Walworth Women's Welfare Centre (153a East Street, 9 Nov 1921)
institution
The birth-control league's own clinic opened in a south London street on 9 November 1921.
Who they are
The Walworth Women's Welfare Centre, 153a East Street[1].
What they do
It was the League's physical footprint.
How it works
A Birmingham tea businessman, Sir John Sumner, bought the building. The League advertised it as the first English clinic to give birth-control advice under a doctor's supervision, competing with Marie Stopes's clinic opened that March. The League lost its link to the clinic in 1922.
Why it matters
It shows the League moving from pamphlets to practice.
The engine's record — word for word
[
Report #196] **In plain terms:** the Malthusian League's own birth-control clinic in south London.
Opened 9 November 1921 at 153a East Street, Walworth, behind the Elephant and Castle. Sir John Sumner (founder of Ty-Phoo Tea) bought the building; A. K. Bulley gave £350 for the first year; Norman Haire was honorary medical officer to 1923. The League billed it as the first English clinic giving birth-control instruction under medical supervision, against Marie Stopes's clinic opened 17 March 1921. Ledbetter p. 221: 'In 1922, the Malthusian League was forced to relinquish its affiliation with the Walworth Centre'; Wellcome's clinic file under the later Society for the Provision of Birth Control Clinics runs from 1922, and one Wellcome chronology gives the opening as '1922' — contradicted by every dated source above. Planning had begun in 1915 (Ledbetter p. 219).
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