Helen Mary Wilson (physician)
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Charlotte Cowan Wilson
Helen Mary Wilson | |
|---|---|
 Wilson in 1942 | |
| Born | 1 December 1864 Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England |
| Died | 29 December 1951 (aged 87) Finchley, London, England |
| Parent(s) | Henry Wilson Charlotte Cowan Wilson |
Dr. Helen Mary Wilson (1 December 1864 – 29 December 1951) was a physician and social purity campaigner.[1]
Wilson was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire[2] and moved to Sheffield early in her childhood.[1] She studied medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women.[3]
In 1892 Wilson was House surgeon at the London Temperance Hospital.[2] She worked in private practice in Sheffield from 1893[2] until 1906, when she retired to become actively involved in the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene,[4] previously known as the Ladies' National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. She took a humane approach to women in and in danger of falling into prostitution, rather than punitive one, and argued against double standards in the law on prostitution.[1][5] From 1916 to 1919 she was Chair of the Women's Training Colony in Newbury, Berkshire,[6] a work camp that aimed to provide responsibility, independence and occupation.[5]
Wilson had an interest in women's suffrage, serving as honorary secretary of the Sheffield Women's Suffrage Society in 1909–1910 and also as president.[1] In 1920 she was appointed magistrate in Sheffield,[7] the first woman to hold the role in Sheffield.[1] Wilson died in 1951, in London.[8]
