317:
181:
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193:, a resolution was passed in favour of calling for the alteration of these restrictions: making the WCG the first women's organisation to take up the issue of birth control. Although a similar resolution was proposed by the women's conference of the Labour Party in the same year, it came late in proceedings, and it was decided that there was too little time to discuss it effectively.
337:
shame and secrecy. Marie Stopes' libel action at this date stirred immense public interest, but our work went down to the grass roots and made ordinary people begin to see that here was a pressing social and political problem. These women pioneers were a lively and intrepid group with whom I spent many rewarding hours. We were all sorts, intellectuals, middle and working class.
200:, seeking to emphasise the health costs to mothers without access to birth control advice and drawing on statistics concerning maternal deaths, coined the slogan: 'It is four times as dangerous to bear a child as to work in a mine, and mining is men's most dangerous trade.' A deputation to the Minister of Health,
290:
birth control is in its nature not one which should be made a political Party issue, but should remain a matter upon which members of the Party should be free to hold and promote their individual convictions.' As well as focus by male members of the Labour Party on other issues, the threat of losing the
289:
Between 1924 and 1927, a number of regional Labour women's groups formed their own branches of the
Workers' Birth Control Group. Despite repeated efforts, however, the Labour Party's executive council refused to adopt support for birth control as part of their platform, stating that: 'the subject of
324:
Although the
Workers' Birth Control Group were unsuccessful in convincing the Labour Party's executive to adopt an official stance on birth control, in 1930 Labour's Minister of Health circulated a memorandum to all local health authorities, stating that ‘in cases of medical necessity’ maternal and
284:
The WBCG had a single goal — to make it possible for working-class women to get birth control information and treatment, safely and without charge through the local state-supported maternity clinics. For six years from 1924 to 1930, the group kept in close touch with the women’s sections around the
336:
The nationwide furore of comment and controversy, questions and debate in
Parliament, debates in great numbers of local councils, innumerable meetings, are evidence of how large a contribution we all made to the enlightenment and liberation of women - and men too, on a subject hitherto shrouded in
70:
To bring pressure to bear through
Parliament and otherwise on the Ministry of Health to recognise Birth Control as an essential part of Public Health work, and therefore to allow information to be given by the Local Health Authorities at their Maternity and Child Welfare Centres. Meanwhile to help
271:
outlining 'the large and growing demand among working mothers that information as to the methods of birth control be frankly, and decently given by public authority'. In addition to campaigning for increased access to contraception information from public health providers, members of the
Workers'
188:
During the 1920s, a number of prominent women's groups began to speak out in favour of access to, and information about, birth control. At the beginning of the decade, government restrictions were in place to prevent physicians at public health clinics from providing information on birth control,
325:
child welfare clinics could provide birth control information to women. This concession could at least in part be attributed to regional efforts by branches of the WBCG, who put pressure on local authorities. Many of these activists continued to campaign on a local level throughout the 1930s.
294:
vote has been cited as a significant reason for the overall avoidance of adopting birth control promotion as part of official party policy. As well as a significant number of
Catholics in major trade union groups, the Catholic John Wheatley was an influential figure in the party's leadership.
302:
in the House of Lords introduced bills in favour of birth control access. Thurtle's was defeated, but
Buckmaster's passed. However, the Labour Party refused at their conference in four consecutive years to adopt a birth control resolution onto their platform. In 1928, speaking at the Women's
215:
At the 1924 Labour Party women's conference, a resolution on birth control was successfully passed, and shortly afterwards the
Workers' Birth Control Group was formed. Key figures in the emergent organisation were prominent humanist activists Dora Russell, Frida Laski, and
307:
sought to explain this unwillingness to ‘legislate in advance of public opinion... on this question which touches the deep religious convictions of large numbers of people’, and to restore good feeling between the men and women of the party on the issue.
212:, a gynaecologist and birth control supporter. Calling for birth control advice to be given to those who requested it, and for physicians to be allowed to give such advice when medically advisable, their requests were rejected by Wheatley, a Catholic.
236:, and Dorothy Jewson. They used, as Jane Lewis has written, 'no justification other than the claim of all women as mothers to knowledge of matters concerning their health'. The Workers' Birth Control Group set themselves deliberately apart from
189:
even to married women. In 1922, a Miss E. S. Daniels had been dismissed from her post in a public health department for refusal to comply with these regulations. In 1923, at the annual conference of the
914:
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country, encouraging them to set up local birth control groups. They sent out speakers, distributed letters and pamphlets, organized public meetings and lobbied Labour members of
Parliament.
247:
Many of the group's founders and members had already been active in the promotion of access to birth control prior to the group's formation, including Dora
Russell - who, with
909:
299:
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168:. The group deliberately distanced itself from other existing birth control organisations, which were typically middle class and inspired by ideas of
332:, Dora Russell recalled the impact of the Workers' Birth Control Group on public opinion, and on the willingness to discuss a previously taboo issue:
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information and treatment, safely and free of charge. It was founded in 1924, in the wake of the women's conference of the
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after they were found guilty of selling pamphlets on contraception. Witcop, along with Russell, Laski,
811:. Internet Archive. London : Croom Helm ; Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press.
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and eugenicist birth control groups, who they viewed as seeing the poor as inferior. H.G. Wells and
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Birth Control Group lectured throughout the country on the subject of birth control.
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The politics of motherhood : child and maternal welfare in England, 1900-1939
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601:"Sex vs. Class: British Feminists and the Labour Movement, 1919 - 1929"
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Labour women : women in British working-class politics, 1918-1939
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used their own public profiles to gain publicity for the campaign.
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838:. Internet Archive. London ; New York : I.B. Tauris.
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Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Heritage Blog
493:. Internet Archive. London ; New York : Croom Helm.
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The Committee of the Workers' Birth Control Group included:
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The tamarisk tree : my quest for liberty and love
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In 1926, Ernest Thurtle in the House of Commons and
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Organisations associated with the Labour Party (UK)
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40:
32:
549:Sundstrom, Beth; Delay, Cara (24 September 2020),
144:was a British organisation which sought to enable
684:Blog, RCOG Heritage Collections (24 April 2017).
753:"Humanist Heritage: Dorothy Thurtle (1890-1973)"
711:"Humanist Heritage: Dora Russell (1894-1986)"
657:Russell, Dora Winifred Black Russell (1975).
487:Brookes, Barbara L. (Barbara Lesley) (1988).
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663:. Internet Archive. New York : Putnam.
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184:Objects of the Workers' Birth Control Group
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71:the promotion of Birth Control Clinics.
251:, had in 1923 paid the legal costs of
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835:Women, a modern political dictionary
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910:Birth control in the United Kingdom
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925:History of the Labour Party (UK)
686:"Pioneers: Frances Mabel Huxley"
303:Conference of the Labour Party,
280:As Pamela M. Graves has written:
805:Lewis, Jane (Jane E. ) (1980).
490:Abortion in England, 1900-1967
1:
405:Other active supporters were
156:, by a group which included
142:Workers' Birth Control Group
19:Workers' Birth Control Group
557:, Oxford University Press,
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460:Graves, Pamela M. (1994).
353:Dorothy Jewson (President)
191:Women's Cooperative Guild
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269:Independent Labour Party
920:Birth control activists
514:Wilson, Nicola (2016).
599:Smith, Harold (1984).
395:Leah L'Estrange Malone
342:Members and supporters
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328:In her autobiography,
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198:Leah L'Estrange Malone
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112:Leah L'Estrange Malone
53:Leah L'Estrange Malone
785:Spartacus Educational
551:"Birth Control Today"
520:. London: Routledge.
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865:Workers' Dreadnought
832:Law, Cheryl (2000).
123:Dr. Maurice Newfield
249:John Maynard Keynes
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320:Dora Russell, 1922
234:Margaret Bondfield
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880:"British Library"
845:978-1-86064-502-0
818:978-0-7099-0259-1
757:Humanist Heritage
715:Humanist Heritage
670:978-0-399-11576-9
572:978-0-19-006967-4
527:978-1-315-58699-1
500:978-0-7099-5046-2
473:978-0-521-41247-6
330:The Tamarisk Tree
226:Katharine Glasier
196:Dora Russell and
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718:. Retrieved
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398:Alice Hicks
384:Frida Laski
276:Campaigning
257:Rose Witcop
162:Frida Laski
49:Frida Laski
904:Categories
860:"Our View"
421:References
388:Joan Allen
380:S.P. Viant
370:F.A. Broad
253:Guy Aldred
238:Malthusian
206:H.G. Wells
884:www.bl.uk
625:0018-2370
536:948604468
312:Influence
208:, and Dr
129:Secretary
95:President
33:Formation
633:24446682
292:Catholic
170:eugenics
107:Chairman
76:Location
176:Origins
67:Purpose
41:Founder
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164:, and
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891:2021
840:ISBN
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764:2021
722:2021
697:2021
665:ISBN
621:ISSN
580:2021
567:ISBN
532:OCLC
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468:ISBN
413:and
255:and
220:and
36:1924
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