"All the World's a Stage": Dora Russell, Norman Haire, and the 1929 London World League for Sexual Reform Congress

WHEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE penned the lines in Twelfth Night, "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (3.4.127-28), he very aptly described the drama, intrigue, and machinations that would characterize the World League for Sexual Reform congress that met in London in 1929. This essay describes that encounter: one of the key meetings during the interwar years between the English medical profession and radical social and sexual reformers. The World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) was not a medical organization, although the League stipulated that its work was based upon the findings of sexual science, and many doctors were involved in it. The WLSR was predominantly an organization committed to reforming society's attitudes about sexuality, and consequently its ranks included many people from outside the medical profession.

Radical political activists often approached the issues of sexual reform quite differently from scientifically trained physicians and sexologists. While people representing these varying viewpoints sometimes collaborated, many of the WLSR congresses turned into arenas where they contended with each other. London's 1929 congress is particularly instructive in this regard, because its two organizers reflected the two main components of WLSR membership: Norman Haire was a gynecologist and birth control advocate and Countess Dora Russell, a leftist reformer. These two very different activists managed to bring together medical professionals and radical reformers for a successful five-day international conference. They organized the congress, enrolled supporters, raised funds, negotiated with the medical world, and enlisted speakers and participants. An examination of the 1929 congress reveals the interplay between sexological knowledge and public radicalism, between medicine and social reform, that characterized the meetings of the WLSR.

The WLSR included clashing personalities as well as potentially conflicting agendas. Consequently, this essay considers some of the interpersonal politics surrounding sexual reform in Europe. As I have argued elsewhere, many difficulties emerged because of Haire's clumsiness in relating to people and his unsubtle approach, more suited to the Sydney, Australia, setting of his birth than to the London social climate. As he was convinced that his view of sexual reform was the only one possible, Haire stepped on people's toes. He insisted on sidestepping all but heterosexual issues, eschewed broader political changes, and insisted that birth control reform should remain in the hands of the medical profession rather than allowing for significant lay involvement. He also had a knack for making personal enemies, which problematized his relations even with fellow doctors.

By contrast, Russell was far less involved with birth control, for she supported many different causes: labor politics, education (she ran the groundbreaking experimental Beacon Hill School), the women's movement, and marriage reform. Russell's diversified commitments eventually led to a breakdown in her relations with Haire, which occurred at the same time that the WLSR dissolved, in the mid-1930s. Nevertheless, her lasting impressions of Haire and the WLSR remained wholly favorable.

Dora Russell and Norman Haire

Dora Winifred Russell (née Black), wife of Cambridge philosopher and radical Bertrand Russell, was born in Thornton Heath, Croydon, on April 3, 1894. ¹ She was educated at Sutton High School and Girton College, Cambridge, where she earned first-class honors in modern languages. She commenced postgraduate study at University College, London, but abandoned it in order to aid her father, Sir Frederick Black, on a mission to the United States in 1917. She married Bertrand Russell in 1921, two months after she had borne him a son, later the fourth Earl Russell.

Russell remained committed to leftist politics throughout her adult life. She went to Russia on a peace mission in 1920, was interested in...