Tuesday 14 March 2017

Is your Great-Gran on this list?

This is a callout for information to assist with my latest project. I'm currently researching private midwives from Townsville and the North Queensland region*.
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: