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Family Planning Association notes - the development of birth control services

The foundation of the National Birth Control Council in July 1930, preceded the development of birth control services. In July 1931, they changed their name to the National Birth Control Association (see Minutes of Governing Body, 9 July - A5/1, The Wellcome Collection) and to the Family Planning Association in May 1939 (See Minutes of Special Meeting of Members, 10 May - A5/3). The first effective Chairman was Lady Denman, noted for her work among Women's Institutes. She was succeeded on her death in 1954 by Mrs Margaret Pyke, the Associations first secretary who saw its expansion from one room and a typewriter, to a highly organised Central Office with a nationwide network of clinics, before her death in June 1966.

It is important to note that the history of birth control does not begin in 1930, in fact the archives contain letters and papers written in the 1920s - which is the period during which the first birth control clinics were set up. Furthermore, the National Birth Control Council was set up as a body to co-ordinate the work of five voluntary organisations namely the Society for the Provision of Birth Control Clinics (founded in 1924) and the Birth Control International Information Centre (founded in 1929) which were both amalgamated with the National Birth Control Association in 1938, the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress (founded by Marie Stopes in 1918), the Workers Birth Control Group (founded in 1924) which joined the NBCA in 1930 and the Birth Control Investigation Committee (founded in 1927) which was incorporated with the NBCA in 1930 and amalgamated with FPA in 1939.

The FPAs mission was to provide gold standard, accurate, unbiased and up to date information on Relationships and Sex Education, Sexual and Reproductive Health, and Postnatal Health and Wellbeing.

Their objective and focus was to dispense contraception advice which would be widely available and free as part of the health service. In 1974, this aim was accomplished when over 1,000 clinics were entrusted to the NHS.

In the early 1920s, a few fearless women, and even fewer men, set up five societies to promote and provide family planning. By 1930 these societies were organised into the National Birth Control Council (NBCC). Pioneering women such as Lady Denman, and Margaret Pike were very much a team and met annually at functions (Nancy Raphael, 1978). Lady Denman knew everything about committees and procedure, whereas Margaret Pike was very adept at administration, "They both ran everything so well" (Nancy Raphael, 1978). Margaret Pike had the drive and vitality, despite having poor health at times. It was very important in the early days to mobilise the Aristocracy in order to legitimise the movement. Therefore Lady Denman used to invite the birth control Doctors to stay at her house in Sussex (Raphael, 1978).

The birth control campaigners wanted to help because they were concerned about working class women who had less access to advice and were more likely to experience poverty. Therefore spacing pregnancies was a way to improve both mother and babies health (Nancy Raphael, 1978).

This commitment to helping and campaigning for birth control, also led to raising funds for the clinics. In an interview by Brian Harrison in 1978, Nancy Raphael outlines her role in raising money which involved speaking in New York, and New Jersey. On her return before the end of the war, Lady Denman and Margaret Pike, asked Raphael to be involved in one of the central committees. Prior to that Nancy Raphael had been working at Islington Birth Control clinic for one year, which was a distance from her home (Raphael, 1978). Lady Denman was in fact the Director of the Women's Land Army, which employed over 200,000 women between June 1939 and November 1950 (Antrobus, Stuart. 'We wouldn't have missed it for the world.'  The Womens Land Army in Bedfordshire, 1939-1950.  Copt Hewick: Book Castle, 2008). Book: Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars, 1987).

Raphael had been fortunate that coming from a conventional middle-class jewish background, she was able to draw on experience gained from her mother who was devoted to good work and where social work was in-bred. In an interview conducted by Brian Harrison, Raphael explains how the clinics never had any money. In the beginning, in 1935 the clinics consisted of 2 rooms consisting of a Dr or Nurses room, and one interviewing room. They just had room for a secretary, who would make tea for the patients. Often there were vast trails of women with children, often without shoes. It was difficult to make the clinics known, and they were often in basement clinics in poor streets. However, no one would have come if they were more visible. Not only were the volunteers doing something unmentionable and quite radical, but they were also under pressure from religious groups and the press. Although the papers did provide some advertising in the early years, it was very difficult (citation needed).

Raphael started interviewing patients which was all voluntary (unlike the USA), with a purpose to save the Doctors time and to create a rapport and good feeling about the clinic. Most women were frightened of visiting a clinic, however they were more at ease with anyone who didn't wear a white coat (Raphael, 1978). This was not easy, and women didn't come naturally at first. But, change was to come with the beginning of the Second World War. After the war, the forging of links with the local authority was possible.

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