Social Reformer, author, suffragette and scientist. Born in Edinburgh, Stopes studied geology and biology in London and Munich, becoming the first female science lecturer at Manchester University. After an unhappy marriage and concerned at the lack of education in the ways of marriage, she embarked on her most notable book Married Love (1918), which was met with controversy because it discussed birth control. With her second husband, she opened the UK's first family planning clinic in Holloway, North London (1921). She wrote more than seventy books and took on both the churches and medical profession in her crusade for women's rights.
She was voted 'Woman of the Millennium' by readers of a UK national newspaper (1999) and her work is continued through the Marie Stopes Clinics and Marie Stopes International, which operates in more than 30 countries.
