Kennedy and Sons, 1922. In the inter-war years, the terms "birth control" and " eugenics" were closely related; according to Jane Carey they were "so intertwined as to be synonymous". Following attacks on "the essential fallacies of Malthusian teaching", Sutherland's book attacked Stopes. Under the headings "Specially Hurtful to the Poor" and "Exposing the Poor to Experiment", it read:
In the midst of a London slum a woman, who is a doctor of German philosophy (Munich), has opened a Birth Control Clinic, where working women are instructed in a method of contraception described by Professor McIlroy as 'The most harmful method of which I have had experience'. When we remember that millions are being spent by the Ministry of Health and by Local Authorities – on pure milk for necessitous expectant and nursing mothers, on Maternity Clinics to guard the health of mothers before and after childbirth, for the provision of skilled midwives, and on Infant Welfare Centres – it is truly amazing that this monstrous campaign of birth control should be tolerated by the Home Secretary. Charles Bradlaugh was condemned to jail for a less serious crime.
Stopes was incensed. The reference to "doctor of German philosophy" sought to undermine Stopes because she was not a medical doctor and, being so soon after the First World War, sought to harness anti-German sentiment. Stopes's work had been associated with Charles Bradlaugh, who had been convicted of obscenity 45 years earlier when he had republished an American Malthusian text in Britain, which "advocated and gave explicit information about contraceptive methods". Stopes challenged Sutherland to a public debate. When Sutherland did not respond, she brought a writ for libel against him. The court case began on 21 February 1923; it was acrimonious. Four questions were put to the jury, which they answered as follows: #Were the words complained of defamatory of the plaintiff? ''Yes''. #Were they true in substance and in fact? ''Yes''. #Were they fair comment? ''No''. #Damages, if any? ''£100''. Based on the jury's verdict, barristers for both sides asked for judgement in their favour, so it came down to legal argument. Sutherland's barrister successfully argued that as soon as the jury decided that the statements were true in substance and in fact, that was the end of the matter. It was a moral victory for Stopes as the press saw it, and she appealed. On 20 July, the Court of Appeal reversed the previous decision (2–1), awarding the £100 to Stopes. The Catholic community mobilised to support Sutherland, a Catholic, and Stopes publicly campaigned to raise £10,000. Sutherland made a final appeal to the House of Lords on 21 November 1924. The trial had made birth control a public topic and the number of clients visiting the clinic doubled. The Law Lords found in Sutherland's favour (4–1) and, despite the fact that the decision was irrevocable, Stopes wrote to the Lord Chancellor to overturn it "so that legal subtleties based on misapprehension may not rob me of my victory". The cost for Stopes was vast; costs were partially compensated by publicity and book sales. Stopes was even remembered in a playground rhyme:
Jeanie, Jeanie, full of hopes, Read a book by Marie Stopes, But, to judge from her condition, She must have read the wrong edition.


Literary life

Stopes was acquainted with many literary figures of the day. She had long-standing correspondences with George Bernard Shaw and
Aylmer Maude Aylmer Maude (28 March 1858 – 25 August 1938) and Louise Maude (1855–1939) were English translators of Leo Tolstoy's works, and Aylmer Maude also wrote his friend Tolstoy's biography, ''The Life of Tolstoy''. After living many years in Russi ...
, and argued with H. G. Wells.
Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
wrote a poem about her, and she edited
Lord Alfred Douglas Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945), also known as Bosie Douglas, was an English poet and journalist, and a lover of Oscar Wilde. At Oxford he edited an undergraduate journal, ''The Spirit Lamp'', that carried a homoer ...
' letters. She unsuccessfully petitioned
Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasemen ...
to arrange for Douglas to receive a
civil list A civil list is a list of individuals to whom money is paid by the government, typically for service to the state or as honorary pensions. It is a term especially associated with the United Kingdom and its former colonies of Canada, India, New Zeal ...
pension; the petition was signed by Arthur Quiller-Couch, John Gielgud, Evelyn Waugh and Virginia Woolf, among others. The general secretary of the Poetry Society, Muriel Spark, had an altercation with Stopes; according to Mark Bostridge, Spark "found herself lamenting that Stopes's mother had not been better informed on irth control. Stopes wrote poems, plays, and novels; during the First World War she wrote increasingly didactic plays. Her first major success was '' Our Ostriches'', a play that dealt with society's approach to working class women being forced to produce babies throughout their lives. The play ran for three months at the Royal Court Theatre. It was hurriedly produced in place of '' Vectia'', another of Stopes' plays. ''Vectia'' is an autobiographical attempt to analyse the failure of Stopes' first marriage. Because of its themes of sex and impotence, it was denied a licence to be performed, despite Stopes's frequent efforts. In 1926, Stopes had ''Vectia'' printed under the title ''A Banned Play and a Preface on Censorship''. In addition to a revival of Our Ostriches in 1930, Stopes produced two other plays for the London stage, "Don't Tell Timothy," a musical farce produced in 1925-26, and "Buckie's Bears," a children's Christmas pageant, allegedly dictated by her son, Henry Roe-Stopes, produced annually between 1931 and 1936. In collaboration with Joji Sakurai, Stopes produced a translation of three Japanese plays ''Plays of Old Japan: The Nō'' in 1913. Stopes published several volumes of poetry, including ''Man and Other Poems'' (1913), ''Love Songs for Young Lovers'' (1939), ''
Oriri ''Oriri'' (1940) is a long poem by the birth control pioneer Marie C. Stopes, published by Heinemann as a short book. Its subject is love between a "He" and a "She", and it is written in semi-dramatic form, with other members of the cast includ ...
'' (1940), and ''Joy and Verity'' (1952). She also published a novel, ''Love's Creation'' (1928), under the semi-pseudonym "Marie Carmichael".


Views on abortion

Publicly, Stopes professed to oppose abortion and, during her lifetime, her clinics did not offer that service. She single-mindedly pursued abortion providers and used the police and the courts to prosecute them. Stopes thought that the use of contraceptives was the preferred means by which families should voluntarily limit their number of offspring. Nurses at Stopes' clinic had to sign a declaration not to "impart any information or lend any assistance whatsoever to any person calculated to lead to the destruction ''in utero'' of the products of conception". When Stopes learned that one of Avro Manhattan's friends had had an abortion, she accused him of murdering the unborn child. However, her private actions were at odds with her public pronouncements. In a 1919 letter she had outlined a method of abortion to an unidentified correspondent and she "was even prepared in some cases to advocate abortion, or, as she preferred to put it, the evacuation of the uterus". Further, in ''Wise Parenthood'' she had promoted the "Gold Pin" or "Spring" which was a "method hatcould be described as an abortifacient".


Eugenics

In her biography of Stopes,
June Rose June Rose (20 June 1926 – 10 January 2018) was a British biographer whose subjects ranged from the Italian artist Modigliani to notable women such as Elizabeth Fry and Marie Stopes. Early life June Rose was born in Bedford in 1926, the four ...
claimed "Marie was an elitist, an idealist, interested in creating a society in which only the best and beautiful should survive," a view echoed by Richard A. Soloway in the 1996 Galton Lecture: "If Stopes's general interest in birth control was a logical consequence of her romantic preoccupation with compatible sexuality within blissful marriage, her particular efforts to provide birth control for the poor had far more to do with her eugenic concerns about the impending 'racial darkness' that the adoption of contraception promised to illuminate." Stopes's enthusiasm for eugenics and race improvement was in line with many intellectuals and public figures of the time: for example Havelock Ellis,
Cyril Burt Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt, FBA (3 March 1883 – 10 October 1971) was an English educational psychologist and geneticist who also made contributions to statistics. He is known for his studies on the heritability of IQ. Shortly after he died, his s ...
and George Bernard Shaw. Eugenic sympathies were drawn from the left and the right of politics and included Labour politicians, such as
Ellen Wilkinson Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (8 October 1891 – 6 February 1947) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. Earlier in her career, as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow, s ...
. As a child Marie had met
Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto- ...
, one of the founders of modern eugenics, through her father. She joined the Eugenics Education Society in 1912 and became a life fellow in 1921. Clare Debenham in her 2018 biography of Stopes argues in Chapter Nine that she was a maverick eugenicist, who was shunned by the inner circle of the Eugenic Society. In 1934, she reflected: "I am a Life Fellow and would have much more interest in the Eugenics Society if I had not been cold shouldered". The objects of the Society For Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress expressed the eugenic aims of the Mothers' Clinic, summarised in Tenet 16:
"In short, we are profoundly and fundamentally a pro-baby organisation, in favour of producing the largest possible number of healthy, happy children without detriment to the mother, and with the minimum wastage of infants by premature deaths. In this connection our motto has been 'Babies in the right place,' and it is just as much the aim of Constructive Birth Control to secure conception to those married people who are healthy, childless, and desire children, as it is to furnish security from conception to those who are racially diseased, already overburdened with children, or in any specific way unfitted for parenthood."
"Racially diseased" included conditions that today are considered infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis), or caused by environmental factors (such as poor living conditions and malnutrition). Stopes advocated the compulsory sterilisation of those she considered unfit for parenthood in 1918. and in 1920. Stopes advocacy of compulsory sterilisation is at odds with the claim that she gave women reproductive choice: after all, had the laws for compulsory sterilisation that she lobbied politicians for been passed, the reproductive choice of those whom she considered unfit would have been made by the state. In Chapter XX of her 1920 book ''Radiant Motherhood'' Stopes discussed race and said that the "one central reform" was: "The power of the mother, consciously exerted in the voluntary procreation and joyous bearing of her children, is the greatest power in the world". She added that two "main dangers" stood in the way. The first of these was ignorance and the second was the "inborn incapacity which lies in the vast and ever increasing stock of degenerate, feeble-minded and unbalanced who are now in our midst and who devastate social customs. These populate most rapidly and tend proportionately to increase and these are like the parasite upon the healthy tree sapping its vitality." Stopes then stated that "a few quite simple acts of Parliament" could deal with "this prolific depravity" through sterilisation by x-rays and assured the reader that "when Bills are passed to ensure the sterility of the hopelessly rotten and racially diseased, and to provide for the education of the child-bearing woman so that she spaces her children healthily, our race will rapidly quell the stream of the depraved, hopeless and wretched lives which are at present increasing in proportion in our midst". Stopes promoted her eugenic ideas to politicians. In 1920 she sent a copy of her book, ''Radiant Motherhood''—arguably the most explicitly eugenic of her books—to the Prime Minister's secretary, Frances Stevenson, and urged her to get David Lloyd George to read them. In November 1922, just before the general election, she sent a questionnaire to parliamentary candidates asking that they sign a declaration that: "I agree that the present position of breeding chiefly from the C3 population and burdening and discouraging the A1 is nationally deplorable, and if I am elected to Parliament I will press the Ministry of Health to give such scientific information through the Ante-natal Clinics, Welfare Centres and other institutions in its control as will curtail the C3 and increase the A1". She received 150 replies. In July 1931 the Women's Co-operative Guild at their conference passed a resolution advocating compulsory sterilisation for the mentally or physically unfit. A 1933 letter from Stopes to a friend revealed disillusion with eugenics: "I do not think I want to write a book about Eugenics. The word has been so tarnished by some people that they are not going to get my name tacked onto it". Despite this, she attended the International Congress for Population Science in Berlin in 1935. After attending this conference she came under attack by some of her former supporters such a Guy Aldred and Havelock Ellis and, on her death in 1958, she bequeathed her clinics to the Eugenics Society. In 1934, an interview published in the '' Australian Women's Weekly'' disclosed Marie's views on mixed-race marriages: she advised correspondents against them and believed that all half-castes should be sterilised at birth... "thus painlessly and in no way interfering with the individual's life, the unhappy fate of he who is neither black nor white is prevented from being passed on to yet unborn babes." In August 1939 she sent a copy of her ''Love Song for Young Lovers'' to Adolf Hitler because "Love is the greatest thing in the world". She wanted her poems to be distributed through the German birth control clinics. However, according to Rose any sympathy she may have had with Hitler was dissipated when he closed those clinics. On 12 July 1940 she wrote to
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
to offer a slogan, "Fight the Battle of Britain in Berlin's Air".


Personal life

Stopes had a relationship, mainly through correspondence, with Japanese botanist Kenjiro Fujii, whom she met at the University of Munich in 1904 while researching her PhD In 1907, during her 1904–1910 tenure at Manchester University, she arranged to research in Japan, allowing her to be with Fujii. The relationship ended. In 1911, Stopes married Canadian geneticist
Reginald Ruggles Gates Reginald Ruggles Gates (May 1, 1882 – August 12, 1962), was a Canadian-born geneticist who published widely in the fields of botany and eugenics. Early life Reginald Ruggles Gates was born on May 1, 1882, near Middleton, Nova Scotia, to a fa ...
. She had maintained her name out of principle; her work was blooming while his was struggling. Marie was part of the Women’s Freedom League and he was strongly opposed to her support for
suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
s and seemingly, was frustrated. The marriage fell apart amid squabbling over the house and rent. After another year, she sought legal advice about ending the marriage. Not receiving useful help, she read the legal code seeking a way to get a divorce. On 11 May 1913, Stopes filed for divorce on the grounds that the marriage had never been
consummated In many traditions and statutes of civil or religious law, the consummation of a marriage, often called simply ''consummation'', is the first (or first officially credited) act of sexual intercourse between two people, following their marriage t ...
. Gates left England the following year and did not contest the divorce, although he disputed Stopes’s claims, describing her as "super-sexed to a degree that was almost pathological". He added to this "I could have satisfied the desires of any normal woman". In 1918 she married
Humphrey Verdon Roe Humphrey Verdon Roe (18 April 1878 – 27 July 1949) was a British businessman, a philanthropist, aircraft manufacturer and the usually unacknowledged co-founder of Britain's first and most successful birth control clinic along with Marie Stopes, ...
, the financial backer of her most famous work, ''Married Love: A New Contribution to the Solution of the Sex Difficulties''. Their son,
Harry Stopes-Roe Harry Verdon Stopes-Roe (27 March 1924 – 11 May 2014) was a British philosopher known mainly for his active role in the humanist movement in Britain and around the world. He was a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association until his ...
, was born in 1924. In 1923, Marie Stopes bought the
Old Higher Lighthouse The Old Higher Lighthouse is a disused 19th century lighthouse on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, southern England. It is located at Branscombe Hill on the west side of Portland, overlooking Portland Bill. The lighthouse is Grade II Listed. History ...
on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, as an escape from the difficult climate of London during her court case against
Halliday Sutherland Halliday Gibson Sutherland (1882–1960) was a Scottish medical doctor, writer, opponent of eugenics and the producer of Britain's first public health education cinema film in 1911. Private life Halliday Sutherland was born in Glasgow, Scotland ...
. The island's Jurassic fossil forests provided her with endless interest. She founded and curated the Portland Museum, which opened in 1930. The cottage housing the museum was an inspiration behind ''
The Well-Beloved ''The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament'' is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It spans forty years, and follows Jocelyn Pierston, a celebrated sculptor who attempts to create in stone the image of his ideal woman, while he tries also to find her i ...
'', a novel by
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...
, who was a friend of Marie Stopes. In the 1940s, Stopes disliked Harry's companion, Mary Eyre Wallis, who was the daughter of the noted engineer
Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...
. When Harry announced their engagement in October 1947, his mother set about "to try to sabotage the union". She found fault with Mary and wrote to Mary's father to complain. She tried to get Humphrey's support against the marriage, arguing that any grandchildren might inherit Mary's
myopia Near-sightedness, also known as myopia and short-sightedness, is an eye disease where light focuses in front of, instead of on, the retina. As a result, distant objects appear blurry while close objects appear normal. Other symptoms may include ...
. He was not persuaded. Later, believing "he had betrayed her by this marriage", Stopes cut him out of any substantial inheritance. Stopes died on 2 October 1958, aged 77, from breast cancer at her home in
Dorking Dorking () is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp Br ...
, Surrey. Her will left her clinic to the
Eugenics Society Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
; most of her estate went to the Royal Society of Literature. Her son Harry received her copy of the ''Greater Oxford Dictionary'' and other small items. An
English Heritage blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
commemorates Stopes at 28 Cintra Park, Upper Norwood, where she lived from 1880 to 1892.


Selected works

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See also

* Birth control movement in the United States *
Calthorpe Clinic The Calthorpe Clinic, (now Marie Stopes International Birmingham), was an abortion clinic in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England that first opened in 1969. It was the first clinic in the United Kingdom opened exclusively for abortions. It was erected at ...
* Feminism in the United Kingdom * Social hygiene movement


References


Bibliography

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External links

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"Situating Stopes"
by Lesley A. Hall,
Wellcome Library The Wellcome Library is founded on the collection formed by Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936), whose personal wealth allowed him to create one of the most ambitious collections of the 20th century. Henry Wellcome's interest was the history of med ...
, London
Pictures of Marie Stopes and Thomas Hardy at her Portland homeMarie Stopes International
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stopes, Marie 1880 births 1958 deaths People educated at St George's School, Edinburgh Scottish people of English descent British birth control activists British feminist writers Alumni of University College London Deaths from breast cancer British suffragists Deaths from cancer in England British eugenicists Museum founders British curators Women botanists British palaeontologists Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Academics of the University of Manchester Scientists from Edinburgh People educated at North London Collegiate School 20th-century British women scientists 20th-century British women writers Fellows of the Linnean Society of London 20th-century British botanists Paleobotanists Women paleontologists