Moya Woodside

Moya was born Moira Neil on 21 December 1907 in Belfast. Her father was a miller. She married Cecil Woodside who, at the time of her writing, was assistant surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital. She was a home visitor for the Belfast Welfare Committee and a campaigner for wider access to birth control.

In 1942 she trained as a psychiatric social worker at the London School of Economics. She became a research assistant investigating family planning within working class marriages. She published several articles and co-wrote the book 'Patterns of Marriage'.

In 1946 the Director of Proctor and Gamble USA who was enlisting experts to provide publications for the Human Betterment League, funded a post for her at the Institute of Social Science North Carolina to study the effectiveness of the 1933 Sterilisation Act. She returned to London in 1950 where she became a Fellow of the Eugenics Society.

Researcher: Janie Gannon

PRONI Reference for Diaries: T3808/1