New image gallery for the De Partu website: launch of an appeal for images of midwives’ badges
Wouldn’t it be timely to compile a gallery of as many former midwifery ‘training’ school badges as possible, before they are lost? Former schools of midwifery often produced their own badges, sometimes with interesting coats of arms or mottos on them. We have made a start with this: members can view them in our image […]
Victorian values: an image of the Virgin Mary bottle feeding!
York Minster Nave: Nativity boss (1840) York Minster was built between 1220 and 1472 and is one of the great Gothic cathedrals of England and Europe. In the course of the last two centuries, it has suffered three catastrophic fires with the second, in 1840, destroying the roof of the nave. The nave roof is […]
Midwifery records of Midwife Booth of Salford
Midwife Booth, a Salford midwife, attended over 4,225 cases (1864-1879). Ellen Booth practised in the environs of Salford during the nineteenth century. Data provided in this register suggests that she attended over 4,225 births between 1864 and July 1879. From the figures listed in the front of the book, her birth attendances were lowest in […]
Willughby on midwives…
‘I desire that all midwives may gain a good repute, and have a happy successe in all their undertakings: and that their knowledge, charity, and patience, with tender compassion, may manifest their worths among their women, and give their women just cause to love, honour, and to esteem them.’ Percivall Willughby (1596-1685) Willughby, P., […]
Jean Donnison (1925-2017)
It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Dr Jean Donnison on January 27th, after a long period of declining health during which she bravely continued to work and publish. Jean will be known to many members for the significant contributions that she made to midwifery history, in particular her classic work […]
News of the second Knowledge Exchange Partnership study day on Pregnancy and Birth: Changing practices over the twentieth century: Oxford University, May 7th 2016
Changing practices over the twentieth century The study day to be held in Oxford on 7th May is part of a Knowledge Exchange Partnership, from April 2015-December 2016, conducted by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, the De Partu History of Childbirth Group, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Hardly a week […]