MARRIAGE.
About eighteen months after having been freed from the legal
matrimonial entanglement which had proved itself no true marriage,
Dr. Marie Stopes and her real husband met at a luncheon party given
by a mutual friend. They were immediately attracted to each other
under rather curious circumstances, each having been invited to meet
the other and each of them thinking that the other had not turned up,
but that the delightful young person they were meeting was a son or
daughter of the one they were to have met.
Humphrey Verdon Roe was the son of Dr. Edwin H. Roe and Annie Verdon,
his wife, and was one of seven children. Medical men were numerous in
his family, and he was the son, nephew, and brother, of medicals. He
himself went straight into the Army from school and from his crammer,
and entered the First Battalion of the Manchester Regiment as a
subaltern. The regiment was stationed in Gibraltar, where he first saw
foreign service with its vivid new experiences, and the regiment was
drafted to South Africa in 1899, where he served through the whole
siege of Ladysmith, suffering permanently in health to some slight
extent from the starvation he then endured. At the end of the South
African war he resigned his commission and entered first one and then
another business, making himself independent of his family. A brother
a year older than he, Alliott, who had a varied engineering experience
and a great gift for invention, was interested from a very early date
in the possibilities of flying. Humphrey Verdon Roe placed his business
knowledge and resources at his brother’s command, and the two worked
in partnership: a partnership in which Alliott benefited by the keen
common sense of Humphrey, who kept a steering-wheel on the development
of the many ideas coruscating from his brother. The development of
those that could lead to solid results was organized by Humphrey, and
the machine they then constructed is still of value. Together the
two brothers founded the firm which manufactured the “Avro” biplane
in 1910, when flying was still thought to be almost an impossibility,
and only a few years after _The Times_ had published an article saying
that from an engineering point of view it was not possible to fly, the
brothers had mastered the obstacles before them. In the first year
of the war Humphrey Roe’s policy was more than justified. Avros were
on active service all over the place, and in November, 1914, Avros
were selected for the successful raid on the Zeppelin headquarters at
Fridrichshafen.
The development of the production of Avros, and others modelled on
them, naturally expanded enormously during the war, but Humphrey
Roe, though at the head of a rapidly increasing business, at once
endeavoured to take up a fresh commission in the Army, but was held
back as being of more service to the country as a producer of flying
machines. In 1917 however, the huge expansion of production having been
fully organized and established, he succeeded in rejoining the Army;
and resigning all direct interest in the firm, got his commission, and
went flying in France. At this time, at the age of 39, he was in such
good physical condition that he went night-bombing over the German
lines. His machine was brought down, and he was sent home with a broken
foot and a jarred spine, gaining a wound stripe early in 1918. An
account, with a photograph, of his night-bombing work is given in the
“Annals of the 100th Squadron.”
Besides being a successful business man of many interests, H. V.
Roe has been through life a most abstemious liver, a teetotaller, a
non-smoker, and of very simple personal tastes and habits. Before he
met Dr. Marie Stopes, in conjunction with Councillor Margaret Ashton,
M.A., the well-known philanthropist and social worker in Manchester, he
had, for some time, been endeavouring to improve the lot of the working
women by founding a clinic for birth control. Indeed he made an offer
to a Manchester Hospital of £1,000 a year for five years and £12,000 at
his death if they would open such a clinic, but through fear of losing
some of their other supporters if they took such an advanced step, they
regretfully refused to do so. On going to the front Mr. Roe made a
will, leaving his whole property for the endowment of birth control
and the foundation of various scholarships. It is an indication of the
extraordinary ignorance that then prevailed on that very important
subject, that his solicitors in 1917 were exceedingly chary about
allowing him to make any bequest for birth control, warning him that
probate might be refused. Fortunately however his marriage with Dr.
Marie Stopes in 1918, who was equally anxious to promote birth control,
resulted in the mutual efforts they have made to do this in their own
lifetimes. They founded the first clinic for birth control in the
British Empire, which under their supervision has steadily progressed.
[Illustration: Dr. Marie Stopes at the time of her marriage to Mr. H.
V. Roe. 1918.]
His meeting with Dr. Marie Stopes took place just before he went to
France, but on his return he and she decided to marry as soon as he was
allowed out of hospital, and arrangements were made for the marriage to
take place at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, the Bishop of Birmingham, an
old friend of Dr. Stopes, and Mr. Roe’s uncle, the Rev. Russell Napier,
the Vicar of Old Windsor, were to officiate. The demand for officers
was then so great however that he was ordered to the front sooner
than had been anticipated, and they were hastily and secretly married
a month earlier than had been planned, at the Registrar’s Office at
Westminster. Then, fortunately, his orders were changed, and the
religious marriage at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, could proceed. The
couple were then in the amusing position of having been really married
a month when, with all due pomp and solemnity, they were in the eyes of
the world, being married for the first time. No one but myself, and one
other friend,--not even the bride’s mother--had been informed of the
first marriage hastily arranged in view of the tragic possibilities at
that time.
Humphrey Verdon Roe had many years previously determined to retire
from business at 40, and, after his marriage, he and his wife decided,
when the war should be over, to devote their whole leisure to public
service in one form or another. In addition to his interest in birth
control Mr. Roe, as an employer of labour, had often endeavoured to
bring employers and employed to a better understanding, and he
actively took up the work of the Industrial League and Council, joining
its committee and furthering its efforts to promote Whitleyism. He was
also interested in other public service, in particular, town planning.
Dr. Stopes had for some time been living at Leatherhead, and as the
district offered just the kind of beauty and facility of access to
London they desired, he bought a beautiful property and they settled
down at Givons Grove, where they now live.
[Illustration: An Industrial Conference at Givons Grove.]
After they had been married fifteen months their first baby son was
born, a beautiful and well-built boy of 8-3/4 lb., whose tragic death,
and all the attendant circumstances, involve a story too strange and
horrible for me to tell here. Fortunately, their second son, who was
born in 1924 (and who also weighed 8-3/4 lb. at birth), is another
beautiful and sturdy baby, so like the first that he might be his own
elder brother come to life again.
Humphrey Verdon Roe was so severely injured in France, where he had a
foot broken and two bones in his spine jarred, that he was invalided
out of the Army before the close of the war. With the exception of
a brief visit to Switzerland, he and his wife have done none of the
travelling they had planned, but have lived very quietly since their
marriage. Whatever strength each of them has had has been devoted
principally to work in connection with birth control: the founding of
the clinic for birth control, and the Society for Constructive Birth
Control, of which H. V. Roe is honorary secretary. Further reference to
this will be given later (p. 221).
Those who, like myself, have often stayed at Givons Grove, know
well how complete and real a marriage this is. Much is said of the
Brownings’ ideal marriage, but here, in living fact, is another
equally perfect in harmony and sentiment and in many respects more
actively vital. Each with a pioneering instinct, though exercised
in different directions, each serene in disregard of their own
immediate advancement, each having an almost childlike sentiment and
sensitiveness, they have strengthened and completed each other in the
happiest way. No reference to life at Givons Grove would be complete
without mention of their beloved Chow dog, who goes everywhere with
them, even on their honeymoons, and whose affectionate disposition fits
well into the home life there.
[Illustration: Dr. Stopes, seated, with her husband’s father and
mother.]
[Illustration: Mr. H. V. Roe and “Wuffles” as a puppy.]
I am convinced that Dr. Stopes is one of those rare people whose mental
and moral energy never allows them to rest long on their oars, but who
when they have mastered one problem have to engage on another. The mere
diversity of tasks she has already undertaken indicates this, including
as it does a considerable body of important scientific work, besides
elementary text-books, a book of travels, a book of poems, plays, a
cinema story, and fairy tales, as well as the series of works on sex
that have had such a large circulation here, and have been translated
into French, German, Swedish, Danish, Czeck, Polish, Roumanian, Dutch
and Spanish. This forms a surprisingly varied output for anyone, and
still more for a woman of her age, and there is every reason to expect
much more from her yet.
The characteristics observable when one gets to know her well are a
curious blend of feminine charm with a trenchant intellectuality such
as one rarely encounters. She is clear-headed, but not of the aridly
intellectual type; on the contrary she frequently jumps to conclusions
by a kind of intuition, though she verifies and tests them afterwards.
I have already alluded to the exceptional tenacity--some people would
say obstinacy--with which she clings to her purpose, great or small,
and also to the surprising frequency with which she reaches her aim
when an onlooker does not see at all why she should. Perhaps I may
illustrate this by an example. When her husband bought Givons Grove,
Dr. Stopes set to work to beautify and decorate it, a task for which
she is highly qualified. Well, at Givons Grove she resolved, among
other things, that the upper part of the dining-room walls were to be
painted a particular shade of blue. It was war-time, and after the
decorators at her instigation had tried a dozen different sources,
they declared the required paint to be quite unobtainable. Dr. Stopes
would not have the walls painted any other colour. About that time she
underwent the serious operation previously mentioned, and stayed at
Torquay to recuperate. The first day she was strong enough to go
out, she asked a policeman to direct her to the best oil and colour
shop in the town. He did so, and on reaching it Dr. Stopes asked for
two pots of the shade of blue paint she required. The shop-keeper said
he had none of it, but Dr. Stopes insisted he had. She said she must
have it, and would he please be quick and examine the stock in his
cellar, as she was not at all well and very weak, did not want to wait
long, and _knew_ he had it in the shop. She was, in fact, by this time
so exhausted with weakness as to be almost collapsing over the counter
at which she sat. The man replied that he had no cellar; but, on being
questioned, he admitted that he had a small attic, and at her bidding
he went to see what was there. He soon returned, having to his surprise
found just two pots of the identical shade required, which Dr. Stopes
promptly purchased, and the paint from which is now on her dining-room
walls.
[Illustration: Members of the Birth Rate Commission. The Bishop of
Birmingham in the centre. Dr. Stopes on his left.]
[Illustration: Dr. Marie Stopes and her Baby, Harry Verdon Stopes-Roe,
aged 3 months.]
Physically Dr. Stopes matured slowly, and must have been nearly thirty
before her sex-instincts were at all fully developed. Slowness of
development does not however imply any incompleteness, and besides
being very happily married, she is the mother of an unusually fine
baby: a particularly bonny, healthy little chap, whom she nurses
herself and who, in the first six months of his life, has never had a
wakeful night, and spends all his waking daylight hours laughing and
crowing.