The Cockenzie Mystery - more insights from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital

We continue our journey into the Royal Edinburgh Hospital case books with our second volunteer blog. This one is from Carmen, a first year history student at the University of Edinburgh.

Since I began volunteering for Lothian Health Service Archives in April of this year, I have discovered a whole new perspective of eighteenth-century psychiatric treatment. Having the opportunity to access the Royal Edinburgh Hospital records has allowed me to have a glimpse of the lives of those who needed said treatment, and also the attitudes towards them.

When I first started cataloguing the volumes I was looking at mostly pauper patients – those whose treatment was funded by their parish – and I really resonated with many of those who found themselves suffering from mental illnesses. There was one patient in particular who stood out to me as she had lost 4 children within the space of a year because of diseases such as tuberculosis and typhoid. I remember thinking that any person would find themselves mentally vulnerable if they had lost so many loved ones in such a short period of time. There were also other records of other women who had been admitted because they had symptoms of what we today would diagnose as postpartum depression. By just looking at these records, it is clear that we have come a long way in terms of both diagnosing and understanding mental health problems. 

Since finishing my first volume, I have now moved onto one of the Hospital’s volumes that was specifically for private patients. What is most interesting about this volume is that because these patients were paying significant sums of money for their treatment, the doctors were more likely to include information about their personality. For example, it was said that one patient was “the most generous of men” and was known for buying magazines and newspapers for everyone in the ward. Others were not described so kindly, with one being labelled as “a moody, taciturn old man” who entertained himself by scribbling on any pieces of paper he could find; and another “sullen” for refusing to speak to any doctor but Dr Clouston, the director of the entire hospital. Another patient was admitted because she had “delusions” that she had been seduced when she was young - whether this was actually a “delusion” or not is questionable. Information like this is invaluable in helping historians understand the lives of those who suffered from mental health issues in a time where knowledge on the subject was limited. If not for these insights from contemporary doctors, we would not know what the people who were treated at these hospitals were really like.

Another interesting discovery I had when looking at these volumes was the fact that many of these patients seemed to go to “Cockenzie” for several weeks at a time, and little else of the place is mentioned. When I brought this up to Alice, the Archive’s Access Officer, she suggested that the patients may have had something like a holiday home - as Cockenzie is by the coast – and may have gone there to get into the open air and get a break from the city. If this is true, this is fascinating as it shows that Clouston could put another of his theories into practice. Dr Clouston was a strong believer that people had to have a positive environment in order to have a positive mind, and he tried to ensure that his patients lived in the best conditions possible because of this. Since volunteering at the archives, I have been fortunate enough to also read several of Clouston’s published works, including one in which he explains that his inspiration for the asylum layout came from a luxurious Swiss hotel. However, as the volume I am cataloguing has not been looked at in much detail yet, the archivists here at LHSA still know little about Cockenzie and what that actually meant for the patients at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Nevertheless, that is one of the best things about working in archives and handling contemporary material: we may never know what Cockenzie actually was, but by looking at the records we have in our collection, we do know that it existed and was of some significance to the daily life of the hospital.

Overall, I have loved every minute of volunteering at the LHSA Archives and think it is fantastic that the University offers its students the opportunity to look at the wealth of material that they have in their collection. I have been able to learn even more about the city that I now live in and love, all the while gaining invaluable skills that will prepare me for my dream job in the heritage sector. 

UPDATE:


One of our wonderful Twitter followers has unraveled this mystery for us! Kirsty Nicol (@Kirsty_Nicol) dug into census records for Cockenzie and found a property called Hawthorn Villa, with residents who gave their occupations as Medical Students and one Asylum Matron. She then checked this information against digitised map collections held at the National Library of Scotland, and found that Hawthorn Villa was a property on the Western edge of Cockenzie. This certainly seems like a likely candidate for a convalescent-type home!

Many, many thanks to Kirsty for her outstanding detective work – and what a fabulous example of the benefits of digitising collections!

Hi there. I'm a freelance researcher and I can't resist a challenge!
A bit of a dig through the Cockenzie censuses suggests there was 1/5

— Kirsty Nicol (@Kirsty_Nicol) August 11, 2017

The dangers of tea-drinking: highlights from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital

We're handing over to our volunteers over the next two weeks to hear a little more about the Royal Edinburgh Hospital case book indexing project they've been working on. Starting us off is Iona, who recently graduated with a first-class history degree from the University of Edinburgh. 

Since April I have been helping with the Royal Edinburgh Hospital Case Book indexing project to create a database of patients admitted between 1840 and 1932.  Every week I work on my own volume detailing the cases of women admitted from the late 1850s. I have gleaned amazing details of what these women’s lives were like across social strata within the wider framework of Victorian attitudes towards medicine and gender. Every case illuminates the perception of women’s greater susceptibility to different forms of ‘mania’, many related to life-cycles of puberty, menstruation, childbirth, menopause, and old age.

Working through the case entries, I am very aware of looking at a top-down source; the female patients are viewed through the prism of the medical institution and the men that run it. At times, it is almost as if I am reading a novel with unreliable narrators, trying to prise the text apart to catch a glimpse of the patients’ point of view. Despite this limitation, many stories are harrowing, dramatic, even amusing, with a strong sense of each woman’s individual character. This interplay between the patients’ experiences, the narratives of the medical men, and my own subjective interpretations is fascinating, a unique way of bringing history alive.

The index to casebook volume 13

The intertwining of morality and medicine pervades the volume, from the formulaic language describing patients’ everyday behaviour as ‘industrious’ or ‘slovenly’ to diagnoses of ‘moral insanity’. The unsettling combination of familiarity and strangeness in the way that the doctors evaluate their patients is highly compelling. Through my modern lens, it seems straightforward to identify symptoms of alcoholism, post-partum depression, and the simple need for people to receive more care as they get older. The doctors’ assessment of these cases range from comparatively up-to-date understandings to the down-right odd, my favourite example being the condemnation of dissipation through excessive tea-drinking.

The following are my highlights from my case book volume. I have chosen just a few examples to demonstrate some of the themes I have found particularly interesting during my time at LHSA.

Work, work, work

Each entry makes some reference to the patient’s occupation and class, revealing the social roles of women at the time. The entries often identify patients by their husband’s profession, such as brewer’s wife or sailor’s widow, and if employed are most often domestic servants or seamstresses. I have found tantalising exceptions among these common entries, such as Clara the London stage-dancer and Helen the map-colourist.

In addition, cases like that of 26-year-old Christina reveal contemporary wariness of female education and ambition. Her ‘acute mania’ was caused by ‘something which had excited her beyond ordinary’, which turns out to be ‘the study of composition’ and her attempt to write a novel. This diagnosis connects Christina to many women of the later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century whose literary energies were medicalised in connection to their mental health. Two of the most famous examples of this are Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who both wrote about the frustrations of their medical treatment. In 1882, the Royal Hospital’s own Dr Clouston gave a lecture entitled ‘Female Education from a Medical Point of View’, which demonstrates the widespread disapproval of these developments. He states that new school curricula have ‘warped the woman’s nature, and stunted some of her most characteristic qualities’, not only to the detriment of the female population but to the health of the nation itself. In this way, Christina’s case and Clouston’s lecture hint at how women’s bodies became ideological battlegrounds over medical practice and appropriate gender roles.

Medicine and moral sensibility

The doctors’ descriptions of their patients’ cases frequently act as moral commentaries on their way of life and their place in society. I came across one woman called Mary Ann who used the name Jane as an alias; this factor and her diagnosis of ‘moral insanity’ perhaps hints at a criminal past. Although the previously-mentioned Clara is ‘naturally of a cheerful disposition and steady industrious habits’, the entry notes that ‘employment as a dancer on the stage might not be considered advantageous for this development.’

Instances of alcoholism elicited condemnation as a manifestation of both physical and moral degradation. In another lecture given at the University of Edinburgh, Clouston describes women as more predisposed towards alcohol abuse because they possess ‘less resistive power’, as well as the ‘nervous disturbances incidental to the female sex and to motherhood, and the climacteric period.’ The case of a woman called Flora with an ‘inclination for stimulants’ caused a great deal of trouble for the Hospital as the staff debated over her treatment. After escaping to go drinking, Flora was investigated by the Board of Lunacy and examined by several doctors. When contacted, her family requested that she remain at the Hospital because she was ‘quite unable to keep from drinking and from disgracing herself and them by her conduct’. The Board released Flora, however, because when sober she was ‘not at present a lunatic in the statutory sense and therefore however doubtful they may be as to the manner in which [she] may comport herself when free from control they have no alternative but to order her discharge.’

LHB7/51/13

As the previous cases show, most often the entries convey the attitudes of the hospital staff, yet some details display the strong moral compass of the patients’ themselves. Helen was engaged to a ‘respectable young man’ but ‘began to entertain fears that…he was not a Christian.’ This led her to postpone the marriage but ‘the delay of her lover in assuming the Christian character threw her into a deep melancholy.’ Interestingly, her postponed marriage also led Helen to ‘adopt the idea of going as a missionary to the Indians.’ I like to think that perhaps her work as a map-colourist encouraged her desire to travel as well as her deep religious sensibilities.

The cup that cheers and inebriates

One of the most bizarre attributed causes of mania I have found in my casebook is the effect of excessive tea-drinking. For example, another patient called Christina sought refuge ‘in the inordinate imbibition of tea, which she takes in the form of a strong decoction several times a day’, a good summary of my own tea habit.

LHB7/51/13 - when tea drinking becomes a threat to health...

The case of Joan, a dressmaker from Glasgow, also hints at a class dimension that may have influenced the doctors’ attitudes towards her tea consumption. The record states: ‘She has led a very unhealthy life, having subsisted like many of her class almost entirely on tea taken at every mealtime and seldom supplemented by more than bread and butter, and the occasional salt herring.’ Like Christina, Joan’s ‘indulgence in tea seems in her case to have amounted to dissipation, leaving her, after the stimulant effects pass off, in a state of considerable depression.’

As with alcoholism, the risks of tea were linked to women’s natural weakness and susceptibility. This is also suggested by an article entitled ‘The dangers of tea drinking’ by a Dr J E Cooney published in the Windsor Magazine in 1895. Cooney writes: ‘Warm tea-drinking is very popular with women, and is quite an institution in this country. It is drunk at all hours – even before rising in the morning – but the climax is reached at about 4pm. Many, in the course of paying their afternoon calls, drink no less than a dozen cups of tea…that one is naturally left in astonishment of the depravity of their sense of taste, without contemplating the terrible consequent ravages their respective constitutions must inevitably undergo.’ To me, Cooney’s focus on women’s daily social rituals conveys a sense of uneasy disdain not just for tea drinking but for codes of female behaviour in general. This is heightened by the next paragraph, evoking the image of a deviant female cult: ‘Tea-water worship, carried on by its fair devotees in the prettiest of drawing-rooms, in the smartest of tea-gowns, with the daintiest of paraphernalia in the form of silver and china, may to a large extent disarm them as to the real nature of this insidious but implacable fiend, but nevertheless it is there.’ The article further reinforces the dangers of this ‘implacable fiend’ through its illustrations, which juxtapose rough men drinking from bottles on the street with well-dressed women before trays and teacups. Although this connection of tea with ill-health and morality is funny with hindsight, it provides a fascinating example of how medical attitudes could be bound up with ideas of class and gender.

This blog has been only a small taster of the remarkable stories of women admitted to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in the nineteenth-century. My attitudes towards history have been greatly enriched by this experience; I have thought much harder about the many filters that lie between the past and present, and about my own subjectivity as a researcher. I encourage anybody interested to volunteer with LHSA for the privilege of spending time with these fractured but powerful voices of history.

Link

J E Cooney, ‘The dangers of tea drinking’, The Windsor Magazine 2 (1895), pp. 218-22, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/docview/4139113?accountid=10673&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo

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Objects of mystery

Archivists like lists. We like box lists, catalogues, inventories. We like knowing what we have and where it is. This isn’t always straightforward, though, and sometimes things turn up that stump us all. For example, my first ever cataloguing assignment involved working with the papers of a prominent Scottish art critic. Two days in I came across an instruction manual for a radio. Was this an integral part of this critic’s routine? Did she listen to the radio whilst writing? Did she read the manual before she sat down to an assignment? Were there some particularly striking illustrations that she enjoyed looking at to put her in the right frame of mind? Or was it that the manual had just fallen in to the box before she’d loaded up the car and driven to the archive?

Deciding what to keep from a donation or accession is a process called ‘appraisal’, which involves assessing the value of materials according to pre-agreed criteria – although what ‘value’ means is a very contentious and much debated issue! Sometimes, we have to take things in without being in a position to make informed decisions about their value. As we’re seeing more digital media come into the archive in obsolete or hard-to-access formats like floppy-disc or Betamax tape, we can’t always be sure what is on them, so sometimes we agree to take them in on the assumption they will be of value. Other times, it’s not accessing the information that’s the problem – sometimes we simply don’t know what an item is!

The LHSA objects database is a good example of this. Broadly speaking, archives tend not to collect objects - this is more the purview of museums - but LHSA does hold over 1000 objects, ranging from badges and condoms to straitjackets and clocks. The collection includes around 300 medical instruments and implements, such as these wonderful drug cabinets:

M026 & M027 - Drug cabinets

With so many objects, it’s not too uncommon to come across entries in the database with the description ‘function unknown’. Now, my archivist’s brain finds this difficult to deal with and internally I’m screaming “everything must be correctly labelled and identified!”, but although we’ve come to know a lot about the history of medicine through working at LHSA, none of our staff are medically trained, and nor are we medical historians.

M250 - previously listed as an 'unknown device' from Leith Hospital 

Earlier this week, Twitter came to my rescue when Robert Culshaw (@RobertCulshaw) helpfully clarified that these mysterious and alien-looking metal items were in fact the two parts to an amputation shield, explaining “they go around the bone to retract the muscle out of the way ready to saw through it”.

Eep.

With that in mind, we’re calling on the expertise of our followers – can you help us identify some other instruments? We’ll be sharing photos of a few 'unknown' objects on Twitter over the weekend. Get in touch if you can help solve any of these mysteries! Here are two to get you started....

M202

M214

Midwifery in Edinburgh

This is a big week for the history of obstetrics, gynaecology and midwifery in Edinburgh… May 1^st saw the 120^th anniversary of the opening of the Edinburgh Royal Maternity and Simpson Memorial Hospital; May 2^nd marked 83 years since the death of Dr James Haig Ferguson, founder of the first hospital outpatient antenatal clinic in Britain As today is also the International Day of the Midwife, we’re taking the opportunity to look back at the history of this discipline in Edinburgh…

  

LHB3A/15/1 - Certificate awarded to Margaret Reid, Midwife by Thomas Young, 1768.

Midwifery in Edinburgh as a ‘medical’ (as opposed to community) practice dates back to 1726, when Joseph Gibson was appointed Professor of Midwifery by the Town Council. It wasn’t until the 1740s that Midwifery was taught to students of the University of Edinburgh by practising surgeon Thomas Young. Young believed that practical clinical instruction was crucial for a full understanding of midwifery, and in 1781 he tried to rally support for the building of a general Lying-in Hospital in the city that would allow his students this close-up experience. Young died in 1783 before his vision could be realised, and his successor Dr Alexander Hamilton took up the mantle after him.

GD1/1/1 - Midwifery lecture notes, n.d.

Hamilton outlined a General Lying-in Hospital as constituting “a proper building, erected in an airy healthy situation, capable of containing twenty-five patients”, but advised that it “should be constructed in such a manner, that it may be enlarged when the funds can afford it”. [5/6] His appeal was successful. The General Lying-In Hospital, opened in 1793 at the site of what is now Teviot Row House, aimed to provide “women in low life” with the “management during child-bearing that opulence can produce”.

Hamilton’s hopes for the Hospital to be extended were less successful, however, and it wasn’t until 1879 that a purpose-built maternity hospital was opened. Named after one of Edinburgh’s most famous medical sons, the Simpson Memorial Hospital honoured Sir James Young Simpson’s many contributions to midwifery. He had succeeded Hamilton in the Chair in 1840, and in 1847 his infamous private experiments into the anaesthetic effects of chloroform led to it being used to relieve pain during labour.

In 1905, John Halliday Croom was appointed to the Chair, but being a specialist in obstetric alone, additional expertise had to be sought and Alex Hugh Freeland Barbour was appointed as lecturer in Gynaecology. This dualism reflected a general attitude towards the care of pregnant women at the time - as R.W. Johnstone puts it “any special care deliberately devoted to the object of preserving the health of the expectant mother [or of] forestalling dangers likely to arise in her labour … was virtually unknown”.

Portrait of James Haig Ferguson, from the collection
of the Royal Medical Society

The concept of antenatal care was introduced into Edinburgh by Dr James Haig Ferguson. Haig Ferguson had served as Assistant Gynaecologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh since 1896, and in 1899 had founded a home for unmarried women expecting their first baby. Encouraged by the impact that routine antenatal supervision had on the health of the women treated there, he successfully petitioned the managers of the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital to allow him to open an out-patient clinic for married women, so as to offer them the same levels of supervision. Due to the fact that most married women gave birth at home at the time, the Hospital had somewhat of a reputation: Johnstone recounts how “to protect these respectable women from embarrassment, entrance to the clinic was arranged from an unfrequented side street, and I well remember the great consideration that had to be given to their modesty in putting up an unobtrusive and discreetly worded direction-board.”

LHB3/7/71 - Annual report, 1915

And so, Britain’s first ante-natal clinic opened its doors in 1915. This coincided with the Midwives (Scotland) Act of 1915, which made training, examination and registration for midwives compulsory. Prior to this, many women working as midwives had become ‘certified’ - that is, obtained a certificate confirming their training in a hospital - but most were still without formal training.

The Midwives (Scotland) Act also saw the introduction of the Central Midwives Board in Scotland (CMBS), which recognised three categories of midwife at first: those who had taken and passed the CMBS examination; the ‘certified’ midwives who had previously obtained a certificate; and the ‘bona fides’, women who were enrolled “by virtue of bona fide practice”. This last category covered women of good character who had been in practice as uncertified midwives or howdies for at least a year. Although they could be enrolled without examination, one third of those taking the first CMBS exam were already on the roll as bona fides. As Dr Lindsay Reid explains in her book Midwifery in Scotland: A History, midwifery before 1915 was “alegal”, with no qualifications to meet, and no regulations or licensing requirements. The passing of the Midwives (Scotland) Act of 1915 gave new status to this group of women, some who had been formally trained, some of whom had been working with the benefit of knowledge passed down through generations.

The theme for this year’s International Day of the Midwife is ‘Midwives, Mothers And Families: Partners For Life’. By moving the focus away from the act of labour itself and onto the general health of the mother leading up to birth, Dr Haig Ferguson put in place the approach to maternity care that has led to this partnership; similarly, the decision by the CMBS to acknowledge the role that uncertified, locally-respected howdies occupied in the community ensured that those who might otherwise be reluctant to seek formal medical care were still being seen by an ‘approved’ practitioner. These partnership have now extended beyond the moment of birth, and in the words of the ICM, “midwives everywhere understand that by working in partnership with women and their families they can support them to make better decisions about what they need to have a safe and fulfilling birth”.

Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard

This week our Skills for the Future trainee, Samar, will be sharing information and material from the Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard archive with you…

At LHSA, we hold the archive for the Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, which includes material such as newspaper and magazine clippings, call logs, related research, promotional and fundraising material, correspondence and minutes. The Switchboard is worth celebrating, because it has protected and cared for LGBT+ people in our city for over forty years. When it was founded in 1974, the Switchboard’s primary function was to offer assistance and information to anyone who had experienced difficulties as a result of their own homosexuality or the homosexuality of a family member or other associate.

Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard logos (left: 1970s, right: 1994) [Acc 09/021, Acc 09/027]

By 1984, the Switchboard had become the first LGBT+ charitable trust in Scotland, and moved into its own premises in central Edinburgh. Women’s charities soon provided funding for a separate women-only line to be added to switchboard as the Lesbian Line, altering the Switchboard’s name to the ‘Gay Switchboard and Lesbian Line’. The Gay Switchboard and Lesbian Line was, and continues to be, entirely staffed by volunteers, all of whom are LGBT+, because the charity feels that those who are a part of the LGBT community are in the best position to assist others with problems concerning sexuality. 

Literature found in the Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard archive [Acc 09/021, Acc 09/027]

When the Switchboard was founded, phone calls would typically be on topics such as: HIV and AIDS, bereavement issues, sexual abuse, the laws governing homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, safe sex practices, coping with stress, how to come out of the closet, drug and alcohol abuse, reconciling their religion with their sexuality, dealing with harassment and abuse at work and at home, homelessness, relationship advice, how to make gay and lesbian friends, and parenting. Sometimes, other gay people just needed to talk with someone who knows what it’s like to be gay or lesbian and who will be able to offer non-judgmental advice and support. There were also calls from concerned friends and family who wanted to learn how best to support their LGBT+ family and friends. Some calls were handled on a one-off basis while others developed ongoing supportive relationships with volunteers from the charity. In 1992, Gay Switchboard and Lesbian line received 6,000 calls between each other.

Literature found in the Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard archive [Acc 09/021, Acc 09/027]

In addition, the Switchboard offered other services and activities besides phone calls, such as a twice-monthly social group (also known as their face-to-face befriending service), fundraising parties, liaison with research groups (providing surveys and results for studies on homosexuality), speakers for talks on homosexuality and training for outside groups on a range of topics to do with homosexuality. The Switchboard also maintained a referral list of professional contacts, which included doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, clergy and others who have a positive attitude towards homosexuality. The Switchboard also kept a list of ordinary people, such as LGBT+ people in long-term relationships and parents with LGBT+ children, who were willing to share their experiences with others.

Promotional material for a fundraising event held by Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard [Acc 09/021, Acc 09/027]

It is significant to note that the work that Lothian Gay and Lesbian Switchboard did in the 70s, 80s and 90s is still relevant today. Stonewall Scotland, a charity that “supports individuals to work out how they can make a difference for LGBT people at work, home and in their communities”, conducted surveys in 2015 on the experiences of LGBT+ people today. They found that:

• A quarter (24 per cent) of patient-facing staff working in health and social care have heard colleagues make negative remarks about lesbian, gay or bi people
• A quarter (26 per cent) of lesbian, gay and bi health staff say they have personally experienced bullying or poor treatment from colleagues in the last five years as a result of their sexual orientation
• Almost one in 10 (nine per cent) health and social care staff are aware of colleagues experiencing discrimination or poor treatment because they are trans
• Nearly half (48 per cent) of trans people under 26 said they had attempted suicide, and 30 per cent said they had done so in the past year, while 59 per cent said they had at least considered doing so
• A quarter (26 per cent) of lesbian, gay and bi workers in all sectors are not at all open to colleagues about their sexual orientation
• One in eight (13 per cent) lesbian, gay and bi employees in all sectors would not feel confident reporting homophobic bullying in their workplace
• Nearly half (42 per cent) of trans people are not living permanently in their preferred gender role stated they are prevented from doing so because they fear it might threaten their employment status
• One in five (19 per cent) lesbian, gay and bi employees in all sectors have experienced verbal bullying from colleagues, customers or service users because of their sexual orientation in the last five years
• Almost a third of lesbian, gay and bi pupils are ignored or isolated by other people in educational environments
• More than half (55 per cent) of lesbian, gay and bi pupils have experienced direct bullying in educational environments

Clearly, there is still a lot of work to be done, so that LGBT+ individuals can be treated with the dignity and respect that all individuals deserve. Due to the discrimination that LGBT+ people continue to face today, the Switchboard continues to run as the LGBT Helpline Scotland, offering to confidentially discuss a range of issues including sexuality, coming out, gender identity, relationships and sexual and emotional wellbeing with its callers. It functions as a part of Edinburgh’s LGBT Healthy Living Centre, which was set up in 2003 “to promote the health, wellbeing and equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Scotland”, providing “support, services and information to improve health and wellbeing, reduce social isolation and stimulate community development and volunteering”. In 2006, the Switchboard also funded Remember When, an oral and community history project which documented the lives and achievements of Edinburgh's LGBT people, past and present. The project resulted in a series of recorded interviews, a book about the history of Edinburgh’s LGBT+ community, an archive held within the social history collections at Edinburgh’s Reminiscence Centre, and an exhibition at City of Edinburgh Council.

Feminist Activism and Scotland's National Childbirth Trust

Our Skills for the Future Trainee will be sharing a bit about our National Childbirth Trust records with you this week…

Hi again, it’s Samar!

At LHSA we hold the archive for the Edinburgh branch of the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), which gives us an insight into women’s experiences of childbirth and maternity care from the early 20th century to the present day. I’ve been cataloguing this collection since January, particularly focusing on the labour reports written by Scottish mothers in the 1960s.

The NCT was founded by a woman called Prunella Briance in 1956. That year, Prunella had lost her baby during childbirth, and was outraged by the way she had been treated by hospital staff during this harrowing experience. As a result, she put an advertisement in The Times newspaper calling for mothers all over the UK to work together to prevent tragedies like this from happening again – and so the NCT was formed.

Our collection holds archive material such as committee minutes, correspondence, birth announcements, newspaper clippings, financial records, event timetables and articles and journals about natural childbirth. Significantly, the collection also holds labour reports written by Scottish mothers about their experiences of childbirth and hospital care. In many of these labour reports, women share unhappy stories of childbirth that ring true with Prunella’s experience.

NCT Committee Minutes Book 1965, featuring a child's drawing [Acc 13/045]

In the labour reports, we learn that many women had gas and air forced upon them against their will:

"I think I may have managed myself had it not been decided otherwise."

“[Hospital staff] told me I was getting too much oxygen from breathing technique - yet in the end had to give me oxygen."

“[I was] half doped throughout."

Babies were taken away from mothers right after giving birth:

"I was disappointed not to be given the baby after birth."

Women were left to labour for hours alone and without beds to lay in:

"I found I wanted to push, and was rather frantic as there were no beds free. All the nurses were very busy.”

Fathers were not permitted in labour wards, even if the mother requested they be allowed:

“… if only husbands could be at delivery."

Angered that so many women shared these experiences, the NCT organised educational classes that would provide expecting mothers with a network of peer support and information on childbirth that they couldn’t get anywhere else. The expectant fathers were heavily encouraged to attend classes with their partners, so that they could help and support the women as they prepared for birth.

The NCT’s classes aimed to make expectant parents better educated on what to expect during childbirth and also promoted natural childbirth techniques based on the teachings of Grantly Dick-Read. These teachings equipped the women with breathing exercises that would help them control their contractions, relax their muscles and get the oxygen they needed when giving birth. Many women also reported that these exercises helped them stay calm and focused during childbirth. Another reason why the NCT encouraged this method was because it helped the women avoid interventions such as inductions, episiotomies (cutting of the perineum) and enemas. This activism was particularly vital, as it was shortly publicised that some doctors were inducing women early during festive periods, to ensure that they wouldn’t have to work during that period.

NCT Committee Minutes Book (II) 1970-1982 [Acc 13/045]

Many women who attended the NCT’s classes reported that they felt relaxed during childbirth, that doctors and hospital staff greatly admired the method, and that in some cases, the women managed to avoid sedation and intervention. Some women even managed to convince staff to let fathers into the wards with them too:

"This nearness to my baby's birth gave me a special kind of excitement and I found that day very useful. I cleaned my house (again); I re-packed my cases (again); and most important of all, I read and read and re-read the sheets of notes I had collected over the months at my relaxation classes."

"... the nurses were very glad to see I was managing to control the contractions. One of them commented that she wished her sister, who was pregnant, could see how well I was managing. I had been trying to tell the other women in the labour ward (4 beds) about the breathing and by this time the ward sounded like a railway station with all the puffing and blowing."

"The pupil midwives were full of praise and said I had done very well. They enjoyed having (my husband) there and said he was a great help. He was given a cup of tea before me!"

"I didn't feel at all tired and would willingly have had another baby the next day."

"Alas, my difficult son decided to make his trip into the world with one hand on his head, which not only made the transitional stage rather painful, but rather hampered his actual delivery. Having said all this, I may say that I feel the training still made all the difference in the world..."

"Both the sister, who recognised the method - and a nurse who stayed with me gave every encouragement and were most impressed."

"Had I not trained under this method, I would have been overwhelmed by genuine pain in back and tummy. It could have been a ghastly time, but I was so glad I had practiced hard and read plenty."

"Midwife told doctor that due to attending breathing and relaxing classes, I was an excellent patient."

"I seem to have rambled on and on but I was pleased to write and tell you of the success of the method - as far as I am concerned. The Doctor said to me this morning that she was sure I wouldn’t have needed the gas and air if (the baby) had been of an average weight and that the nurses and herself thought the breathing was very helpful to them and I was completely relaxed from the waist down."

"It was only the knowledge of controlled breathing and also that I was well on that kept me in control."

The NCT continues to run today, campaigning to improve maternity care and ensuring that better information, services and facilities are provided to new parents. In April 2010, they joined a campaign calling for companies producing baby bottles to stop using Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical that could leach out of plastics into food or liquid in tiny amounts and be absorbed by the body. The NCT also had a strong influence on The Equality Act, which now gives women in Britain the right to breastfeed in public without being discriminated against. They have also repeatedly lobbied for improved parental leave, supporting campaigns for increased paid maternity and paternity leave.