Marie Stopes House in Whitfield Street near Tottenham Court Road was Britain s first family planning clinic after moving from its initial location in Holloway in 1925. / Kim Traynor, Wikimedia
Britain’s first birth control clinic was founded on March 17, 1921. Marie Stopes International, the abortion charity named after the founder of the clinic, marked the centenary four months ago when it changed its name to “MSI Reproductive Choices”. While it did this to disassociate itself from the group’s eugenic origins, it is doubtful if a mere name change can exorcise its history.
One hundred years ago, today, on March 17, 1921, Dr Marie Stopes and her husband, Humphrey Roe, opened the Mothers’ Clinic at 61 Marlborough Road in Holloway, London. It was the first birth control clinic in the British Empire.
Holden Slattery2021-02-12T11:49:30-05:00January 22, 2021|
Cantini, who was a vital part of Pittsburgh’s public art scene in the twentieth century, believed art should be free and available to everyone
By Holden Slattery
In 1930, eleven-year-old Virgil Cantini was struggling to adjust to his new life as an immigrant in Weirton, West Virginia. He’d recently moved from a sunny Italian village to a smoky American steel town. His father and oldest brother had already been in America for years, working to save money, when his mother came with the other seven children. They weren’t only reunifying in the famous land of opportunity; they were fleeing Italy so the children wouldn’t be conscripted into Benito Mussolini’s fascist military.
Why did you choose construction as a career?
I have wanted to be a developer ever since I witnessed the groundbreaking ceremony in the 1980s at Broadgate in the City, attended by the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who was at the controls of a JCB digger!
What are you most proud of in your career to date?
Acquiring the site of the Gherkin at 30 St Mary Axe for Swiss Re and playing a part in its subsequent development. It was particularly challenging because it involved the removal of the listed but bomb-damaged Baltic Exchange building.
The brainchild of Swiss Re’s COO Sheree Whatley, whose board decided to proceed with construction in 2001 just after the 9/11 tragedy, it was the tallest building to be built in the City for over 30 years.