A Call to Arms: Heroic Midwifery during WWII

When war came, midwives delivered babies on shelters
Credit Jennifer Ryan

While researching health care in the 1940s for a novel, I found many astonishing stories about the changing role of midwives during WWII. Before 1936, most midwives learned about delivering babies by shadowing an experienced colleague and learning in the classroom in teaching hospitals. Training taught midwives to deliver babies with the least possible trauma to the mothers and babies, and to reduce the risk of infection. The Midwives’ Act (1936) recognised the need for full time, salaried professional midwives with advanced training. By 1939, most towns and cities provided council organised services for pregnant women, charging the mothers for the delivery and ante- and post-natal care. Coming from Portsmouth, I was surprised to see two midwives who were rewarded with honours for bravery, in horrendous circumstances.

Untrained ‘handy women’, already disqualified from calling themselves midwives, were forced to retire or worked as ‘maternity nurses’. These helped mothers who could afford them with child care, laundry and housekeeping. Poorer families in rural areas still relied on these untrained handy women to deliver babies, with varied experience or training. 

Survival of mothers varied hugely, from 1.51 deaths per thousand in Portsmouth, with a rate of 6.0 in some areas of the north of England, similar to the rate of maternal death in 1850. (At the time, there was no data collected for comparison of babies’ deaths). By 1939, midwives received £240-280 per year, with an allowance of £20 for a car and £4 for a bicycle. Before the NHS, families paid a standard fee to the council, usually around ten shillings and sixpence. Midwives provided all their own equipment, medicines, antiseptics and uniforms. About a third of midwives were self -employed private midwives, charging the mothers directly. Trained midwives emphasised antiseptic techniques, the use of gloves and the prevention of damage or infection to the mothers, but handy women were still called upon to save money. 

At the opening of the Second World war, the attitude changed. Unlike nurses, midwives were not considered to be doing war work and thus did not receive war pay. Many midwives applied to fill nursing posts, leading to reductions in the number of midwives across the country. Many areas lost 25-40% of the midwifery workforce, with more lost as the war went on. Many older midwives were swamped with work, so retired or became ill. Others were unavailable for full time work, being older or having children. 

In some areas, like Birmingham, services were overwhelmed by demand, midwives delivering far more babies than expected by the Midwives Act which suggested a maximum of 100 births per year and a compulsory retirement age of 60 but many delivering twice that many, and up to the age of seventy. The role of midwife was already under strain by 1939, and recruitment of pupil midwives was struggling. One training school had thirty-five places for trainee midwives but could only recruit two pupils. 

A call was put out for retired midwives but many had not attended the most modern courses or studied up to date techniques. Accelerated training was offered for pupil midwives and independent midwives were asked to volunteer for areas with high numbers of evacuated pregnant mothers. Evacuation caused havoc for the mothers, children and the services scrambled to look after them. 

On Dartmoor in Devon, the team of nine qualified midwives was slashed to two by the migration of practitioners to nursing. Younger doctors were also recruited for the war effort, leaving more older general practitioners to provide obstetric support to the midwives. Doctors were both more expensive for the families (averaging a guinea for their visit, which would be paid instead of the midwife’s fee of about ten shilling and sixpence) and sometimes less experienced in the biomechanics of childbirth. When doctors attended, there were more likely to be interventions like the use of forceps and more need for repairs. Midwives did not, at the time, carry morphine or do suturing. A smaller number of doctors, some trained decades before and not specialists in obstetrics, were left to support a reduced number of midwives. 

Despite the difficulties, a number of bravery honours were awarded to midwives operating in wartime Britain. They delivered babies in bomb shelters, damaged houses, in areas hit by fire and even in the street as pregnant women tried to get to safety during air raids. Maternity wards were damaged by bombs, both in the UK and in Germany. One especially notable case was that of Sister Violet Frampton of Bristol Maternity Hospital, who was awarded the George medal after treating casualties trapped in a house in Bristol during repeated bombing of the area. She was awarded her medal by the king. She was one of several midwives who received honours in recognition of their bravery.

British Journal of Nursing, February 1942

Supplement to the London Gazette 7th March 1941 p.1347

Even long retired midwives found themselves caring for women in labour in wartime conditions. 

Supplement to the London Gazette 7th March 1941 p.1346

Mrs Leaver also won the British Empire medal despite having retired as a midwife over twenty years before. Despite high explosive bombs and incendiaries falling all around, she moved the labouring mother to the basement and delivered the baby safely with the help of a doctor.

Despite the government's best intentions, most evacuated women returned to their homes in cities and towns, where their support networks and employment was. Pregnant women chose their birth attendants themselves, for financial reasons but also wanting people they knew to attend them from their own communities, meaning handy women continued to deliver babies until the founding of the NHS. Midwives left the profession to find work with regular hours and better pay. Only the Beveridge Report (1942) could start to suggest a cradle to the grave healthcare system, where midwives were valued as independent health practitioners with a wealth of knowledge and skill. 

Bibliography: 

Dawson S.T. (2024) Mothers, Midwives and Reproductive Labor in Interwar and Wartime Britain, Lexington Books 

McIntosh, T. (2012) A Social History of Maternity and Childbirth, Routledge

Starns, P. (2018) Blitz Hospital, The History Press

Latin, Greek and the 'Ready Brek glow' by Caroline K. Mackenzie

Some of the best advice I once received was this: find something that gives you that ‘Ready Brek glow’ (do you remember the 1982 advert?), and try to do whatever that may be every day. It will fortify you for life’s ups and downs. Immediately I knew what my Ready Brek equivalent was: time spent teaching Latin and Greek, whether via one-to-one tuition, or in a small group. It is not just the lesson itself which is rewarding, there is genuinely a glow that stays with me for some time afterwards, whatever that particular day has in store.

One of my first textbooks.

 
My tutees range in ages from 8 to 88, and almost every decade in between. Some of them are learning Latin or Greek at school and are working towards a GCSE, IB or A Level examination. Greek, in particular, is often squeezed into the already cramped school timetable so the subject may share the lessons allocated for Latin, or be taught as a lunchtime club. The students who have chosen either or both of these languages have usually had to make a very positive choice to study them, by opting in, rather than there being any curricular requirement (such as there may be for learning a modern foreign language). So the students’ commitment and enthusiasm go a long way in redressing the timetabling challenges their schools may face.

Many teenagers are initially drawn to the Classical languages from their childhood love of Greek mythology and the great stories that are told in both Latin and Greek. Others say they love the logic of the languages, and the challenge of translating a passage, which equates to solving a puzzle. For those who learn Greek, the excitement of a different alphabet can make them feel as if they are in a secret club: the thrill of decoding the symbols into English words is just one of the highlights.

But why do Latin and Greek appeal to so many adults, who have no exams looming, but who wish to master an ancient language just for the sake of it? Much has been written about the benefits of keeping one’s mind active throughout life, using crosswords, number puzzles, etc., so why not learn an ancient language, too? My octogenarian students say it keeps them on their toes and they love translating passages of literature in the original. Another student likened the satisfaction of translating a Latin sentence correctly to having a tidy laundry cupboard. A retiree reported that it felt like a return to childhood and a chance to recapture one’s youth.

 Part of the fun of learning Latin and Greek is discovering connections with English.

Most of all, learning Latin and Greek can be so much fun. Quite apart from the joys of mastering the languages, the stories and accounts that we still have in their original form unlock a whole world from as early as the eighth century BC through Classical Greece and the Roman empire. The poems, historical accounts and even ancient travel guides give an insight into the Greeks’ and Romans’ lives in extraordinary detail, including their hopes and fears: from the food they ate and wine they drank, their homes, families, art, architecture, clothes, pesky politicians, and nosy neighbours, to the big question of mortality and the wish to make one’s life meaningful. These are all human conditions to which we can still relate, sometimes with surprisingly acute similarities. The languages may sometimes be referred to as ‘dead’ but the dialogue started by the people who spoke those languages is very much alive.

Equal to my tutees’ love of learning Latin and Greek is my love of teaching them. My favourite Greek textbook includes (as a nice nod to all the teachers using the book) a practice translation sentence as follows: διδασκω τε και μανθανω (I both teach and learn). The transliteration of the verbs in this sentence are ‘didasko’ (I teach) which gives us ‘didactic’, and ‘manthano’ (I learn) (the root of which is ‘math’) which gives us ‘mathematics’, ‘polymath’, etc.

Without fail, I learn something new in every lesson I teach. I also have the pleasure of witnessing the delight of my students in the moment that they make a connection between Latin and a word or abbreviation which they use daily, e.g. (exempli gratia, for the sake of an example), 7am (ante meridiem, before midday), etc. (et cetera, and the rest). It is also wonderful to experience their animated reaction to a wronged character in Greek tragedy, or to hear their laughter at a joke in an ancient Greek comedy. The jokes still land after all these centuries.

διδασκω τε και μανθανω (I both teach and learn).

Kennedy's Latin primer is one of the first textbooks I ever used when learning Latin and recently one of my students has acquired a second hand copy which has become his vade mecum (literally, 'go with me' - I suppose we might say 'my go-to textbook'). It has a fantastic quote from Cicero, which he pointed out to me just a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing a point of grammar but the quote resonated with me as I think it encapsulates what I have tried to describe in this post:

haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant.
These studies nurture youth, and delight old age.

So back to that ‘Ready Brek glow’. I love porridge and eat it most days - it is full of nostalgia for me as my Dad used to make it overnight and serve it the Scottish way, with a pinch of salt and definitely no sugar. But if I had to choose between my bowl of steaming oats and teaching an hour of Latin and Greek, you can probably conclude which one will give me the greatest glow.


P.S. (post scriptum) If you are interested in having a little taste of Latin, I shall be giving an online illustrated talk for The Hellenic and Roman Societies on Tuesday 4th November at 7pm, and repeated on Saturday 15th November at 11am. Whether you are a complete beginner or wish to brush up on existing knowledge, you will be very welcome! Please contact me for further details via my website: www.carolinetutor.co.uk

A hundred years of war and peace by Mary Hoffman

The 14th Century ends quite neatly with the usurpation of the English throne by Henry Bolingbroke, after forcing his cousin, Richard ll to abdicate. It begins quite raggedly, with Edward l hammering the Scots and his son Edward ll inheriting the crown. In between came some of the most noteworthy events and personalities of the Middle Ages.

Tackling this huge sweep of history is Helen Carr’s new book Sceptred Isle. Her first – The Red Prince: John of Gaunt – was an instant bestseller. He was one of those larger-than-life characters, the richest person after the king, the hated trigger for the people’s revolt, the effortlessly fertile magnate who married his mistress and legitimated their four children, from whom many kings of England are descended. 

 

But Gaunt belongs to the second half of the century. The first part is still dominated by the conflict with the Scots. That ongoing war and the relations with the other enemy, France, have to play a part in any book about the fourteenth century, but this is essentially a history of a hundred years in England.

This is the century of The Wife of Bath and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Black Death and the Great Famine; The Fair Maid of Kent and the Black Prince; the Order of the Garter and the People’s Revolt; the creation of dukes; the Wilton Diptych and the first Speaker of the House of Commons; two minority monarchs, two depositions; tournaments and single combat duels; magnates and favourites; retinues and livery - not to mention two rival Popes! Helen Carr had her work cut out. 

Edward l

 

Edward I was born in the middle of the previous century and became king in 1272 in his prime. Nicknamed “Longshanks” for his unusual height (6’ 2” was way above average for a medieval man), he conquered Wales, got to work building defensive castles on the Welsh/English border and aspired to quell the Scots.

In this he was less successful, when finally he came up against Robert Bruce and his own mortality. Carr characterises the transition to his son’s rule: “When Edward l cast himself in the image of the legendary King Arthur, who united the Britons, Edward ll was destined to do the opposite.”

The stage is set for a complete change of culture. The first Edward wanted his son to continue warring with Scotland but the new king was more interested in making friends with male contemporaries, prime among them Piers Gaveston, the son of a Gascon knight. The young handsome king had no full brothers, only two much younger half-brothers by his father’s second marriage, no close cousins and a need for men to play sports with. He wasn’t fussy about their social class.

Gaveston, also young and handsome, was clearly a bit of a lout, inventing insulting nicknames for the nobles at court and given free rein by the indulgent king. He was exiled three times, first by Edward I, who disapproved of his influence over his son and again in 1308 and 1311 at the wish of the nobles he had insulted. But Edward ii had him recalled and the relationship resumed.

Helen Carr discusses this relationship in some depth, concluding, in disagreement with most modern historians (apart from Pierre Chaplais whose book on Gaveston, is not acknowledged), it might not have been homosexual but a “ritual brotherhood.” King Edward was married and sired children within and outside of marriage but that is neither here nor there where same-sex relations are concerned. (Gaveston had a wife and daughter too). 

Edward ll

 

This “friendship” certainly enraged the nobles, as much because of Gaveston’s rebarbative nature as his sexual preferences. Edward revoked all of his favourite’s banishments and had previously made him Earl of Cornwall, an equal to the nobles who accused him of treason. The Earls drew up a list of grievances, saying that the king listened to “evil counsel” and did as he liked, which was not in accordance with Magna Carta. (Helen Carr reminds us that it had been re-issued in 1300).

The end was inevitable. Gaveston was captured by the earls and was first in the custody of the Earl of Pembroke. But Pembroke returned home that night to his wife and the much harsher Earl of Warwick took the prisoner over. He was marched to Blacklow Hill and run through and beheaded.

The devastated king regarded this as murder and vowed vengeance on the earls. It was some consolation to him that Queen Isabella presented him with a son and heir – the future Edward lll. This is such a fascinating part of the 14th century that Helen Carr might have written a whole book about it and perhaps will. But, to jump to the catastrophic end of Edward’s reign, she writes about the continued enmity with the Scots, the Battle of Bannockburn, the new “favourite,” High Despenser the younger, the estrangement of the royal couple in spite of three more children and Isabella’s affair with Roger Mortimer.

Edward felt threatened not just by the adultery but by the political implications of their liaison. Isabella and Mortimer had been in France for over a year, with young Edward, when they raised an army to invade England and get rid of Hugh Despenser. They landed in September 1326 and, so hated was Despenser and so popular the queen, that London was soon in the hands of the invaders.

It didn’t take them long to track down the king and his favourite. The latter was given a full traitor’s horrible death and the king was kept a prisoner in Berkeley Castle. But, as Carr puts it, “The former king, though incarcerated, cast an uncomfortable shadow over Westminster and it was whispered that something had to be done to be rid of it.”

Within weeks the fourteen-year-old Prince of Wales was crowned king in his father’s place, with Isabella effectively his Regent. Carr makes it clear that death of Edward ll by means of a red hot poker thrust into his bowels is a myth. It was likely that he was suffocated, thus having no mark of injury on his body as it was widely displayed after his death. For die he did, a year after his estranged wife’s invasion.

Mortimer, who took the title Earl of March, was now free to rule with Isabella as mistress and consort, even though he had no claim to the throne. But it was soon clear that the young king was a mere puppet and England had left the frying-pan only to fall into the fire. 

Edward lll

 

But young Edward lll was a stronger character than his father and soon found his mother’s hold over him irksome. By 1330 he had secretly written to the pope to support his freeing himself from Isabella and Mortimer’s coercion. Edward and a group of his young knights staged a coup while Mortimer and Isabella were together in Nottingham Castle together. The king let the armed conspirators in and Mortimer was taken. He was hanged naked like a common thief. Queen Isabella was held under house arrest, in very comfortable conditions for the rest of her life.

But we have reached only 116 pages of the main text’s 278 and there are seventy eventful years of the century left!

Edward lll ruled for forty years, he married Philippa of Hainault and they had twelve children, with five males living to adulthood, including the Black Prince and John of Gaunt. He was one of England’s most successful monarchs, in spite of the shaky beginning of his reign.

This review is in danger of being as long as Helen Carr’s comprehensive book, so I’ll just concentrate on the events that led to the second deposition of the fourteenth century. Edward lll’s older son is referred to throughout the book as the Black Prince, though this usage isn’t attested till over a hundred years later. He was first Edward of Woodstock, then Prince of Wales and was fully expected to be King Edward lV. And he had two sons, Edward and Richard. 

Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent

 

But things started to unravel when the Prince of Wales sickened with dysentery in Aquitaine. Then his older son died and he was left with the “spare.” He returned to England with his wife Joan (the Fair Maid of Kent) and his younger son but his health never recovered. He died before his father, the old king, leaving Richard of Bordeaux as the nine-year-old heir to the throne.

Edward lll, widowed and miserably treated by his mistress Alice Perrers, was a broken man and outlived his son by less than a year. So began the second minority rule of the century, with ten-year-old Richard ll on the throne. Like his grandfather, who had been a few years older, Richard had no official Regent, but John of Gaunt was his senior uncle and expected to advise him. It was the best Gaunt could hope for, as he was hated by the populace for his great wealth and the unwarranted belief that he wanted the throne for himself.

As Helen Carr says, “Richard was a child on his succession, and his boyish appearance, lack of an heir and impulsive behaviour kept him locked in a state of eternal youth.” This did not apply to his first cousin, John of Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke. Born within months of each other and married only a few years apart, the two men couldn’t have been more different.

Henry was a champion jouster and soldier, Richard an effete lover of luxury; Henry sired four sons in as many years, Richard had no children. Henry had every quality to make a good king, except for one: he was not the heir. Richard had virtually none of such qualities – but he was the legitimate heir. As they grew older the two men kept out of each other’s way. But they had one tragic thing in common: they lost their wives in the same year, 1394.

Mary de Bohun had borne Henry two daughters after their four sons, dying in her last childbed. A week or so later Queen Anne died of the plague, having never even been pregnant. Both widowers were distraught. Though Henry’s loss is not mentioned in Helen Carr’s book; Mary doesn’t even get an entry in the index. Richard had the palace of Sheen, where his wife died, pulled down and Henry became even more restless than before; with the loss of his wife he had no permanent home. 

Henry Bolingbroke, lter Henry lV

 
The reign of Richard ll lasted twenty-two years but is hastily covered by Helen Carr, in comparison with her treatment of his greatgrandfather, Edward ll. It is difficult for the modern reader not to see these kings’ reigns and depositions through the prism of two great plays by Elizabethan playwrights, Marlowe and Shakespeare. Indeed, the book’s title is taken from the speech Shakespeare gives John of Gaunt in The Tragedy of Richard the Second.

Helen Carr suggests that Richard might have been suffering from “borderline personality disorder”: “the last Plantagenet king [sic] was a despot; when he could not command respect, he ruled with fear.”

There are a few strange statements in this ambitious book. For example, the author says that John of Gaunt was so distraught at the duel his son was to fight with Thomas Mowbray at Coventry in 1398, that he “stayed away.” She gives no source for this and Anthony Goodman, Gaunt’s biographer, states that he was in attendance. Helen Castor, thanked by Carr in the acknowledgements for her input, says he was seated next to the king; Carr herself in her earlier book writes “John of Gaunt was also present.”

Of course the new version may be correct but if you are going to contradict earlier accounts, including your own, you should surely cite some evidence?

The book is handsomely produced, with some elegant endpapers and comes with an index, which was lacking in the Gaunt biography. There is also an extensive bibliography, which readers will want to consult, to balance out some of Carr’s assertions.