Megan Du Boisson

Megan du Boisson (née James; 31 July 1922 – 10 May 1969) was a British campaigner for disability rights, and founder of the Disablement Income Group. and they had three children. The couple lived in Lincoln from 1956 to 1959, and Megan du Boisson worked as secretary to Bishop Tomkins, principal of Lincoln Theological College. They later moved to Godalming, Surrey, where Megan founded the Disablement Income Group in 1965, having been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Disablement Income Group Megan du Boisson and Berit Moore, both of whom had multiple sclerosis, founded the Disablement Income Group in 1965. This followed a letter co-written by the pair to The Guardian newspaper, in which they proposed the creation of a group, which "would exist only to correlate the work of the other groups in regard solely to getting recognition for the right of disabled persons, irrespective of the reason for that disablement, to pensions from the State to enable them to live in a reasonable degree of independence and dignity in their own homes".

The DIG was established "a pressure group bent on changing legislation and obtaining for the severely disabled a State income in their own right." According to Margaret Blackwood, writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 1981, du Boisson "uncovered undeniable poverty, ignorance and despair" and "was emphatic in her arguments that society must embrace its disabled members. She was equally emphatic in her insistence that the disabled must come out of their refuges and speak of their difficulties."

In an interview with du Boisson in 1967, Times journalist Charles Robinson wrote that "The Disablement Income Group is an organization whose sole reason for existence is to help disabled people live as human beings in a very unhelpful and uninterested society. lt began because it was needed, and has flourished because the need for it is desperate." During its first four years of existence, du Boisson developed the organization into one with over 10,000 members and active supporters.

Death Du Boisson was killed in a car crash on Saturday 10 May 1969, aged 44, on the way to DIG's 4th annual meeting.