Lilias Jeffries trained at the University of London and qualified as a doctor in 1915. In the inter-war years women doctors, although not numerous, were agents for the legitimacy of birth control. Women’s Welfare Centres, as birth control clinics were called provided job for women doctors who became pivotal in the medicalisation of contraception. Before the 1930s male doctors had framed birth control in eugenic terms, rather than focusing on the alleviation of poverty and the harm to women’s health caused by too many pregnancies. Although some of Jeffries’ speeches used eugenic language, her main emphasis when she worked at the Brighton Women’s Welfare Centre, was on the benefit of birth control for society, the family and most importantly, for the women themselves. As well as advising her patients and fitting contraceptive devices, Jeffries was active in the National Birth Control Association. No photo of Lilias could be found.
