Norma Haire-Studying Sex in the Early 10th Century

Dr Diana Wyndham is an Australian historian and co-author (Control with Stefania Siedlecky) of Populate and Perish: Australian Women’s Fight for Birth  and Norman Haire and The Study of Sex. Norman Haire, an Australian of German background, was at the forefront of studies of contraception and women’s health over two decades in the 1920s and 1930s. Diana Wyndham has worked as Head of Research and Information at the Australian Film, Television and Radio school and was Chief Librarian at the Commonwealth Institute of Health. In an address to The Sydney Institute, on Tuesday 12 November 2013, Diana Wyndham discussed the work of Norman Haire and the development of modern attitudes to contraception, sexual research for both men and women, and women’s rights.

NORMAN HAIRE – STUDYING SEX IN THE EARLY 20^TH CENTURY

DIANA WYNDHAM

The man who is the subject of my slide show presentation was a famous freethinker who campaigned for contraception, sexology and human rights.  For the first 27 years of his life he was called Norman Zions. But after he left Australia, following an injustice, he changed his name to Norman Haire.  

Justice Michael Kirby, who wrote the foreword to my book, praised Haire as a flamboyant, shy and outrageous hero, who battled against deception and religious conservatism in a bid to empower women and dispel sexual misery. Others have tried to discredit him.

Haire was born in Paddington, Sydney on 21 January 1892 as Henry and Clara Zions’ unplanned and unwanted eleventh and final child. Henry was 51 and Clara was 40.  His parents were Jewish and Henry’s surname was originally Zajac, the Polish for hare.  It is pronounced in Polish as “Zay-ans” so he changed his name to Zions when he fled from Poland to England. Norman feared and hated his father but he loved his over-protective mother.

Norman was a very bright child but he was also short-sighted, timid and delicate and bullies tormented him in primary school. Fortunately, he blossomed at Sydney’s Fort Street School. He starred in the school’s literary and debating society. After school hours, an elocution teacher gave him free training and, in exchange, Norman gave recitals to advertise her teaching.

Norman had two ambitions: he wanted to be an actor and, prompted by his chance discovery of Havelock Ellis’ Studies in the Psychology of Sex in Sydney’s public library, he also wanted to devote his life to saving the world from sexual misery to repay his debt to Havelock Ellis.

After he left school, a theatrical agent offered him a job. This sparked a melodrama at home – his father threatened to throw him out of the house if he didn’t become a medical student and his mother begged him on her knees not to be an actor. Reluctantly Norman enrolled in medicine at Sydney University but he became more interested when he started to see patients. He also spent five nights a week rehearsing, acting or reciting at concerts and took part in a University Commemoration Day procession.

In 1914 he was judged “the best amateur reciter in Australia” at the Ballarat Eisteddfod.   Years later, Dame Enid Lyons found his voice the most beautiful she had ever heard, surpassing that of the Shakespearean actor Sir John Gielgud “whose voice is famous for the music of its tones”.  Zions again begged for acting work but the agent said “graduate first”. When he graduated in March 1915, Norman rushed to the agent to claim his promise but this time he was refused because doctors were needed in the war.

Norman took various hospital jobs and in addition, from 1915-1919, he worked part-time as an Army captain at the Randwick Military Hospital. He later said these were the unhappiest years of his life.  Perhaps he used food as a solace:  he was slim when he posed in a 1916 picture with three of his siblings but two years later he had become portly and his weight remained a problem all his life.

Oscar Levant said he knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.  Similarly, this episode concerned Norman Zions before he became Norman Haire and Newcastle Hospital before it became Royal Newcastle. It began in February 1918 when the unsuspecting 26-year-old from Sydney became the Medical Superintendant of a hospital, which had no isolation facilities, huge debts, pigeons in the roof and rats in the kitchen. As well, the doctors lived in fear of the board, which had summarily dismissed Zions’ predecessor. Catastrophe struck during the influenza pandemic – a seaman died at the hospital and the board, who had initially praised his administrative skill, blamed Zions.

After this shattering blow, Norman left Australia, changed his name to Norman Haire (a reference to the Polish for hare) and started afresh. When he arrived in London, in December 1919, he was poor and unknown but he quickly established himself with help from Havelock Ellis who introduced him to key people in the birth control movement.

In 1921, Haire became the honorary medical officer at the Malthusian League’s free birth control clinic which provided poor women with contraceptives, including his Haire pessary.  The following year, he invited medical practitioners and students to attend the League’s historic conference – the first international conference on birth control in London, where he played a key role. Haire later said that many doctors had begged for their names to be kept secret when they wrote for tickets but, on learning that Lord Dawson of Penn and Sir Arbuthnot Lane would attend, they became braver.

Haire found two lucrative ways to support his voluntary work: he used artificial insemination to help provide aristocrats with heirs and from 1922 he performed “rejuvenations”.  Scientists claimed that “glandular interventions” were the key to eternal youth and Haire performed the vasectomy procedure promoted by Eugene Steinach, wrote a book about it and used the fees to fund his charitable work.  Haire “rejuvenated” around 200 artistic and intellectual men, including W B Yeats.  

Now his income was secure, he concentrated on birth control in order to empower women by giving them child-bearing choices. He broke new ground in July 1923 and startled the conservative medical profession when he presented the key paper at a contraception symposium. Forty years later Sir John Peel (The Queen’s gynaecologist) praised Haire’s excellent paper, based on Haire’s wide practical experience, but ridiculed the rest by “distinguished gynaecologists and obstetricians” who equated contraception with masturbation and said both caused sterility or insanity in subsequent offspring.

Following the success of the symposium, Haire travelled to Berlin to meet Magnus Hirschfeld a homosexual, Jewish, socialist sexologist.  He admired him and studied at his Institute for Sexual Research and the two worked collaboratively for the next decade.

Haire’s 1924 diary was filled with meetings, dinners, rehearsals and lectures including an address to Cambridge University’s Heretics club – “the intellectual snob society of the day”. Haire also starred at Oxford and the university’s official history called him the most illustrious speaker at the St John’s Essay Society, noting that his three-hour and comprehensive exposition received  ‘intensive and appreciative attention’ from an audience that was “the largest in the Society’s records”.

In 1925, he had his portrait painted and Margaret Sanger praised “our friend” Dr Norman Haire, who “in his quietly effective manner” stressed the need for birth control for the good of humanity and the nation. A journalist praised him for his “valuable works on sex psychology” and noted that he had become a Harley Street specialist in his early 30s.  It was amazing that a radical young Jewish doctor who was an outsider could flourish in this conservative medical enclave.  Haire was chosen as the British delegate at the Sixth International Birth Control Conference in New York and addressed nearly a thousand doctors who agreed with his recommendation that birth control should be taught in medical schools.

In 1926, Haire presented a paper in German at the first International Congress for Sexual Research in Berlin. His achievements were really remarkable at a time when the House of Commons refused to discuss the possibility of public spending on birth control information even for married women and The Times published letters of complaint after the words “birth control” had been used in a radio debate: the BBC promised it would not happen again.

In 1927, Haire acted in Ivor Montagu’s silent film Bluebottles and, in a debate on “Sexual Reform versus Birth Control”, Haire (who advocated both) clashed with G K Chesterton (who opposed both).

Haire was now rich enough to buy the lease of 127 Harley Street and furnish it elaborately.  He sent a post card of his huge bed to friends as a greeting or invitation. He had a butler, cook, maids, secretaries and a nursing sister. Patients went by lift to the top floor consulting rooms. His chauffeur and Rolls Royce were stationed in a mews behind the house.

He was writing Hymen: or, the future of marriage. The title means either the Greek god of marriage or something earthier when spelt in lower case. His mother came to stay with him and conceded “perhaps you are right after all. It is a pity I did not meet you a year or two before you were born”.

Haire did not want to abolish sexual morality but argued: “Just as a piano needs tuning so that it may give the sweetest music, our sexual morality needs readjustment to make life as harmonious as possible”.  He prophesied that in the future contraception would be used by all normal people and observed that although parents educate their children and supervise their eating, they try to keep them ignorant about sex matters.  He also argued it was “better for a child to be brought up with only one parent than with two parents who are always quarrelling with each other.”  Remember, he said this in 1927.  One reviewer said Haire “was as lucid as he is bold” but another called the book a “hideous picture of a godless future” and said “a kick from a mule is stimulating, and so are some parts of Hymen, but it is not cheerful reading”. It would not “inspire a knight to do great deeds for his lady love”.

Haire had launched his own birth control clinic for the poor where doctors gave free service to all women “whose health or other circumstances made it advisable”. In contrast, until the 1970s, Australian Family planning clinics would only treat married women. The mural in Haire’s clinic had this slogan:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe

She had so many children she didn’t know what to do

Don’t be like her. Ask the doctor for birth control advice.

In 1928, Haire attended the congress in Copenhagen from which the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) was born, the “child” of Magnus Hirschfeld.  Haire agreed to be the Secretary of the Congress the League decided to hold in London the following year.  Dora Russell became the treasurer and, together they organised a successful event.  Haire and Russell faced fierce opposition but gained support from respected “names” and raised enough money to hire the Wigmore Hall for a whole week.

A reviewer noted the delegates’ energy, enthusiasm and courage and praised Haire for his tireless and tactful work and his lucid, forcible speeches.

Edmund Kapp’s caricature showed Haire’s main interests: acting, eating and teaching people how to make a sex omelette. It was impossible to achieve the League’s utopian aims but the Congress had broken many taboos on marriage, divorce, censorship, sex education, birth control, abortion, prostitution and VD. One speaker was a feisty author called Ethel Mannin who admired Haire’s rationalism and his “rational dress”. He later invited her to dinner to meet his patient W B Yeats. She was asked to wear her most alluring evening dress to see if Yeats’ “rejuvenation” was successful – it was.

At the WLSR Congress in Vienna in 1930, Haire and Hirschfeld became co-presidents. Haire sent Havelock Ellis the details and mentioned an address in German he would be giving in Berlin in 1931. His language skills and stage training proved invaluable.

Haire became seriously ill with rheumatic fever in 1932 but despite this he gave two important presentations in French. He addressed France’s President and senior ministers in Paris on 24 June. Three days later, he warned three new French sexological societies to expect a “curious phenomenon” when they announced their research: if they said that the earth was flat, people would attack their scientific thinking and if they said that influenza was caused by solar spots, people would doubt their medical ability, but none would claim “you hit your mother, or are part of the white slave trade, or have ten wives and twenty mistresses, or that you sleep with a camel”. However, if they said that prostitution should be regulated (or abolished or made free) or that contraception should be permitted (or punished) everyone would accuse them of being Bluebeard, the Marquis de Sade, or a child of Sodom.  In the sexual domain, people expressing conclusions face violent and vile accusations and he exhorted them to “have courage, more courage and always courage”. The WLSR 1932 Congress in Brno, Czechoslovakia, was the last one.

 In 1934, Haire attend the Birth Control conference in Washington and Margaret Sanger also thanked him for his splendid presentation in New York. He told her it would be his last conference, sating, “Conferences are for the young. We older people (I was 42 last week) can do more by reporting our results at other meetings or by publishing them in full detail.”

Soon Haire’s world began to unravel. He was restoring a country house and his debts were mounting when he became ill and could only work part time. In 1936, he was shattered by the death of one of his patients in childbirth. She was Conchita Supervia, a talented opera singer. The architect Sir Edwin Lutyens designed her tomb which was carved by the sculptor Sir William Reid Dick. Perhaps in an attempt to show that all was well, Haire commissioned P Tennyson Cole to paint his portrait and persuaded Havelock Ellis to have his done also and asked him to come and see the results at his country house, Nettleden Lodge.

In May 1940, Haire obtained an exit permit from Britain on the grounds of ill-health and sailed for Australia. British security agents sent the first of about 40 confidential surveillance reports from London to Australia’s Prime Minister’s Department reporting that Haire was sailing to Sydney on the SS Strathallan.  The report continued, “information suggests that Haire is a secret member of the Communist Party and in addition he is President of the Sex Education Society which has close connection with extreme political elements.”

Despite it being the most dangerous phase of the war, British and Australian authorities diverted extensive resources to monitor Haire’s movements. A cable alerted all Australian states to watch for Dr Haire when he landed in Sydney. Investigating officers met the Strathallan but found “no trace of him”.  This is not surprising because he had arrived in Perth on the Melbourne Star.

An investigating officer said Haire had a “decidedly foreign and Jewish appearance”. In contrast, Smith’s Weekly found him “a tall, forceful, rather rakish looking, and originally dressed gynecologist” – a  “brilliant research worker in sexology” and war’s most picturesque gift to Australia to date.

Haire expected to become an invalid or die but his health improved with the help of insulin to control his diabetes. He had a flat at No. 7 Elizabeth Street and practised at 193 Macquarie Street. In 1941, a Sydney newspaper proprietor made the brave but lucrative decision to start a sexual advice column in the magazine Woman. They chose Haire who used the pseudonym Dr Wykeham Terriss (a play on Brisbane’s equivalent of Macquarie Street) and discussed topics such as sex education and venereal disease.

He wrote more than 400 articles.  Peter Coleman called Haire “one of Australia’s most famous freethinkers and sex reformers” and said his column was “probably the most free-thinking series of articles ever written for a mass circulation magazine.”

Despite Haire’s Jewish ancestry, in 1942 two military police officers visited him after receiving an allegation that he was German and his real name was “Von something or other”.  He was alarmed because under the National Security Regulations anybody could be arrested and interned for long periods without cause. The Deputy Director of Security for NSW advised his counterpart in Canberra that although they could not place a Restriction Order on Haire they had taken informal steps to curb his future actions.

A week later, G R Bohun from the Catholic Chemists’ Guild sent this telegram to Arthur Calwell, the Minister for Immigration and refers to Jack Holloway the Minister for Health.

SEX PROBLEMS OF TODAY BY NORMAN HAIRE STOP ANGUS AND ROBERTSON PUBLISHERS STOP PRICE 2/6 STOP ROTTEN STOP CAN HOLLOWAY STOP IT STOP COPY FOLLOWING – – – BOHUN

Despite this controversy, in August 1944, top management at the Australian Broadcasting Commission bravely chose Haire to be the key speaker in a radio debate on population.  Complaints began before the broadcast, including this telegram sent on behalf of Moore Theological College’s Public Morals Committee to Prime Minister John Curtin:

Strongly oppose Doctor Norman Haire speaking over national network on birthrate question Wednesday – refer you to his published writings on subject also NSW Government’s Police Report of his sex lectures here.

Curtin withstood both Anglican and Roman Catholic opposition but this debate became the ABC’s “largest controversy during the war”.  A photograph shows Jessie Street speaking from notes, Enid Lyons facing her and Norman Haire wearing a bow tie. Thomas Challon drew a caricature showing a long-eared hare sitting opposite Lyons with a crucifix in her hand surrounded by eleven koala-faced children.

Haire: My dear Dame, prevention is better than curette!

Lyons: My dear Doctor, a litter is better than a letter

The fourth speaker, economist Colin Clark, was meant to provide facts and figures. Instead he delivered a tirade about the “perversion” of preventing childbearing by “unnatural” practices which were “filthy, vicious and disgusting”.  In response, Haire said Clark’s views were determined by peculiar religious superstition. Haire said his mother had become irritable and prematurely old as a result of her excessive and uncontrolled fertility – “For all that she got out of life she might as well have been a prize cow.”

Politicians said nothing about Clark’s offensive remarks but denounced Haire in parliament and the behind the scenes sabotage attempts climaxed in a court case on 22 March 1945.  A trumped-up assault charge was used to discredit Haire and Ezra Norton, the proprietor of Truth, gleefully reported the case. Haire left Australia on 24 August 1946 and never returned.

As a young man Haire wanted to “sit at the feet” of others but he gained confidence, courage and stability in the 1920s once he started his stable, secret relationship with a calm, scholarly older man. He was Willem van de Hagt, the administrator of the Rotterdam Zoo, who provided the wisdom, serenity and support which enabled Haire to ring out his old, unhappy past and ring in his new one as a crusader and he emphasised this in a season’s greetings card. Haire wanted to uplift humanity by providing a “new sexual ethic” which would reflect “scientific knowledge and social and economic circumstances” rather than an “outworn” Biblical ethic.

Haire told his good friend Paddy O’Connor that he was going to leave his money to the University of Sydney for the study of sex “to annoy the wowsers”.

Haire died in 1952 and George Molnar’s cartoon, in response to the news of the terms of the bequest, shows amorous students asking “and when will we get the money?”

This flamboyant, shy and outrageous hero deserves recognition.