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Edith How-Martyn

(1875-1954), Suffragist and advocate of birth control; wife of George Herbert Martyn; daughter of Edwin How

Sitter in 1 portrait
Edith How-Martyn became the first woman associate of the Royal College of Science and a committed advocate of birth control. She recalled that as a child she had '.. resented the difference made between boys and girls, and the greater amount of liberty allowed to the former'. Believing passive resistance was more effective than the militant approach of the Women's Social and Political Union, she left the WSPU to found the Women's Freedom League with Teresa Billington-Greig and Charlotte Despard. In 1910 her attention turned to promoting contraception and she helped to establish one of the first birth control clinics in Britain. In 1927 she founded the Birth Control international Information Centre in Geneva.

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