Fertility clinics in the UK
From ISOGG Wiki
The following is a list of fertility clinics in the UK which practised donor conception.
Further information about these clinics is always welcome as are further additions to the list.
Contents
Helena Wright
1917 to 1950 496 children thought to have been conceived through one man by the name of Derek
- Desperate wives and the man known as Derek who fathered 500 children with women whose war hero husbands were too shell-shocked to make love by Paul Spicer, Daily Mail, 3 August 2013.
Mary Barton and Berthold Wiesner
London 1940s onwards
433 by 1958
Also possibly surrogacy.
Wiesner is thought to have up to 500 donor children. The sperm from his friends was also used. One friend Derek Richter is though to have had up to 100 donor children.
- British scientist 'fathered 600 children' by donating sperm at his own fertility clinic by Tom Kelly, Daily Mail, 8 April 2012.
- Direct-to-consumer DNA testing – the fallout for individuals and their families unexpectedly learning of their donor conception origins by Marilyn Crawshaw, Human Fertility, published online 11 July 2017. A case study relating to three women who learnt that Berthold Wiesner was their biological father.
- The World's Biggest Family A Canadian documentary about Berthold Wiesner.
- Offspring A film by Barry Stevens about Berthold Wiesner.
Philip Bloom
London 1948
26 up to 1958
Reynold H Boyd
52 Harley Street, London 1942
500 up to 1958
Continued up to 1970
He also had clinics in Chelmsford and Wanstead in Essex.
Eustace Chesser
London, Harley Street before 1948
5 births
Vyvyan Green-Armitage
London
Margaret Jackson
Exeter 1940
82 up to 1958
Dr Bridgett Mason
35 Weymouth Street, London W1G 8BJ Known as Hallam Medical Centre/London.
Women’s clinic at least 1978 to 2012.
Eleanor Mears
London 1943
20 up to 1958
Margaret Moore-White
London
Dr Bernard Sandler
Manchester 1948-1988
12 St John Street, Manchester
121 Palatine Rd, Manchester
16 up to 1958 (not to be believed since he claimed 131 live births between 1948 and 1972)
Albert Sharman
Glasgow probably 1940s – stopped by 1958
David Sopher
London 1970s. See: Lesbian motherhood and the artificial insemination by donor scandal of 1978. A short podcast on BBC Sounds Britain's lesbian family scandal provides the perspective of Dr Gillian Hanscombe, one of Dr Sopher's patients.
Helena Wright
London
Further reading
- Kleeman J. The great sperm heist: playing with people's lives. The Guardian, 25 September 2021.