Meet Edith How-Martyn

Edith How-Martin (1875-1954)

Edith lived in a time when women's education was beginning to be taken more seriously. She had a fab education as a result, first attending the North London Cllegiate School for Girls, a school formed and run by Frances Buss, an early supporter of women's suffrage, followed by attending University College, Aberystwyth, where she obtained her degree. She became a lecturer of Mathematics at Westfield College. However, this came to an end when she married Herbert Martyn. On the same note though, she did keep her maiden name and joined with that of her husbands. A fair concession I think.

Edith How-Martyn was an early recruit to the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and was arrested in 1906 for attempting to make a speech in the lobby of the House of Commons. She was one of the first members of the organisation to be sent to prison. Not long after this, How-Martyn became critical of the dictatorial way that the Pankhursts led the WSPU without consulting any of the other members of their next actions. At a meeting in October 1907, Edith How-Martyn, Teresa Billington-Grieg, Charlotte Despard and seventy other women attempted to make the WSPU a more democratic organisation. It failed.

Edith, joined by Charlotte and Teresa, left the WSPU and formed the Women's Freedom League. This new organisation still took a very militant approach, but instead concentrated on using non-violent illegal methods such as not paying taxes and abstaining from the 1911 consensus. After the passing of the Qualification of Women Act, Edith stood as an independent feminist candidate in the 1918 General Election, but was unsuccessful. Edith had more success when she stood for the Middlesex County Council and became its first female member.

During and particularly after the First World War Edith became active in the campaign for birth-control like Marie Stopes. Edith, too, was particularly concerned about working-class women who had little information how to control the size of their families. Unlike Stopes, however, Edith worked closely with Margaret Sanger, the American counterpart advocating birth-control. She met Sanger in 1915 and Margaret got on considerably better with Edith than Marie Stopes, who believed that Sanger was only a challenge to her limelight.

Both Edith and Margaret worked together to organise the World Population conference in Geneva in 1927. In 1929 they founded the Birth Control International Information Centre (BCIIC) to spread birth-control knowledge. Edith travelled extensively around Asia to promote the use of birth-control, and in particular India where she tried building up a network of birth-control providers and activists.

Unfortunately, their international work was interrupted as the Second World War spread through Europe. Plagued by lack of funds and staffing problems, the London centre was shut down in 1937. When the war spread to England, the How-Martyns fled to Australia. After the war, Edith's health problems prevented her from returning to Britain. She died in a Sydney nursing home on February 4, 1954.