Is your Great-Gran on this list?

Hi lovely readers, I'm no longer collating information on midwives, as I published my book about this topic - Neither Mischievous nor Meddlesome - in 2019. Thank you so very much to everyone who contacted me with information, both during the research and writing phase, and since publication. I'm so grateful for the help.  

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. 

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.

Queen City of the North: A History of Townsville

Queen City of the North: A History of Townsville - is now available to purchase!!

Thanks to its stature as the premier city of North Queensland, from as early as 1895 Townsville was known as the “Queen City of the North”. This book is a leisurely stroll through some of the fascinating aspects of the Queen City’s history since its settlement in 1864 as a port for the region’s pastoral industry. From tragic tales such as the disappearance of the last lighthouse keeper at Bay Rock, the sinking of the SS Yongala, shark attacks in Ross Creek, and the destruction caused by floods and cyclones; to gun battles in the city streets over workers’ rights, the bombing of the city during World War II, and a cast of colourful characters that shaped the city’s fortunes; this book presents a remarkably vivid picture of life in early Townsville that will delight history lovers.

Trisha Fielding won a National Trust of Queensland Award in 2010 for her first book, Flinders Street, Townsville: A Pictorial History, and was awarded the John Oxley Library Award in 2015 for her blog on North Queensland History. 

Praise for Queen City of the North:

“Trisha brings early Townsville to life in an exploration of important, quirky and ordinary events. These snapshots of our history bring us closer to our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations.”

Paula Tapiolas

 ABC Local Radio Current Affairs Presenter.

Trisha Fielding at the launch of Queen City of the North: a History of Townsville
Photo: Ashley Fielding

RRP: $35

Other details:

A4 paperback, 160 pages, weight 700 grams, published 2016.

ISBN: 9780646941349

Available from the following outlets:

Mary Who? Bookshop
414 Flinders Street,
Townsville
Telephone: (07) 4771 3824

Queen City of the North: a History of Townsville - on the shelf at Mary Who? Bookshop

QBD The Bookshop
Willows Shopping Centre
Thuringowa Drive and Hervey Range Road, Kirwan
Telephone: (07) 4766 9600

Queen City of the North: A History of Townsville - on the shelf at QBD The Bookshop, Willows Shopping Centre

Museum of Tropical Queensland
70-102 Flinders Street, Townsville
Telephone: (07) 47260600

Townsville Museum
1/27 Barbeler Street,
Currajong
Telephone: (07) 4775 7838

 
State Library of Queensland
Library Shop
Level 1, Cultural Centre
Stanley Place, South Brisbane
Telephone: (07) 3840 7576