Dr Marie Stopes -

On 17 March 1921, Marie Stopes opened the UK's first family planning clinic, the Mothers' Clinic at 61, Marlborough Road, Holloway, North London. The clinic offered a free service to married women and also gathered scientific data about contraception.

The opening of the clinic created one of the greatest social impacts of the 20th century and marked the start of a new era in which couples, for the first time, could reliably take control over their fertility.

In 1925, the clinic moved to Whitfield Street in Central London, where it remains today as Marie Stopes Internationals flagship clinic in the UK: Marie Stopes House. Marie Stopes and her fellow family planning pioneers around the globe played a major role in breaking down taboos about sex and increasing knowledge, pleasure and improved sexual and reproductive health.

Dr Marie Stopes 1880-1958

1880: born in Edinburgh on 15 October

1902: graduated from University College, London with a double first class honours degree in botany and geology

1904: awarded a doctorate in Munich, Germany, for her work on fossilised plants

1911: married Reginald Ruggles Gates

1914: marriage to Gates annulled. Began writing Married love

1918: married to Humphrey Roe. Married love and Wise parenthood published

1921: founded the UK's first family planning clinic in Holloway, North London

1925: the London clinic moved to its present site at 108 Whitfield Street, Central London. Other clinics opened around the UK

1930: National Birth Control Council formed

1958: died on 2 October, aged 77

1999: voted 'Woman of the Millennium' by Guardian newspaper readers in the UK

Materials (publications, photographs and post cards) related to Dr Marie Stopes.