How-Martyn, Edith (1875–1954)

English suffragette. She co-founded the Women's Freedom League with Charlotte Despard and Teresa Billington-Greig in 1907 and became the first woman member of Middlesex Council in 1919. As founder of the Birth Control International Information Centre (1929) she travelled widely lecturing on women's issues, and published The Birth Control Movement in England (1931).

How-Martyn was born in Cheltenham. Educated at the North London Collegiate School for Girls, at University College, Aberystwyth, and London University, she became secretary of Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union 1906–07. After the franchise had been extended to include property-owning women over the age of 30, she stood for parliament in 1918 as an independent candidate representing feminist issues, but was unsuccessful.