One of the key events in Exterminating Poverty: the true story of the eugenic plan to get rid of the poor and the Scottish doctor who fought against it occurred on on 17th March 1921. It was the day Marie Stopes and Humphrey Roe opened the Mothers’ Clinic in Holloway, London. For many years, the legacy of Dr. Stopes has been carefully curated and references to her scientific racism and eugenic beliefs have often been omitted, downplayed or otherwise obfuscated.

In the first of three articles, I will list the evidence that shows that the Mothers’ Clinic was a eugenic project that aligned to Stopes’ eugenic goals. In the next article, I will give examples of the techniques that have been (and, in some cases, still are) used to obfuscate the truth and in the final article, give the reasons why some writers do this.

Let’s start with some definitions

What was eugenics?

The terms “eugenic” and “eugenics” are frequently used in a pejorative sense, so it is useful to remind ourselves of what these words mean. According to Sir Francis Galton, who coined the term, eugenics is:

“the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally”

Francis Galton, “Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims”, Nature, 70 (1904), 82.

Eugenics is not (according to this definition) of itself “a bad thing,” since it can encompass measures from the very good to the very bad.

Types of eugenist / eugenic measures

Generally speaking, there were two kinds of eugenist: [1] [2]

  • Mainline eugenists, who believed that “breeding is all”. Nature (the genetic inheritance) was significantly more influential in determining a person’s qualities and characteristics than nurture (the environment).
  • Reform eugenists, who believed that nature and nurture both played a part in determining a person’s qualities and characteristics, and that the science of eugenics was not advanced sufficiently to determine the relative importance of each.

Measures that were described as “eugenic” can be categorised as:

  • Positive eugenics which, (according to Daniel Kevles on page 85 of In the Name of Eugenics), “aimed to foster more prolific breeding among the socially meritorious”;
  • Negative eugenics which was “intended to encourage the socially disadvantaged to breed less—or, better yet, not at all” (Kevles).

The eugenic intent behind the Mothers’ Clinic

The Queen’s Hall Rally 31st May 1921

On 31st May 1921, Marie Stopes organised a large Meeting on Constructive Birth Control at the Queen’s Hall in Langham Place, London.

According to the late historian Richard A. Soloway:

“Many of the speeches at the Queen’s Hall meeting were, with Stopes’ encouragement, stridently eugenic in tone and content. She urged one medical officer to describe what it was like to have ‘to deal with the ruck, wastrels and throw-outs resulting from reckless breeding…’ while others deplored the continued proliferation of the C3[3] population since the war, and called for a selective birth rate that could alone raise up the A1 population needed to elevate the race”.

Pages 60-61 of “Marie Stopes Eugenics and the English Birth Control Movement”, edited by Robert A Peel. Published by The Galton Institute (formerly the Eugenics Society). ISBN 0950406627.

Sir James Barr, ex-president of the British Medical Association wrote a letter of congratulations:

“You and your husband have inaugurated a great movement which I hope will eventually get rid of our C3 population and exterminate poverty. The only way to raise an A1 population is to breed them.”

“Queens Hall Meeting on Constructive Birth Control: Speeches and Impressions” (1921) G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Limited. Page 8.

Stopes’ testimony in the High Court on 22nd February 1923

On the second day of the Stopes v Sutherland libel trial, Dr. Stopes (under oath) told the High Court why she had set up the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress.

“The object of the Society is, if possible, 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 C3 [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.”  

“The Trial of Marie Stopes” edited and with an introduction by Muriel Box. Femina Books (1967). Page 50. The book contains the transcript of the Stopes v Sutherland libel trial in 1923.

The Tenets of the CBC

The Tenets of the C.B.C. set out the objects and scope of the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress. Tenet 16 summarised the previous 15:

16.—In short, we are profoundly and fundamentally a pro-baby organisation, in favour of producing the largest possible 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.

The Authorized Life of Marie C. Stopes” (1924). Aylmer Maude. Williams & Norgate Ltd., Covent Garden. Appendix C on page 226.

The logo for the Mothers’ Clinic

A lantern encircled by the words: “Joyous and deliberate motherhood, a sure light in our racial darkness.” Note that the light from the lantern is filtered through the words “birth control” repeated many times.

The brand-names of the contraceptives dispensed at the Mothers’ Clinic

Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library
The “ProRace” Cervical Cap
The “Racial” Cervical Cap

Stopes’ advocacy of compulsory sterilization

Stopes advocated compulsory sterilization for various groups. In Chapter 20 of Radiant Motherhood (1920) she urged that Parliament pass laws to compulsorily sterilize a large group of people, ranging from the poor to those who were merely unemployed. In Wise Parenthood, she advocated the use of the Gold Pin as a way to effectively sterilize C3 women.

Stopes also lobbied politicians towards this end. She sent a copy of Radiant Motherhood to Frances Stevenson, secretary to Prime Minister Lloyd George. According to June Rose, Stopes “… drew attention to the chapter on eugenics in which she commented on the tens of thousands of ‘stunted, warped and inferior infants, who would inevitably drain the resources of those with a sense of responsibility’.” She urged Stevenson to get him to read the passages on compulsory sterilization because it will “help him in real fact more than a dozen ministries will ever do” (Source: Marie Stopes and the Sexual Revolution (1992) Rose, J. Faber and Faber Limited. Page 138).

During the 1922 General Election, she wrote to parliamentary candidates asking them so sign a declaration she had printed:

“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.”

Exterminating Poverty: The true story of the eugenic plan to get rid of the poor and the Scottish doctor who fought against it” (2020) by Mark Sutherland (in conjunction with Neil Sutherland).

The derogatory terms used for those to be sterilized

The terms used by Dr. Stopes included:

“… hopelessly bad cases, bad through inherent disease, or drunkenness or character”

Problems of Population and Parenthood (1920). The National Birth-Rate Commission 1918-20. London: Chapman and Hall Ltd. Page 133.

“the miserable, the criminal, the utterly wretched in body and mind” “degenerate, feeble minded and unbalanced” and “parasites”

Radiant Motherhood (1920). Stopes, M. C. Putnam’s. Page 247.

“the spawn of drunkards”

John Bull, 2 February 1924.

“Hordes of defectives”

Quoted in “Marie Stopes: A turbo-Darwinist ranter but right about birth control” Zoe Williams in “The Guardian” 2nd September 2011.

Stopes was a doctor of science, yet these terms were at best unscientific. There is no doubt that these words were vituperative and would tend to dehumanise the so-called C3s. Zoe Williams of The Guardian commented:

“Her eugenics programme was actually slightly to the right of Hitler’s, just because her definition of defective is so broad.”

Marie Stopes: A turbo-Darwinist ranter but right about birth control” Zoe Williams in “The Guardian” 2nd September 2011.

Stopes’ lifelong advocacy of eugenics

Stopes was a lifelong eugenicist: she joined the Eugenics Education Society in 1912[4] and, on her death in 1958, left her Clinic to the Eugenics Society[5]. As President, she led the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress for 37 years.

Notes

[1] The terms “eugenicist” and “eugenist” are both correct. I prefer to use “eugenist” because it was used by Dr. Halliday Sutherland and Karl Pearson, the inaugural Professor of Eugenics at University College London.

[2] The terms “mainline” and “reform” intend to clarify the types by categorising them. It is not intended to indicate that there were two distinct camps and that those who described themselves as eugenists belonged to one or the other.

[3] “A1” and “C3” were terms used by military recruitment to designate recruits of the highest and lowest calibre respectively. The letter designated the degree of utility of the recruit: “A” meant fit for general service; “B” meant fit for service abroad in a support capacity; “C” meant fit for service at home only. The number referred to the mental and physical capabilities of the recruit: C3s were rejected as unfit to serve.
When Britons went to army recruitment stations to serve in the Boer and First World Wars, the appalling condition of the urban poor was revealed and the terms “A1” and “C3” became part of the national lexicon.

[4] Eugenics and Politics in Britain 1900-1914 (1976) G.R. Searle, Leyden Noordhoff International Publishing, page 102.

[5] The Activities of the Eugenics Society (1968) Shenk, Faith and Parkes, F.A. printed in the September 1968 edition of the Eugenics Review, pages 142-161.