MANUSCRIPT NOTEBOOKS OF A 1920S-1930S MIDWIFE

A remarkable group of notebooks recording in detail the work of a British midwife in the inter-war period. Documenting the births of over 1,000 children in the years 1921-1935. Six record books, oblong octavo (20 x 13cm), each bound in full cloth over stiff card boards with printed title label completed in manuscript to each upper board. Five of the books are fully completed in manuscript, with one just over a quarter complete. The books were kept by Nurse Alice Harris, based in a maternity home located at 3 The Butts, Warwick, whose remit ranged across the Warwick, Rugby, and Leamington area. They record the “date of expected confinement”; “name and address of patient”; “no. of previous labours and miscarriages”; “age”; “date and hour of midwife’s arrival”; “date and hour of child’s birth”; “presentation”; “duration of 1st, 2nd and 3rd stage of labour”.