Implementing the 1902 Midwives Act: Assessing problems, developing services and creating a new role for a variety of female practitioners

Women's History Review

Volumn 18, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 427-452

  Dale, Pamela ^a   Fisher, Kate ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EXETER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 74049123893     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612020902951580     Document Type: Review

References (74)

1. Enid Fox (1993) An Honourable Calling or a Despised Occupation: licensed midwifery and its relationship to district nursing in England and Wales before 1948, Social History of Medicine, 6(2), pp. 237-259
2. Jean Donnison (1977) Midwives and Medical Men: a history of inter-professional rivalries and women's rights (London: Heinemann)
3. Ilana Löwy (2007) The Social History of Medicine: beyond the local, Social History of Medicine, 20(3), pp. 465-481, p. 470.
4. and Donnison, Midwives and Medical Men, p. 174
5. Jane Lewis (1990) Mothers and Maternity Policies in the Twentieth Century, in Jo Garcia, Robert Kilpatrick & Martin Richards (Eds) The Politics of Maternity Care: services for childbearing women in twentieth-century Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
6. Elizabeth Peretz (1990) A Maternity Service for England and Wales: local authority maternity care in the interwar period in Oxfordshire and Tottenham, in Garcia et al. (Eds), The Politics of Maternity Care
7. and Enid Fox (1991) Powers of Life and Death: aspects of maternal welfare in England and Wales between the wars, Medical History, 35(3), pp. 328-352
8. Hilary Marland & Anne Marie Rafferty (1997) Introduction: Midwives, Society and Childbirth-debates and controversies, in Hilary Marland & Anne Marie Rafferty (Eds) Midwives, Society and Childbirth: debates and controversies in the modern period (London: Routledge)
9. John Welshman (2000) Municipal Medicine: public health in twentieth century Britain (Oxford: Peter Lang), p. 28
10. Bernard Harris (2004) The Origins of the British Welfare State: social welfare in England and Wales, 1800-1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 176
11. Lara Marks (1996) Metropolitan Maternity: maternal and infant welfare services in early twentieth century London (Amsterdam: Rodopi)
12. John Stewart (1997) 'For a Healthy London': the Socialist Medical Association and the London County Council in the 1930s, Medical History, 41(4), pp. 417-436
13. Marks, Metropolitan Maternity, pp. 207-209
14. Joan Mottram (1997) State Control in Local Context: public health and midwife regulation in Manchester 1900-1914, in Marland & Rafferty (Eds), Midwives, Society and Childbirth
15. John Pickstone (1985) Medicine and Industrial Society: a history of hospital development in Manchester and its region, 1752-1946 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 240-243, for a brief introduction to midwifery services
16. Rosemary Stevens (1966) Medical Practice in Modern England: the impact of specialization and state medicine (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), pp. 29 and 43-45
17. Fox, 'Powers of Life and Death'
18. Vincent De Brouwere (2007) The Comparative Study of Maternal Mortality over Time: the role of the professionalisation of childbirth, Social History of Medicine, 20(3), pp. 541-562
19. Robert Woods (2007) Medical and Demographic History: inseparable? Social History of Medicine, 20(3), pp. 483-503, pp. 492-499
20. Sarah Robinson (1990) Maintaining the Independence of the Midwifery Profession: a continuing struggle, in Garcia et al. (Eds), The Politics of Maternity Care
21. Hilary Marland (2000) Childbirth and Maternity, in Roger Cooter & John Pickstone (Eds) Medicine in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers), p. 569
22. Tania McIntosh (1998) Profession, Skill or Domestic Duty? Midwifery in Sheffield, 1881-1936, Social History of Medicine, 11 (3), pp. 403-420
23. De Brouwere, 'The Comparative Study', p. 549
24. Löwy, 'The Social History of Medicine', p. 470
25. The importance of working-class midwives is noted by Cohen. Deborah Cohen (1993) Private Lives in Public Spaces: Marie Stopes, the mothers' clinics and the practice of contraception, History Workshop Journal, 35, pp. 95-116, pp. 105-108
26. Pamela Dale & Catherine Mills (2007) Revealing and Concealing Personal and Social Problems: family coping strategies and a new engagement with officials and welfare agencies c. 1900-1912, Family and Community History, 10(2), pp. 111-125
27. See Arleen Marcia Tuchman (2005) The True Assistant to the Obstetrician: state regulation and the legal protection of midwives in nineteenth-century Prussia, Social History of Medicine, 18(1), pp. 23-38
28. Irvine Loudon (1988) Maternal Mortality: 1880-1950. Some Regional and International Comparisons, Social History of Medicine, 1(2), pp. 183-228, pp. 185-186
29. Irvine Loudon (1992) Death in Childbirth: An International Study of Maternal Care and Maternal Mortality 1800-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
30. Martin Powell (2005) Coasts and Coalfields: The geographical distribution of doctors in England and Wales in the 1930s, Social History of Medicine, 18(2), pp. 245-263
31. Fox, 'An Honourable Calling'
32. Marjaana Niemi (2007) Public Health and Municipal Policy Making: Britain and Sweden, 1900-1940 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. 97-98
33. Loudon, 'Maternal Mortality', pp. 185-186
34. Reports of the Female Sanitary Inspectors (hereafter Bradford FSI Reports), Bradford Local Studies Centre (BLSC), City of Bradford Central Library, B614 FEM. This is a bound volume of reports dated 1902-1911, that covers the period 1901-1912
35. For an introduction to the work of women sanitary inspectors see Peter Brimblecombe (2003) Historical Perspectives on Health: the emergence of the sanitary inspector in Victorian Britain, Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 123(2), pp. 124-131
36. Health visiting had diverse origins, but in the twentieth century was intimately associated with the professional development of both nursing and midwifery. Jennifer Smith (1995) The Archive of the Health Visitors' Association in the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre, Medical History, 39(3), pp. 358-367
37. Amanda Kelsey (2000) The Making of Health Visitors: an historical perspective, part 1, International History of Nursing Journal, 5(3), pp. 44-50
38. Barbara Thompson (1984) Infant Mortality in Nineteenth-Century Bradford, in Robert Woods & John Woodward (Eds) Urban Disease and Mortality in Nineteenth-Century England (London: Batsford)
39. Watts notes the value of scientifically-trained female staff employed as sanitary inspectors and/or health visitors but accepts Haynes's argument that financial considerations underpinned the gradual shift from expensive sanitary inspectors to health visitors who received less training for their qualifications and could be employed at lower wages. Ruth Watts (2007) Women in Science: a social and cultural history (London: Routledge), p. 148
40. See also Jennifer Haynes (2006) Sanitary Ladies and Friendly Visitors: women public health officers in London 1890-1930 (PhD, University of London)
41. BLSC, Kelly's Directory of Bradford 1912, p. 618
42. lists Miss E. H. Jones as Chief Woman Sanitary Inspector and Miss L. Jowett as Inspector of Midwives; Post Office Bradford Directory 1916, supplement, p. 5
43. list of council officials includes John J. Buchan (MOH), Miss L. Jowett (Chief Woman Inspector of Nuisances), Miss G. A. B. Cameron (Inspector of Midwives) and a staff of eighteen women inspectors. A 1923 survey of provision found the health department employing fourteen health visitors (all trained nurses, certified midwives and qualified health visitors). The Bradford Council of Social Service (1923) The Texture of Welfare: a survey of social service in Bradford (Bradford: P. S. King & Son Ltd), p. 39
44. Ellen Ross (1993) Love and Toil: motherhood in outcast London, 1870-1918 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), pp. 204-209
45. Patricia Hollis (1987) Ladies Elect: women in English local government 1865-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 24
46. Keith Laybourn (1994) The Guild of Help and the Changing Face of Edwardian Philanthropy; the Guild of Help, voluntary work and the state, 1904-1919 (Lampeter: Edward Mellen Press)
47. Elizabeth Bradburn (1989) Margaret McMillan: portrait of a pioneer (London: Routledge)
48. Carolyn Steedman (1990) Childhood, Culture and Class in Britain: Margaret McMillan, 1860-1931 (London: Virago)
49. Bernard Harris (1995) The Health of the Schoolchild: a history of the School Medical Service in England and Wales (Buckingham: Open University Press), p. 21
50. Martin Gorsky (2006) The Gloucestershire Extension of Medical Services Scheme: an experiment in the integration of health services in Britain before the NHS, Medical History, 50(4), pp. 491-512, p. 510
51. Bradford workhouse infirmary was redeveloped as a separate facility known as St Luke's, later St Luke's War Hospital, which in 1920 passed into the hands of the Corporation. Gary Firth (2001) Bradford Charity and the Public Purse: a history of Bradford hospitals from the 1780s (Bradford: Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust)
52. Bradford FSI Report, 29 September 1901, p. 4
53. Bradford FSI Report, 31 March 1903, p. 1; and 30 June 1903, p. 1
54. Bradford FSI Report, 29 March 1905, pp. 5-6
55. Mottram, 'State Control in Local Context', p. 139, suggests ninety-two (61%) of the 151 registered midwives in Manchester c.1905 had received some formal training; national estimates suggest that bona fide midwives accounted for 56% of the Midwives' Roll in 1905
56. Bradford FSI Report, 25 March 1906, p. 4
57. Bradford FSI Report, 31 March 1907, p. 8
58. A lengthy discussion on this point is included in Bradford FSI Reports, 31 December 1907, p. 12, and 30 September 1908, p. 11
59. Lianne McTavish (2006) Blame and Vindication in the Early Modern Birthing Chamber, Medical History, 50(4), pp. 447-464. For twentieth-century debates see Lewis, 'Mothers and Maternity Policies'
60. Bradford FSI Report, 30 December 1904, p. 5
61. Bradford FSI Report, 31 March 1908, pp. 11-12
62. John Welshman (1999) The Missing Relative: the Home Help service in England and Wales 1918-74, part 1, International History of Nursing Journal, 5(1), pp. 4-11
63. John Welshman (2000) The Missing Relative: the Home Help service in England and Wales 1918-74, part 2, International History of Nursing Journal, 5(2), pp. 48-58
64. Bradford FSI Report for 1 October 1910 to 30 September 1911, p. 16
65. Bradford FSI Report for six months to 31 March 1909, p. 14
66. Bradford FSI Report for 1 October 1909 to 30 September 1910, p. 17
67. Tania McIntosh (2000) 'An Abortionist City': maternal mortality, abortion and birth control in Sheffield, 1920-1940, Medical History, 44(1), pp. 75-96, pp. 77-78
68. Bradford FSI Report for 1 October 1909 to 30 September 1910, pp. 10-12
69. Bradford FSI Report for 1 October 1910 to 30 September 1911, p. 13
70. A 1923 publication celebrating voluntary work in the city provides a different interpretation that sees major municipal enterprises developing a framework established by the voluntary sector. This also mentions the vital involvement of women's groups and philanthropists in early maternity services. Bradford Council of Social Service, The Texture of Welfare, pp. 34-44
71. Jane Lewis (1984) Women in England 1870-1950: sexual divisions and social change (New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf), pp. 38-40
72. Anna Davin (1978) Imperialism and Motherhood, History Workshop Journal, 5, pp. 9-65
73. Niemi, Public Health and Municipal Policy Making
74. Marland & Rafferty (1997) Introduction, in Marland & Rafferty (Eds), Midwives, Society and Childbirth, pp. 1-2