 |
| Anna Petronella Wilson (nee Gronlund) - a midwife in Cairns in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of Rob Wood. |
At the moment the project will potentially cover the years 1880 to 1940, so if you have a relative that was a private midwife (by private I mean not associated with a large public hospital) and have information to share, please get in touch. I'm particularly interested in photographs of the women, their homes, families etc. and any documents, diaries etc. that detail their day-to-day work, for example journals or registers of patients, fees charged, places/locations they travelled to, or in fact any records they kept.
Is your Great-Gran or Great-Great Gran on this list? If so, I'd like to hear from you!
TOWNSVILLE:
|
||
Helen Beaton
|
Rose Blaxland
|
Elizabeth Bradshaw
|
Jessie Bullimore
|
Lydia Calder
|
Fredericka Christian
|
Margery Clements
|
Alice Crawford
|
Mary Darch
|
Edith Day
|
Harriet Dennis
|
Eva Duman
|
Gladys Duman
|
Mercy Flowers
|
Norah Gaul
|
Lillian Gordon
|
Susannah Graves
|
A. Hagen
|
Kate Hebb
|
Mrs A. Henry
|
Edith Lambton
|
Jessie Lenham
|
Margaret McArdle
|
Mary MacDonald
|
Frances Macintosh
|
Isabel Macintosh
|
Margaret Monaghan
|
Agnes Paterson
|
Nurse Pope
|
Emma Prince
|
Margaret Purcell
|
Charlotte Sherlaw
|
Kath Terry
|
Lillian Terry
|
Lydia Thurston
|
Mai Treacy
|
Edith Trenow
|
Janet Veitch
|
Margaret Walsh
|
Margaret Ward
|
Susan Wells
|
Jessie Wheeler
|
Margaret Williams
|
Annie Wright
|
|
AYR/BRANDON:
|
||
Ellen Francis
|
Nurse Harris
|
Jane Kennedy
|
BOWEN:
|
||
Amy Field
|
Sarah Wheelhouse
|
|
CAIRNS:
|
||
Anna Wilson (pictured above)
|
Janet Herries
|
Molly O’Byrne
|
Matron O’Hara
|
Nurse Winkworth
|
|
CHARTERS TOWERS:
|
||
Catherine Symons
|
Elizabeth Dobson
|
Mary Bowden
|
CHILLAGOE:
|
||
Margaret Timmins
|
||
CLONCURRY:
|
||
Amelia Johnstone
|
||
KURIDALA:
|
||
Ann Edmonds
|
As you can see from the list, some of these women don't even have a first name listed. After some painstaking research I have been able to dig up the first names of many of them, but it's still a work in progress. I have concentrated my research on the Townsville midwives so far, which is why I don't have many names yet for the other areas. Thank you to those who have already contacted me with information. Please feel free to get in touch again if you like. I can be contacted on nqhistory@gmail.com
The height of private midwifery services (at least in the Townsville region) seems to have been from around 1900 to about mid-1930s. After that time, more and more women were giving birth in the public hospital and the services of private midwives became increasingly obsolete.
*For the purposes of my research, I'd like to include towns/cities such as Bowen, Ayr, Home Hill, Charters Towers, Pentland, Ingham, Cardwell, and potentially Cairns and surrounds as well.
Further reading on this topic:
