Royal Maternity Charity Minutes, 1761-1949

From the Markland Library of the Royal Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London, England

8 reels 35mm silver microfilm, ISBN 1 897955 04 9

List price: POA

A unique source for the history of domiciliary midwifery and obstetrics.

This collection from the Markland Library of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists consists of 30 volumes containing valuable case records and statistics. It provides a unique insight into obstetrics and midwifery practice during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It documents in some detail the changing social attitudes towards charitable domiciliary midwifery until its replacement by the National Health Service in 1949.

There are numerous notes providing detailed glimpses into nineteenth century treatments of labour complications and also included is the Robert Barnes Case-book, 1857-1868, and the now rare "Account of the Royal Maternity Charity" published in 1829.

"The Royal Maternity Charity achieved an eminent position as the main single agency responsible for the care of the pregnant poor of London bringing maternity care to a total of over 604,000 women. The place of the Royal Maternity Charity in the history of the metropolis is best described in the words of a former president, the Duke of Wellington: "All London is the Charity's hospital and every street a ward...""
Stanley A. Seligman, MD, FRCS, FRCOG.

The Royal Maternity Charity. The Charity for attending and delivering poor married women in their lying-in at their respective habitations was instituted in 1757. The Charity son won royal patronage and, despite troubles with embezzling administrators, drunken mid-wives, and quarrelsome physicians, continued to flourish.

Leading obstetricians. Many of the leading obstetricians of the day were physicians to the Charity including those associated with the death in childbirth of Princess Charlotte.

Success of the Charity. In its first hundred years the Charity cared for 385,488 poor women. In 1857 some 3,297 had been delivered with only two women dead within a month of labour at a time when the hospitals of London, Vienna, Paris and Dublin had been ravaged by childbed fever. A case-book of the patients referred to Dr. Robert Barnes shows the high standard of specialised care available.

Robert Barnes Case-book. Dr. Robert Barnes (1817-1907) was one of the most celebrated obstetricians of his day. Barnes was physician to the Charity for twelve years during which time he kept a case-book. This unique volume, now in the library of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, contains his notes on 370 cases attended by him during the years 1857-1868. Most of the notes are considerably detailed, often accompanied by sketches of the conditions observed. These notes give a clear picture of nineteenth century obstetric practice and provide a different perspective from that gained by reading text-books of the period. Most of the notes describe some complication of labour, including forceps extraction, internal version and breach extraction, and craniotomies.

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