Helen Mary Wilson (physician)

Dr. Helen Mary Wilson (1864–1951) was a physician and social purity campaigner.[1]

Helen Mary Wilson
Born1 December 1864
Mansfield, Nottinghamshire
Died29 December 1951
Finchley, London
Parent(s)Henry Wilson
Charlotte Cowan Wilson

Wilson was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire[2] and moved to Sheffield early in her childhood.[1] She studied medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women.[3]

In 1892 Wilson was House surgeon at the London Temperance Hospital.[2] She worked in private practice in Sheffield from 1893[2] until 1906, when she retired to become actively involved in the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene,[4] previously known as the Ladies' National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. She took a humane approach to women in and in danger of falling into prostitution, rather than punitive one, and argued against double standards in the law on prostitution.[1][5] From 1916 to 1919 she was Chair of the Women's Training Colony in Newbury, Berkshire,[6] a work camp that aimed to provide responsibility, independence and occupation.[5]

Wilson had an interest in women's suffrage, serving as honorary secretary of the Sheffield Women's Suffrage Society in 1909–1910 and also as president.[1] In 1920 she was appointed magistrate in Sheffield,[7] the first woman to hold the role in Sheffield.[1] Wilson died in 1951, in London.[8]

Archives

Archival materials relating to Wilson are held at The Women's Library at the London School of Economics, including a scrapbook of Dr Wilson's containing ephemera relating to the suffrage campaigns in Sheffield and the Sheffield Women's Suffrage Society.

References
  1. "Wilson, Helen Mary (1864–1951), social purity campaigner and physician | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/57832. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. "Helen Mary Wilson - Person - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  3. "Medical News". The Lancet. 136 (3508): 1136–1138. 1890. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(01)85874-8.
  4. Moruzi, Kristine (2016). Constructing Girlhood through the Periodical Press, 1850–1915. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781317161493.
  5. Field, John (2013). "Alternative living in the English countryside". Working men's bodies. Manchester University Press. pp. 77–94. doi:10.7228/manchester/9780719087684.003.0005. ISBN 9780719087684.
  6. Ballinger, Anette (2016). Gender, Truth and State Power: Capitalising on Punishment. Routledge. ISBN 9781317169840.
  7. Group, British Medical Journal Publishing (24 July 1920). "Medical news". Br Med J. 2 (3108): 144. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.3108.144-b. ISSN 0007-1447. PMC 2337929.
  8. "Births, Marriages, and Deaths". The Lancet. 259 (6698): 109. 1952. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(52)91842-4.
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