Marie Stopes

Stopes was briefly involved in a romantic relationship with Japanese botanist, Kenjiro Fujii, whom she met at the University of Manchester in 1904.

She married Canadian geneticists, Reginald Ruggles Gates in 1911. Stope refusal to leave her maiden name and Gates impotency led to brawls between the two which eventually ended in divorce.

Following her divorce to Gates, Stopes married Humphrey Roe in 1918. The couple was blessed with a son in 1924. Prior to this, Stopes delivered a stillborn baby in 1919 which started her lifelong distrust against doctors. In 1938, she separated from Humphrey.

Marie Stopes was born on October 15, 1880 to Henry Stopes and Charlotte Carmichael Stopes in Edinburgh. Her father was an engineer and palaeontologist while her mother was a Shakespearean scholar. The family shifted base to London when she was six.

Initially home-schooled, young Stopes attended the St George School for Girls in Edinburgh from 1892 to 1894. Later, she was enrolled at the North London Collegiate School.

Completing her early education, Stopes attended the University College London where she studied botany and geology. In 1902, she graduated with a B.Sc. honors and immediately thereafter, earned a doctorate degree from University College London, thereby becoming the youngest person in Britain to achieve the same.

With an aim to prepare herself for a scientific career, she enrolled at the University of Munich. Stopes attained a Ph.D in palaeobotany in 1904. Concurrently, she served as the Fellow and Lecturer in Palaeobotany at University of Manchester from 1904 to 1907, thus becoming the first female science academician at the University.

Stopes scientific career started on a successful note. She indulged herself in the study of the composition of coal and conducted research on the history of angiosperms.

Her excellence as an academician earned her a grant from the British Royal Society. Based on the same, she travelled to Tokyo in 1907 for a scientific mission. Stopes spent much of her time studying and exploring fossillised plants near Hokkaido coal mine. In 1910, she published her daily findings of these studies and explorations under, ‘Journal from Japan’.

In 1910, she was appointed to determine the age of the Fern Ledges by the Geological Survey of Canada. She moved to North America and indulged herself in studying the geological collections in museums. Meanwhile, in 1911, she married Reginald Ruggles Gates in St Louis, Missouri.

In 1913, she accepted the position of lecturer of paleobotany at the University College. In 1914, her marriage to Gates was annulled due to latter’s impotency.

From 1914, she continued with her research program and wrote several books in her field of speciality. Some of the books published during this time include, ‘The Constitution of Coal’, ‘The Four Visible Ingredients in Banded Bituminous Coal: Studies in the Composition of Coal’ and so on.

The magnum opus of Stopes career came with her book, ‘Married Love’, a sex manual that dealt with the subject of birth control. Through the book, she professed the use of birth control measures and the importance of family planning. The book contained her radical views on sexual relationships and equality of men and women in marriage. Despite being condemned by the Church, it was highly popular and sold more than 2000 copies within a fortnight. Its outstanding success led Stopes to pen her future books, ‘Wise Parenthood’, ‘A Letter to Working Mothers’, ‘Radiant Motherhood’ and so on.