Marie Stopes was a sexual-health maverick, internationally renowned botanist with an exemplary academic career as well as a pioneer for all female scientists and academics of the twentieth century. Yet ‘who was the real Marie Stopes?’

On Wednesday 22nd June, The University of Manchester is holding the first ever international symposium dedicated to one of the UK’s most renowned yet controversial women’s rights pioneers.

And what better way to get to know the real Marie Stopes’ than a personal account from one of the last surviving people to personally know Marie, her daughter-in-law, Dr Mary Stopes-Roe. Dr Stopes-Roe will discuss her own relationship with her famed mother-in-law and what it was like to know Marie on a personal level.

Marie Stopes’ expert, Dr Clare Debenham, from The University of Manchester, said: ‘Throughout her life Marie courted controversy and it is sometimes difficult to disentangle fact from the fiction. But we cannot deny that a lot of hullabaloo surrounding her was, indeed, created by her own actions. However, she is definitely misunderstood and there are plenty of misconceptions about the real Marie Stopes and her work.’