Becoming a Sexologist: Norman Haire,the 1929 London World League for Sexual Reform Congress,and Organizing Medical Knowledge about Sex in Interwar England

Mannin Ethel , “Dr. Norman Haire: Portrait of a Rationalist”, in Confessions and impressions (London, 12th impr., n.d.), 183–7, p. 187.

Webster John , The Duchess of Malfi, I.i.

Lesley Hall has pointed out to me that a contrast could be made between Blacker C. P. Haire , as Haire was not of the same social class as Blacker (who was in a Guards regiment in the First World War, went to Balliol College, Oxford, trained at Guy's Hospital, London, and then went to the Maudsley Hospital in London). Naturally, this would involve writing a different paper entirely, and one which would not focus on the WLSR Congress, which is the central focus of the last part of this paper. It would, however, raise many of the germane issues about how to be a medical sex reformer and fit nicely into the medical world.

See Crozier Ivan , “Writing a book about sex”, Ph.D. thesis, University of New South Wales, 2000; Porter Roy Hall Lesley , The facts of life (New Haven, 1995); Hall Lesley , Sex, gender and social change in Britain since 1880 (London, 2000).

See Lawrence Chris , “A tale of two sciences: Bedside and bench in interwar Britain”, Medical history, xliii (1999), 421–49; idem, “Still incommunicable: Clinical holists and medical knowledge in interwar Britain”, in Lawrence Chris Weisz George (eds), Greater than the parts: Holism and biomedicine, 1920–1950 (Oxford, 1998), 94–111. See also idem, “Incommunicable knowledge: Science, technology and the clinical art in Britain, 1850–1914”, Journal of contemporary history, xx (1985), 503–20, for an examination of the same sorts of ideas in an earlier period.

See, for some discussion of these issues, Harley David , “Rhetoric and the social construction of sickness and healing”, Social history of medicine, xii (1999), 407–35; Crozier Ivan Dalley , “Taking prisoners: Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, and the politics of constructing the homosexual, 1897–1951”, Social history of medicine, viii (2000), 447–66; Jordanova Ludmilla , “The social construction of medical knowledge”, Social history of medicine, viii (1995), 361–81.

See Waugh Evelyn , Decline and fall (London, 1980 [first pub. 1928]), 127–8: “Quite soon Paul fell asleep. Downstairs Peter Beste-Chetwynde mixed another brandy and soda and turned a page in Havelock Ellis which, next to Wind in the Willows, was his favourite book.”.

See Wyndham Diana , “Misdiagnosis and miscarriage of justice? Dr Norman Haire and the 1919 influenza epidemic at Newcastle Hospital”, in Health and history, forthcoming.

Haire's attempt to conceal his Jewish identity failed: Havelock Ellis notes that he was a “little too Jewish”. Havelock Ellis to Margaret Sanger, 10 Dec. 1922, Sanger Collection, Library of Congress, USA, ref: LC 4:765. All Sanger correspondence is in this collection, and is cited by reel and letter number.

Mannin , Confessions and impressions (ref. 1), 183. Haire apparently acted with zeal in an amateur dramatic production at Sydney University as a loaf of bread, and later as a robber in Ivor Montagu's 1929 film, “Bluebottles”.

Thomas Burke wrote: “… an Australian doctor whom I meet occasionally — Norman Haire, author of two or three valuable works on sex-psychology, and a specialist practicing in Harley Street. Most men only arrive in Harley Street after many years in the wilderness, but Norman Haire has only just passed his thirtieth year. Perhaps his Australian energy has carried him there”, The triad, 1 September 1925, 14.

Mannin , Confessions and impressions (ref. 1), 184.

Ibid., 186.

Haire Norman , Encyclopaedia of sex practice, 2nd edn (London, 1951), 4.

Haire to Ellis , 3 May 1920, British Library, Add MS 70540.

Ibid.

Hall Lesley , ‘“The English have hot water bottles’: The morganatic marriage between sexology and medicine since William Acton”, in Porter R. Teich M. (eds), Sexual knowledge, sexual science (Cambridge, 1994), 350–66.

Crozier , “Writing a book about sex” (ref. 4); Porter Hall , The facts of life (ref. 4).

See the advertisements in the BMJ , 1930, i, 347, 874, 920, 1063, 1106, 1184; BMJ , 1930, ii, 113; Lancet, 1930, i, 1029.

Lancet, 1929, i, 852; see Haire to Russell Dora , no date, in the Dora Russell papers, Institute of Social History Archives, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, who noted: “The Lancet put a notice about the Congress in this weekend without us asking them to: Just as a result of a pamphlet which went to individual members of their staff personally. I think it is a rather good sign. It looks as though the window-dressing has been a success. The big names on the supporters list are telling.”.

BMJ, 1929, i, 129.

The best account of the BSSSP is Hall Lesley , ‘“Disinterested enthusiasm for sexual misconduct’: The British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, 1913–47”, Journal of contemporary history, xxx (1995), 665–86.

Ellis Havelock , The play function of sex (London, 1921); idem, The erotic rights of women (London, 1918).

Lloyd E. B. to Carpenter Edward , 14 June 1916, in Carpenter Collection, Sheffield Public Library, MS 368/20.

Ellis to Haire , 21 Feb. 1921, Box 3, Haire papers, Fisher Library, Sydney University, Sydney, Australia. All Haire/Ellis correspondence is from this collection unless otherwise noted.

Ellis to Haire , 17 Sept. 1921.

See Hall , “Disinterested enthusiasm” (ref. 22).

Ellis to Haire , 16 Apr. 1922.

Haire to Ellis , 20 Aug. 1923.

Hall , “Disinterested enthusiasm” (ref. 22), 673, citing BSS “Misc” folder: Stella Browne to S H Halford, 20 June 1923 and 10 Aug. 1923; and “Letters received” folder: Dr Margaret Lowenfeld's secretary, M. L. Stewart to the secretariat, 22 Nov. 1923, both in British Sexology Society collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Some of Haire's run-ins with Stella Browne were over finding a suitable office for the BSSSP; in response she made allusions to his problems with the Malthusian League.

BSSSP Minutes 20 July 1928, in British Sexology Society collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Haire to BSSSP, 3 July 1928 in “Correspondence Received”, in British Sexology Society collection.

Haire Norman (ed.), Proceedings of the third Sexual Reform Congress (London, 1930), p. xxii. To appreciate fully the relations between the BSSSP and the WLSR in England, a prosopographical analysis would be necessary, something which unfortunately has not been done to date.

Haire to Ellis , 21 Sept. 1930.

See numerous letters in Haire/Ellis correspondence, Haire papers, Box 3.

Haire to Ellis , 20 Aug. 1923.

Ellis to Haire , 19 June 1923.

I address this episode more fully in Crozier Ivan , “Havelock Ellis, Eonism and the patients' discourse; or, writing a book about sex”, History of psychiatry, xii (2000), 125–54.

Haire to Hirschfeld , 13 June 24, Haire papers, Box 3, Fisher Library, University of Sydney.

Ellis to Haire , 22 Feb. 1925.

Haire to Ellis , 20 Aug. 1923.

Haire to Ellis , 21 Sept. 1930.

Ellis to Haire , 28 July 1922.

Ellis to Haire , 28 Oct. 1924.

Haire to Ellis , 10 Sept. 1926.

Ellis to Haire , 14 Sept. 1926.

Ellis wrote to Margaret Sanger, 31 Dec. 1928, LC 5:100: “For Hirschfeld's work I have always had great admiration, but I don't much care for his personality. I have only met him once, and rather avoided him on his last visit to England. I know he has a great regard for me.”.

Ellis to Victor Calverton, 17 Oct. 1933, Ellis papers in the Mulgar Memorial Library, Boston University.

Haire to Ellis , 20 June 1939.

Haire Norman , Rejuvenation, the work of Steinach, Voronoff, and others (London, 1924); idem, Hymen, or the future of marriage (London, 1927); idem (ed.), Some more medical views on birth control (London, 1928); idem, Birth-control methods (contraception, abortion, sterilization) (London, 1936); idem, Everyday sex problems (London, 1948; first published as a regular weekly series in the Australian magazine, Woman, under the pseudonym Dr Wykeham Terriss); idem (ed.), The encyclopaedia of sex practice (2nd edn, London, 1951).

Ellis to Haire , 14 June 1923.

Ellis to Haire , 19 Oct. 1936.

See Haire , Birth-control methods (ref. 50).

Bessie Drysdale to Margaret Sanger, 26 Dec. 1922, LC 14:1020.

Bessie Drysdale to Margaret Sanger, 10 Nov. 1921, LC 14:1037.

Bessie Drysdale to Margaret Sanger, 3 Nov. 1923?, LC 14:1040.

Ellis to Margaret Sanger, 26 Nov. 1923, LC 4:850.

C. P. Blacker to Julian Huxley, 21 Feb. 1929, Huxley papers, Rice University, Houston, Texas.

Haire to Margaret Sanger, 15 Sept. 1921, LC 8:971.

Ibid.

Haire to Margaret Sanger, 1 Oct. 1921, LC 8:967.

Cited in Wyndham Diana , “Dr Norman Haire and the 1944 ABC Population Unlimited? debate: A fight for free speech and sexual reform”, Proceedings of the 6th Biennial Conference of the Australian Society for the History of Medicine (Sydney, 1999), unpaginated. No sources are given for the quotation.

See correspondence on this matter in Haire papers, Box 3, Rare Books Collection, Fisher Library, Sydney University.

It should be noted that Dora Russell's role in the Congress was of immense importance, but I shall concentrate on this in a forthcoming paper.

Information on the WLSR comes from the best paper available on the topic of the WLSR to date: Dose Ralf , “The World League for Sexual Reform: Some possible approaches”, in Eder F. X. Hall L. A. Hekma G. (eds), Sexual cultures in Europe: National histories (Manchester, 1999), 242–59.

See Steakley James , “Per scientiam ad justitiam: Magnus Hirschfeld and the sexual politics of homosexuality”, in Rosario Vernon (ed.), Science and homosexualities (London, 1997), 133–54. It is noteworthy that Hirschfeld's first political organization, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, specifically tried to solve problems of homosexuality through the use of science. Haire's response to this problem at the BSSSP and the WLSR runs counter to Hirschfeld's original aims; he was much more politically allied to Albert Moll's highly medicalized, less political stance on the issue of sexuality. But he got on better with Magnus Hirschfeld than Albert Moll, perhaps because of his homosexuality?.

Dose , “The World League for Sexual Reform” (ref. 65), 251.

Adapted from Dose , “The World League for Sexual Reform”, 247, who in turn adapted it from Haire (ed.), Proceedings (ref. 33), 584–7.

Haire to Dora Russell, undated, Dora Russell Papers, Amsterdam.

C. P. Blacker to Julian Huxley, 18 Feb. 1929, in Huxley papers 10.1, Rice University, Houston, Texas. All Huxley correspondence is in this collection.

BMJ, 1929, i, 508.

Blacker C. P. to Huxley Julian , 12 Aug. 1928.

Haire to Huxley Julian , 21 Feb. 1929.

Haire to Huxley Julian , 27 June 1929.

Ellis Havelock to Sanger Margaret , 31 Dec. 1928, LC 5:100.

Françoise Lafitte-Cyon to Norman Haire, included in Haire to Dora Russell, 17 Sept. 1929 in Dora Russell papers.

Ellis to Sanger Margaret , 9 Aug. 1929, LC 5:163.

Copy of Haire to Cyon F. L. , within a letter to Dora Russell, 30 Aug. 1929, in Dora Russell papers.

Ellis to Sanger Margaret , 22 Sept. 1929, LC 5:171.

Haire Norman , “The importance of sexual disorders and disharmonies in the production of ill-health”, in Haire (ed.), Proceedings (ref. 33), 561–3, p. 561.

Haire to Russell Dora , 21 Feb. 1929, Dora Russell papers.

Haire to Huxley Julian , 21 Feb. 1929.

Ibid.

Ives George , “Notes and various writings”, xcii, 10 Sept. 1928, in British Sexology Society collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Haire to Russell Dora , 19 Oct. 1928, in Dora Russell papers.

BMJ, 1929, i, 508.

Haire to Sanger , 4 Oct. 1929, LC 124:266, “I am sorry that you feel that you must resign from the WLSR and would urge you to think it over well, before you do this…. I suppose you realise that if you resign from an organisation after once having been on its international committee, you may give other people the impression that you definitely disapprove of it — Unless when you resign you explicitly state that there is some other reason.” She did resign.

Sigmund Freud to Haire, reproduced in Proceedings (ref. 33), p. xxxi, my translation.

Jones Ernest , “Psycho-analysis and biology”, in Greenwood A. W. (ed.), Proceedings of the second International for Sex Research, London, 1930 (Edinburgh, 1931), 601–24.

For the differences in English sexology and psychoanalysis, see Crozier Ivan , “Taking prisoners: Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, and the construction of homosexuality, 1897–1951”, Social history of medicine, xiii (2000), 227–66; Waters Chris , “Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud and the state: Discourses of homosexual identity in interwar Britain”, in Bland Lucy Doan Laura (eds), Sexology in culture: Labelling bodies and desires (Cambridge, 1998), 165–80.

Eder M. D. , “The sterilization of the unfit” in Haire (ed.), Proceedings (ref. 33), 193.

Haire , “The importance of sexual disorders” (ref. 80), 561.

Schmidt , “Six hundred rejuvenation operations” in Haire (ed.), Proceedings (ref. 33), 581.

Jones , “Psycho-analysis and biology” (ref. 89).

Stopes , “Birth control” in Haire (ed.), Proceedings (ref. 33), 107.

See, for example, Marie Stopes to Mary Ware Dennet, 11 July 1922, Mary Ware Dennett papers in the Schlesinger Library, Cambridge, Mass., where she suggests that Haire stresses the efficacy of the cap in a way with which she disagrees. See also Haire's letter to The week-end review, 31 Oct. 1931, 543, where he supports the Gräfenburg ring against Stella Browne's complaints.

Browne , “The right to abortion” in Haire (ed.), Proceedings (ref. 33), 178.

Ibid., 181. It should be emphasized that this does not necessarily mean for all women. Lesley Hall has argued that Stella Browne had a particular drive to argue that all women were different. See Hall , ‘“I have never met the normal woman’: Stella Browne and the politics of womanhood”, Women's history review, vi (1997), 157–82.

Gräfenburg was significantly a German candidate, and Haire considered Germany his “spiritual home”, or so he allegedly reported to Mannin Ethel , Young in the twenties (ref. 1), 184.

See Havelock Ellis letters to Haire in the Haire papers, Box 3.

Haire , “Sterilization, abortion and birth control” in Haire (ed.), Proceedings (ref. 33), 109.

Ibid., 110.

Ibid. It should be recalled that these comments were made after the Infant Life Preservation Act of 1929, which suggested that the medical right to perform abortions was an issue of clinical judgement.

Ibid., 110.

Ibid., 115.

Lancet, 1929, ii, 568.

Ibid.

BMJ, 1929, i, 508.

BMJ, 1929, i, 544–5. These included Abraham Stone on premarital consultation; Bayly's Wansey “Sex reform and the prevention of venereal disease”; Stopes Marie Drysdale C. V. Gräfenburg E. Lehfeldt Hans , and Haire on birth control; Haire Eder M. D. on sterilization; and Gens A. , Eder and Haire on abortion.

Browne F. W. Stella , “How the fight goes”, The new generation, October 1929, 113.

Browne F. W. Stella , “Impressions of the third International Congress for the World League for Sexual Reform”, Critic and guide, xxvii (1929), 483–6, p. 483.

Ibid., 485.