Catalogue description Pyke, Dr David

Margaret Pyke (Dr Pyke's mother, nee Chubb), her parents and siblings. Her happy childhood owed much to her happy temperament. Importance of her friendships at Oxford for her later career. Her husband and his creation of the Malting House School, Cambridge. Its bankruptcy. Margaret's role in the school and in coping with the financial difficulties. Her separation from her husband, and consequent need to earn - first at Hayes Court School, then in the birth control movement. Simultaneous desire also to do something socially useful, as again in the Second World War when she was active in the Women's Land Army. She was the organiser who comes in on the second phase once the pioneers have cleared the ground. The partnership between her and Lady Denman was ideal for the success of the Family Planning Association. Her tact and administrative skill. How she brought up her son. Her habits with paperwork. Her dress. Her health and energy. Her enthusiasm for sport, and need to ward off tuberculosis with open air. Her close friendship with Lady Denman. Her efficiency and classlessness. Her sociability. Her success as FPA chairman after 1954, at a difficult time in the FPA's history, in a movement whose activists were by no means easy colleagues. Her attitude to doctors. Her forward-looking outlook. Roles of Dawson of Penn, Horder and Russell Brain in causing the birth control movement to prosper in Britain. Their bravery in pioneering new attitudes from the top of their profession. Importance of Iain Macleod's contribution in the 1950s. Dr Pyke's own career and his links with the FPA.