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© Petrina Banfield 2018
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Source ISBN: 9780008264703
Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008264758
Version: 2018-06-21
Contents
Statistics show that every year the birth rate from the worst end of our community is increasing in proportion to the birth rate at the better end, and it was in order to try to right that grave social danger that I embarked upon this work to counteract the steady evil which has been growing for a good many years of the reduction of the birth rate on the part of the thrifty, wise, well-contented, and the generally sound members of our community, and the reckless breeding from the semi-feeble minded, the careless, who are proportionately increasing in our community because of the slowing of the birth rate at the other end of the scale.
(Marie Stopes, quoted in The Trial of Marie Stopes, edited by M. Box, 1967)
The weekend conference organised by the almoners took place at High Leigh on Friday, 10 February 1922.
The sprawling Victorian manor house was once owned by Robert Barclay, a member of the famous banking dynasty, and had been transformed into a conference centre after his death in 1921. Surrounded by forty acres of Hertfordshire countryside, it was an idyllic setting, one regularly hired out to missionaries and those involved in charitable relief. Its close proximity to the metropolis made it a convenient choice for the almoners from the London hospitals.
Alice had embarked on the twenty-mile journey up to Hoddesdon by rail earlier that morning, accompanied by colleagues Frank, Alexander and Bess Campbell. After depositing their trunks in their respective rooms, the small party filed into one of the large oak-panelled function rooms, arriving in their seats at just before a quarter to nine.
After an introduction from a representative from the Charity Organisation Society, Bess Campbell glided onto the stage in a crimson gown and a lace stole. She spoke about the importance of sharing good practices with colleagues and, unlike the St Thomas’s almoner, Miss Cummins, whose shyness caused her to mumble and falter when making public speeches, Bess used her hands animatedly as she spoke, capturing everyone’s attention with no hint of nerves.
Among the audience were delegates from a number of charitable organisations as well as representatives from the clergy and government departments concerned with housing and education. The futility of working in isolation was becoming clear to all involved in social work, and Bess added her voice to those stressing that improved communication was the way forward if reformers were to stand any hope of improving outcomes for the destitute.
As her speech came to an end, Alice rolled her shoulders and took several long, slow breaths. Her eyes locked with Alexander’s when she took her place at the podium, and the fundraiser gave her a small nod of encouragement. Perhaps to put herself at ease, she opened by joking with the audience that when trying to decide on a career at the end of the Great War, she had drawn up an alphabetical list of the possibilities open to her and settled on the first one she came to after ‘actress’.
Miss Campbell smiled and nodded as Alice spoke about some of the cases she had dealt with during her first year in post: the young child she had taken under her wing whose parents had delivered her to the hospital for treatment and then failed to return; the patient who had fallen into a deep depression after a leg amputation, who was now working cheerfully in the hospital kitchens.
The almoner told delegates about her efforts to encourage prostitutes into more respectable lines of work and the