79 Facts About Marie Stopes

Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was a British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for eugenics and women's rights.

Marie Stopes made significant contributions to plant paleontology and coal classification, and was the first female academic on the faculty of the University of Manchester.

Marie Stopes edited the newsletter Birth Control News, which gave explicit practical advice.

Marie 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.

Marie Stopes's father, Henry Stopes, was a brewer, engineer, architect and palaeontologist from Colchester.

Marie Stopes's mother was Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, a Shakespearean scholar and women's rights campaigner from Edinburgh.

Marie Stopes was later sent to the North London Collegiate School, where she was a close friend of Olga Frobe-Kapteyn.

Marie Stopes primarily focused on her science career in her 20s and 30s.

Marie Stopes' father died in 1902 leaving her family in financial ruin.

Marie Stopes was provided the opportunity to work with the world's leading experts in paleobotany at the time.

Marie Stopes used this study as her doctoral dissertation, she presented her dissertation in German and received a PhD in botany in 1904.

Marie Stopes 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.

Marie Stopes was a fellow and occasional lecturer in paleobotany at University College, London until 1920.

At age 23, Marie 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.

Marie Stopes was known around the campus as a partier: she would socialize freely with staff, colleagues, and a few students, or 'flirt'.

Marie Stopes did not join the expedition, but Scott promised to bring back samples of fossils to provide evidence for the theory.

The mines for these coal balls were close to Manchester, and Marie Stopes became distinct from other paleobotanists by directly going to these mines and observing the coal on site.

In six weeks, Marie Stopes concluded her Brora research, and made arrangements to depart for Japan on 3 July 1907.

Marie Stopes spent eighteen months at the Imperial University, Tokyo and explored coal mines on Hokkaido for fossilized plants.

Marie Stopes 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 Marie Stopes to determine the age of the Fern Ledges, a geological structure at Saint John, New Brunswick.

Marie Stopes arrived in North America before Christmas to start her research.

Marie Stopes made major contributions to knowledge of the earliest angiosperms, the formation of coal balls and the nature of coal macerals.

Marie Stopes wrote a popular book on palaeobotany, "Ancient Plants", in what was called a successful pioneering effort to introduce the subject to non-scientists.

Around the start of her annulment proceedings in 1913, Marie Stopes began to write a book about the way she thought marriage should work.

Marie Stopes showed Sanger her writings and sought her advice about a chapter on contraception.

Marie Stopes offered it to Blackie and Son, who declined.

Less than two months later they were married and Marie Stopes had her first opportunity to practise what she preached in her book.

The success of Married Love encouraged Marie 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.

Wise Parenthood was aimed at married women, as Marie Stopes believed birth control to be necessary for married couples to help protect mothers against the exhaustion of excessive childbearing.

Marie Stopes had shown little interest in, or respect for, the working classes; the Letter was aimed at redressing her bias.

Marie Stopes was furious and said her baby had been murdered.

For instance, significant aspects of the story of Marie Stopes' visit to Professor McIlroy in disguise and being fitted with a cervical cap have been shown to have been fabricated, and McIlroy's treatment of Marie Stopes has been shown to have been consistent with her testimony in the High Court.

Marie Stopes proposed all patients would be married and that no abortions would be done, but his offer was declined.

In 1920, Sanger proposed opening a clinic in London; this encouraged Marie Stopes to act more constructively, but her plan never materialised.

Marie 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.

Marie Stopes tried to discover alternatives for families and increase knowledge about birth control and the reproductive system.

Marie Stopes rediscovered the use of olive oil-soaked sponges as an alternative birth control.

Marie Stopes tested many of her contraceptives on patients at her clinics.

Marie Stopes became enthusiastic about a contraceptive device called the "gold pin", which was reportedly successful in America.

Haire brought up the gold-pin episode, even though Marie Stopes' clinic had never used it.

Marie Stopes gradually built up a small network of clinics across Britain, working to fund them.

Marie Stopes opened clinics in Leeds in April 1934; Aberdeen in October 1934; Belfast in October 1936; Cardiff in October 1937; and Swansea in January 1943.

Marie Stopes helped Beatrice Green establish a clinic in Abertillery in 1925.

Marie 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".

Sutherland made a final appeal to the House of Lords on 21 November 1924, and won; Marie Stopes was ordered to repay the one hundred pounds arising from the previous hearing, and to pay the defendant's costs in relation to the appeals to the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords.

The cost for Marie Stopes was vast; costs were partially compensated by publicity and book sales.

Marie Stopes joined the Eugenics Education Society in 1912 and became a life fellow in 1921.

Clare Debenham in her 2018 biography of Marie Stopes argues in Chapter Nine that she was a maverick eugenicist, who was shunned by the inner circle of the Eugenic Society.

In 1918 and 1920, Marie Stopes advocated the compulsory sterilisation of those she considered unfit for parenthood.

In Chapter XX of her 1920 book Radiant Motherhood Marie 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".

Marie Stopes added that two "main dangers" stood in the way.

Marie Stopes wanted her poems to be distributed through the German birth control clinics.

Publicly, Marie Stopes professed to oppose abortion; during her lifetime, her clinics did not offer that service.

Marie Stopes single-mindedly pursued abortion providers and used the police and the courts to prosecute them.

Marie Stopes thought that the use of contraceptives was the preferred means by which families should voluntarily limit their number of offspring.

Nurses at Marie 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 Marie Stopes learned that one of Avro Manhattan's friends had had an abortion, she accused him of murdering the unborn child.

Marie Stopes was acquainted with many literary figures of the day.

Marie Stopes had long-standing correspondences with George Bernard Shaw and Aylmer Maude, and argued with H G Wells.

Marie Stopes unsuccessfully petitioned Neville Chamberlain to arrange for Douglas to receive a civil list 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 Marie Stopes; according to Mark Bostridge, Spark "found herself lamenting that Marie Stopes's mother had not been better informed on [birth control]".

Marie Stopes wrote poems, plays, and novels; during the First World War she wrote increasingly didactic plays.

In 1926, Marie Stopes had Vectia printed under the title A Banned Play and a Preface on Censorship.

In collaboration with Joji Sakurai, Marie Stopes produced a translation of three Japanese plays Plays of Old Japan: The No in 1913.

Marie Stopes published several volumes of poetry, including Man and Other Poems, Love Songs for Young Lovers, Oriri, and Joy and Verity.

Marie Stopes published a novel, Love's Creation, under the semi-pseudonym "Marie Carmichael".

Marie Stopes had maintained her name out of principle; her work was blooming while his was struggling.

Marie Stopes was part of the Women's Freedom League and he was strongly opposed to her support for suffragettes and seemingly, was frustrated.

On 11 May 1913, Marie Stopes filed for divorce on the grounds that the marriage had never been consummated.

Gates left England the following year and did not contest the divorce, although he disputed Marie Stopes's claims, describing her as "super-sexed to a degree that was almost pathological".

Marie Stopes added to this "I could have satisfied the desires of any normal woman".

In 1923, Marie Stopes bought the Old Higher Lighthouse on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, as an escape from the difficult climate of London during her court case against Halliday Sutherland.

Marie Stopes founded and curated the Portland Museum, which opened in 1930.

Marie Stopes found fault with Mary and wrote to Mary's father to complain.

Marie Stopes tried to get Humphrey's support against the marriage, arguing that any grandchildren might inherit Mary's myopia.

Later, believing "he had betrayed her by this marriage", Marie Stopes cut him out of any substantial inheritance.

Marie Stopes died on 2 October 1958, aged 77, from breast cancer at her home in Dorking, Surrey.

Marie Stopes's will left her clinic to the Eugenics Society; most of her estate went to the Royal Society of Literature.