Margaret Pyke

A founding member of the British National Birth Control Committee (NBCC), later known as the Family Planning Association (FPA), she succeeded Lady Gertrude Denman as chairman of that organization in 1954.

Geoffrey Pyke had original ideas about the education of very young children, encouraging them to learn, as far as possible, for themselves, adults being there to help and guide them and to answer questions rather than instruct them.

[3] By 1927, Geoffrey Pyke's interference in the day-to-day running of the school, hoping to achieve his grand ambitions for it, led to Susan Isaacs leaving her position.

In 1930 the purpose of the NBCC was "that married people may space or limit their families and thus mitigate the evils of ill health and poverty".

[7] Margaret Pyke was “tireless in creating and sustaining” the new NBCC clinics which were established across the UK to provide advice on contraception, marriage and all aspects of sex.

In 1933 she contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and subsequently lived with Lady Denman at Balcombe, taking over from her, when she died in 1954, as chair of the Family Planning Association.

[8] In 1955 Pyke coordinated the visit of the minister of health, Iain Macleod, to the Family Planning Association’s offices and one of its clinics, an event which is acknowledge helping to change the public perception towards contraception, making it more be seen as “respectable”.

Margaret Pyke died suddenly from a cerebral haemorrhage on 19 June 1966 at Ardchattan Priory, Argyll, while staying with friends in Scotland.