100 years ago the majority of births took place at home – with the assistance of a local midwife. Concern over the competency of many untrained midwives the 1902 Midwives Act aimed to regulate the profession by requiring certification of midwives and fines for anyone practising without certification. In addition the Act established the Central Midwives Board to regulate the training courses and to maintain the register of certified midwives.
Useful sources for tracing midwives and their careers are the Central Midwives Register (available to view on Ancestry) combined with local trade directories. The 1913 Kelly’s Directory of Birmingham lists nearly 200 registered midwives and gives their home addresses. It should be remembered that most midwives were effectively self-employed at this time and only relatively few worked in the local Maternity Hospitals. Hence the need to be listed in such directories. The Central Midwives Register provides name and address of the women but also details when the midwife was enrolled on the register – and also the qualification they held. And other genealogical sources such as the 1911 Census can give us information about age and family circumstances.
Thus from the 1913 Directory we can see that a Mrs Hannah Armishaw was a registered midwife living at 77 Victoria Road, Harborne.
The Central Midwives Board Register for 1915 confirms this address and gives us the additional information that she was first registered in 24 November 1904 and her qualification was that she had been in practice prior to July 1901. The blurb at the start of the Register suggests that at this date about half of registered midwives had undergone training and passed the Examination of the Central Midwives Board and the other half, as with Hannah Armishaw, were registered on the basis of their prior experience. The symbol before her name means that she had indicated to the Board that she intended to practice during 1915. Further searches in the annual Registers show that she was listed from 1905 until 1926.
Turning to the 1911 census we can find Hannah Armishaw at the same address living with her husband William Illsley Armishaw, an Army Pensioner. Hannah was 61 years old – and according to the CMB Registers was to practise for a further 15 years until the age of 76! The census enumerator has added in red ink the word ‘Certificated’ next to her self-recorded occupation of midwife. The census also reveals that she was no stranger to childbirth herself having given birth to fourteen children of whom 12 were still living. Three of her daughters were still living at home – all working in the chocolate business (no doubt at nearby Cadbury factory at Bournville)
We are hopeful that during the project at least one volunteer will be interested in examining the records such as these in more detail to give us a better understanding of who these early registered midwives were, how long they stayed in the profession and the proportions of them that had passed the relatively new qualifications. Newspaper searches may discover stories related to some of the midwives especially if any were struck off for practising whilst unregistered or were involved in cases of malpractice.
Come along to our project launch on Saturday 21st September at the Library of Birmingham to find out more about the archival records we will be using during the project – and how you can get involved.
Liz Palmer, Project Co-ordinator
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