Template:POTD/2023-03-09
Marie Stopes (1880–1958) was a British author, palaeobotanist, and campaigner for eugenics and women's rights. After obtaining a doctorate from the University of Munich, Stopes was appointed to the faculty of the Victoria University of Manchester, becoming its first female academic. She went on to make significant contributions to plant palaeontology and coal classification, assisting the British government with her coal expertise during World War I. From 1913, Stopes began writing on issues of marriage, parenthood and women's reproductive rights. With her second husband, Humphrey Verdon Roe, she founded the first birth control clinic in Britain. Her sex manual Married Love (1918) was controversial and influential, and brought the subject of birth control into wide public discourse. She was also a believer in eugenics, being described in her biography by June Rose as "an elitist, an idealist, interested in creating a society in which only the best and beautiful should survive". This 1904 photograph shows Stopes at work in her laboratory in Manchester.Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden