Malthusian League

Last updated

The Malthusian League was a British organisation which advocated the practice of contraception and the education of the public about the importance of family planning. It was established in 1877 and was dissolved in 1927. The organisation was secular, utilitarian, individualistic, and "above all malthusian." [1] The organisation maintained that it was concerned about the poverty of the British working class and held that over-population was the chief cause of poverty.

Contents

History

The league was initially founded during the "Knowlton trial" of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh in July 1877. [2] They were prosecuted for publishing Charles Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy which explained various methods of birth control. [3] The League was formed as a permanent body to advocate for the elimination of penalties for promoting birth control as well as to promote public education in matters of contraception. The trial demonstrated that the public was interested in the topic of contraception and sales of the book surged during the trial. [4]

Origins

The first president was Charles Robert Drysdale, who was succeeded by his free union partner Alice Vickery. The league initially restricted itself primarily to an "educative role" which emphasised the importance of Malthus' economic arguments rather than practical information about birth control. The league had an increasingly socially and economically conservative tone as the 19th century wore on. Thus some earlier agreement between Malthusians and social reformers was replaced by mutual distrust. The league believed that the sole cause of poverty was an excess of births, and therefore opposed socialism, considered strikes and reforms of labour laws to be "useless." [4] League members were primarily middle class and did not make many serious efforts to communicate with the working class aside from some debates with socialists during the 1880s. Although the league doctrine as a whole was hostile to socialism, some members were indeed socialists who were sympathetic to arguments in favour of birth control. The league also maintained some overlap with the women's rights movement, which was concerned with birth control. The League began plans for a birth control clinic in 1917 but these stalled until they received funds from the philanthropist Sir John Sumner and finally the clinic opened on 9 November 1921 at 153a East Street, Walworth with Norman Haire as their honorary medical officer, three afternoons a week. Marie Stopes and her husband had opened their clinic nine months earlier. Stopes’ clinic was the first in the British Empire (but not the first in the world) and the League always emphasised that theirs was the first English clinic where birth control instruction was given under medical supervision. [5]

International Movements

Similar leagues were founded in several other European countries including Germany, France, and the Netherlands in the following years. In 1892, the Dutch league became the first to set up a medical clinic to provide information directly to the poor. [6]

The period of the league's activity coincided with a substantial drop in the birth rate in Britain, and many European countries. Some have credited its activities, but others have disputed this conclusion, citing the general fall in birth rates even in countries without active league activity. [7]

The Malthusian League forms part of the society within Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Besant</span> English writer and activist (1847–1933)

Annie Besant was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights and Home Rule activist, educationist, and campaigner for Indian nationalism. She was an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Bradlaugh</span> British politician and atheist

Charles Bradlaugh was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Knowlton</span> American physician, atheist, writer and birth control advocate

Charles Knowlton was an American physician and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George William Foote</span> British secularist and journal editor (1850–1915)

George William Foote was an English secularist, freethinker, republican, writer and journal editor.

Events from the year 1877 in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Watts (secularist)</span> English secularist

Charles Watts was an English writer, lecturer and publisher, who was prominent in the secularist and freethought movements in both Britain and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birth control movement in the United States</span> Social reform campaign beginning in 1914

The birth control movement in the United States was a social reform campaign beginning in 1914 that aimed to increase the availability of contraception in the U.S. through education and legalization. The movement began in 1914 when a group of political radicals in New York City, led by Emma Goldman, Mary Dennett, and Margaret Sanger, became concerned about the hardships that childbirth and self-induced abortions brought to low-income women. Since contraception was considered to be obscene at the time, the activists targeted the Comstock laws, which prohibited distribution of any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail. Hoping to provoke a favorable legal decision, Sanger deliberately broke the law by distributing The Woman Rebel, a newsletter containing a discussion of contraception. In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, but the clinic was immediately shut down by police, and Sanger was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Haire</span>

Norman Haire, born Norman Zions was an Australian medical practitioner and sexologist. He has been called "the most prominent sexologist in Britain" between the wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birth control in the United States</span> History of birth control in the United States

Birth control in the United States is available in many forms. Some of the forms available at drugstores and some retail stores are male condoms, female condoms, sponges, spermicides, and over-the-counter emergency contraception. Forms available at pharmacies with a doctor's prescription or at doctor's offices are oral contraceptive pills, patches, vaginal rings, diaphragms, shots/injections, cervical caps, implantable rods, and intrauterine devices (IUDs). Sterilization procedures, including tubal ligations and vasectomies, are also performed.

The history of birth control, also known as contraception and fertility control, refers to the methods or devices that have been historically used to prevent pregnancy. Planning and provision of birth control is called family planning. In some times and cultures, abortion had none of the stigma which it has today, making birth control less important.

The National Reformer was a secularist weekly publication in 19th-century Britain (1860–1893), noted for providing a longstanding "strong, radical voice" in its time, advocating atheism. Under the editorship of Charles Bradlaugh for the majority of its lifespan, each issue stated that "The editorial policy of the Paper is Republican, Atheistic, and Malthusian, but all opinions are freely admitted, provided only that they be expressed reasonably and in proper language."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Vickery</span> English physician and activist (1844–1929)

Alice Vickery was an English physician, campaigner for women's rights, and the first British woman to qualify as a chemist and pharmacist. She and her life partner, Charles Robert Drysdale, also a physician, actively supported a number of causes, including free love, birth control, and destigmatisation of illegitimacy.

Harriet Teresa Law was a leading British freethinker in 19th-century London.

The British Secular Union was a secularist organisation, founded in August 1877, primarily as a response to what its founders regarded as the "dictatorial" powers of Charles Bradlaugh as President of the National Secular Society. The founding members were Kate Watts, Harriet Law, George William Foote and Josiah Grimson; George Holyoake had accepted the nomination of Vice President of the National Secular Society so only gave support for the formation. The group adopted the Secular Review as their official paper.

Charles Robert Drysdale was an English engineer, physician, public health scientist, and supporter of birth control. He was the first President of the Malthusian League and he published books on a variety of topics including population control, syphilis, the evils of prostitution and the dangers of tobacco smoking.

Halliday Gibson Sutherland (1882–1960) was a Scottish medical doctor, writer, opponent of eugenics and the producer of Britain's first public health education cinema film in 1911.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Truelove</span> English radical publisher and freethinker

Edward Truelove (1809–1899) was an English radical publisher and freethinker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carel Victor Gerritsen</span> Dutch politician, 1850–1905

Carel Victor Gerritsen was a Dutch politician known for his radical views. The husband of Aletta Jacobs, he was a proponent of open government, fair wages and birth control. He served as an alderman in Amsterdam and a representative in the States of North Holland. He helped found many radical organisations in the Netherlands including the Nieuw-Malthusiaansche Bond, Radicale Bond and Vrijzinnig-Democratisch Bond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Forder</span>

Robert Joseph Forder was an English freethinker, radical, publisher and bookseller and birth controller. He was particularly associated with the career of Charles Bradlaugh and the National Secular Society.

The Freethought Publishing Company was established in 1877 by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh to publish books and pamphlets to promote the cause of secularism, social reform and freedom of thought. Their publications were printed initially at 28 Stonecutter Street, London E.C and then at 63 Fleet Street, London E.C.

References

  1. ↑ Simms, Madeleine (27 January 1977). "Review: A History of the Malthusian League 1877-1927". New Scientist.
  2. ↑ D'Arcy, F. (November 1977). "The Malthusian League and the resistance to birth control propaganda in late Victorian Britain". Population Studies: A Journal of Demography. 31 (3): 429–448. doi:10.1080/00324728.1977.10412759. JSTOR   2173367.
  3. ↑ Knowlton, Charles (October 1891) [1840]. Besant, Annie; Bradlaugh, Charles (eds.). Fruits of philosophy: a treatise on the population question. San Francisco: Reader's Library. OCLC   626706770. A publication about birth control. View original copy.
  4. 1 2 McLaren, Angus (1978). Birth control in nineteenth-century England. Taylor & Francis. ISBN   9780856645044.
  5. ↑ Diana Wyndham. (2012) "Norman Haire and the Study of Sex". Foreword by the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG. (Sydney: "Sydney University Press)"., p. 77
  6. ↑ Sanger, Margaret (2003). The selected papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 1. University of Illinois Press. ISBN   9780252027376.
  7. ↑ McLaren, Angus (1978). Birth control in nineteenth-century England. Taylor & Francis. p. 107. ISBN   9780856645044.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.