Bessie Drysdale

Bessie Drysdale (, 1871–1950) was a British teacher, suffragette activist, birth control campaigner, eugenicist and writer. She was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union’s (WSPU) National Executive Committee and secretary of the Malthusian League.

Early life Drysdale was born in 1871 in Hereford, Herefordshire, England. She worked as a teacher at Stockwell College in South London.

Marriage Drysdale married Charles Vickery Drysdale in 1898, whose parents were Charles Robert Drysdale and Alice Vickery. He was an electrical engineer, fellow eugenicist, and social reformer, and was a founder member of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage (MLWS). She was one of the 52 women arrested during a suffragette march to the House of Commons on 14 February 1907 and spent 21 days in Holloway Prison. Later in 1907, Drysdale left the WSPU to join the breakaway group the Women's Freedom League (WFL). In 1908 she attended the congress of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance in Stockholm, Sweden, as the WFL delegate. Her husband also attended to represent the Men's League for Women's Suffrage (MLWS).

When the 1911 census was taken, Drysdale participated in the suffragette boycott and wrote on her form: “as the Government refuses me a vote and as I am not therefore recognised as a citizen, I refuse to perform the duties of one in giving the information required by the Government”.

Birth control activism Drysdale believed that the limitation of family size was the "lever for individual and social betterment," "a cure for social ills" and key to achieving women's emancipation. She became a leader of the British birth control movement, advocating for women's access to abortion. From 1911 to 1923 Drysdale was secretary of the British eugenics and family planning organisation, the Malthusian League. Drysdale was one of the most prominent female members of these organisations and often highlighted the erasure of women's bodies and opinions in discourse about reproduction, through her writing and talks. In 1923 she ended an article with the line "working men and women look to yourselves, and get rid of poverty by refusing to breed it." An earlier leaflet, published in 1915, implored "To working men and women! Get rid of poverty by keeping your family to the size you can bring up well." She has been described as "virulently anti-socialist," and it has been suggested by historians that she may have invented stories for a working class perspective for her papers. She also wrote negatively about that areas of poor housing, stating that "slums are to a great extent made and constantly inhabited by natural slum types."

Also after the war, Drysdale personally campaigned about family planning on a motor car tour, and arranged meetings across Britain held by the American birth control campaigner Margaret Sanger. Bessie gave Margaret advice about how to dress, telling her that the more radical a persons ideas the more conservatively they should dress. They attended an international conference of the Malthusian League together in Holland in 1921. She also worked alongside other activists, such as Marie Stopes, who Drysdale described as "powerful and disagreeable with a catty way of making tremendous publicity."

In 1922, Drysdale, her husband and Norman Haire founded the Walworth Women's Welfare Centre. and offered medical treatment and lectures on topic such as birth control, anatomy, physiology and hygiene for poor women. Drysdale and Haire disagreed about advertising the centre and he quit after they quarrelled about Drysdale's proposal for a "grand opening" day, but they later reconciled and he returned to work with the Drysdales at the centre.

Death Drysdale continued campaigning until she died in 1950.