Harry Stopes-Roe

Who is Harry Stopes-Roe?

Dr. Harry Stopes-Roe is a British philosopher and humanist. He is a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association.

He is the son of Marie Stopes, the women's rights and family planning pioneer, and Humphrey Verdon Roe. He started his career as a physicist, and received a BSc and MSc in physics from Imperial College, London. Thanks to studying physics Harry was exempt from military call-up during the Second World War. Once he graduated, his mother used her contacts to ensure he was offered a job in the University, and his exemption from serving was therefore continued. He then went to Cambridge University, and took a PhD in philosophy.

After Harry married a myopic woman, his mother, an advocate of eugenics, cut him out of her will. His wife—Mary Eyre Wallis, later Mary Stopes-Roe—was the daughter of the noted engineer Barnes Wallis. Stopes reasoned that prospective grandchildren might inherit the condition.

He became a lecturer in Science Studies at Birmingham University, bringing together physics with philosophy. His work led him to seek a non-religious basis for morality in secular humanism, and he became Chair of the British Humanist Association as well as having an active role in the International Humanist and Ethical Union.