I am determined not to stay at home any Longer till I take to my bed; which I am at a loss to say when to expect the fatal moment. I give it out to my friends that I shall not give caudle till the first week in Feb[ruary] but they all say it is impossible I should waddle about till that time I am such a monster in size; and indeed I am under great apprehensions I shall drop to pieces before I am ready for the little stranger …52
While Bessy Ramsden was supported throughout life by her good humour and high spirits, she was also lucky, for, beyond a certain point, ease or discomfort in pregnancy were outside a woman's control. Only Eliza Whitaker recorded the receipt of treatment for her side-effects and this attention was essentially a by-product of her doctor's efforts to avoid the miscarriages to which she was believed prone.53 Most other women were simply prescribed a good dose of resignation, since ante-natal indisposition was seen as a relatively unimportant symptom of ‘carrying on the Great Cause of Nature’. The inevitability of female suffering was ancestral. It was simply ‘the penalty entail'd on our sex by our G.mother’. In fact, ill health in the pregnant mother was long seen as a good omen, proof of a thriving foetus within. Thus, Elizabeth Shackleton smugly reported of her pregnant daughter-in-law: ‘Mrs P. was sick a good sign.’54
That women's letters are so rich in references to pregnancy is testimony to a shared female concern with the business of motherhood. Female well-wishers reassured and advised, expected to be told exactly when the ‘little stranger’ would arrive (women estimated the date of their confinement with varying degrees of success), were interested in the details of pregnancy and eagerly awaited news of the birth. Practical preparations for the confinement fell to the expectant mother. Women decided where to be confined; some returned to their maternal home or a well-serviced centre like Preston; others requested the company of their close female kin in the marital home. However, the evidence is too sparse to establish one standard practice. By contrast, the wives of peers usually arranged to be confined in London, where midwives and recovery nurses had the best reputations.55 Once installed, the mother-to-be attempted to prepare the household and procure a nurse and/or nursery maid. While inured to worry about matters medical, Bessy Ramsden admitted ‘I sleep in fear of Consequences’, having fallen behind on domestic preparations, with ‘yet a new bed to make up for the ocasion, which is to be made at home, beside a Thousand odd matters’.56
Of all practical arrangements, procuring a practitioner to assist at the birth and a nurse to attend in the aftermath were considered the most pressing. Medical historians have dwelt on the rivalry between midwives and surgeons or men-midwives, while the northern manuscripts reveal that local physicians were also common assistants at the birth. Elizabeth Parker in the 1750s, Bessy Ramsden in the 1760s, Beatrix Parker in the 1770s, Betty Parker in the 1780s, Eliza Whitaker in the 1810s and Ellen Parker in the 1820s were all attended by local physicians – many of whom came from genteel families and who knew their patients socially. From the fragmentary evidence that exists most of these appear to have been booked appointments for the doctor to call at the onset of labour, without a midwife in support.57 Only Eliza Whitaker's letters evidence the antenatal care of an advance call. Meanwhile, Jane Scrimshire in fashionable Pontefract made a seemingly controversial decision and opted for a man-midwife, as she confirmed in a letter of 1756:
My mother inform'd you right that I am determin'd to have a Man Midwife but am quite unsettled who the Individual is to be, whether Thomits of Doncaster Street, Lucas or a Mr Cockill of this town, who has begun to practice since Lucas. Pray who have you fix'd on [?] Whoever it is I heartily wish you good Success …
Indeed, she cannot have been alone in her choice, at least in Pontefract, for judging by Jane Scrimshire's tart remarks Lucas's stock was clearly rising: ‘Lucas is in high degree as Man Midwife, he don't so much as smile [now].’58
The fact that there was enough custom in Pontefract to support three men-midwives as early as the 1750s is interesting in itself. It has been customary to look on the mid-eighteenth century as the period when male midwifery was established in metropolitan anatomy schools and teaching hospitals, while the expansion of provincial practitioners has been dated much later. The evidence also does not marry with the received chronology regarding the character of professional involvement at the birth. Guided by the historiography, we would expect mothers in the 1750s and 1760s to be delivered as a matter of course by midwives, only calling in a man and his forceps in emergency. However, male professionals were already the practitioners of first resort for the majority of the genteel women who recorded their arrangements. Clearly, the polite already preferred the ministrations of a presentable professional over the traditional collective participation of midwife and old women. However, this is not to say that polite matrons were lured away from a rich neighbourly collectivity by suspicious husbands. An important negative finding is the absence of a single instance of reported tension between mother and father-to-be over the choice of birth assistant. Dispute, discussion and persuasion is confined to the letters women exchanged amongst themselves. Correspondingly, when William Hunter advised aspiring accoucheurs on how to make a good impression at a lying-in, he strongly advised the assiduous cultivation of the mother's friends, but made no reference at all to consultation with the father.59 Of course, genteel mothers were surrounded by servants, so they did not need a bevy of neighbours to cook, clean and look after the family during the lying-in. Nevertheless, they still relied on the support of female kin and close friends. Pregnancy and birth still engendered female collectivity, albeit one gathered on narrower social terms.
Women in the Parker network, in particular, encouraged their pregnant kin to make full use of available medical expertise, their own advice was seen as a supplement not an alternative to academic authority. Ann Pellet (herself the widow of a president of the Royal College of Physicians) showed no loyalty to practitioners of her own sex; pronouncing herself ‘much pleased that [Mrs Scrimshire] designes to follow your prudence in choosing to be assisted by a Docr, rather than an ignorant old woman’. She was a firm supporter of the doctor who attended her niece, and encouraged Elizabeth Parker to follow his ‘directions in every point’, implying that her previous miscarriage could have been avoided. She hoped ‘you'll manage better than you did last; by giving Dr Clayton more timely notice that he might be of greater service to you’. On her own homely authority, Aunt Pellet entreated her niece to air her linen properly, not to drink too many cooling drinks, not to go riding and to have ‘a friend with you during yr approaching confinement’.60 In sum, there is no evidence of female hostility to professional medicine. Overall, whether genteel women plumped for physician, surgeon or midwife they enjoyed a considerable degree of personal choice.
Women rarely appear to have committed the details of their labour to paper. At any rate, no detailed accounts of childbirth have survived in the northern records. Only laconic references to delivery can be found in the Parker correspondence: Jane Scrimshire had ‘a very severe time’, Bessy Ramsden mentioned the ‘History of my Groaning &c’, while Elizabeth Shackleton commiserated with her daughter-in-law: ‘My sister Parker tells me she never saw so large a child … You wo'd feel for that. I often think how you went on – Thank God it is over. I Hope this child will be a comfort & make amends by grace & every Virtue what you suffer'd for him …’61 Given such glancing mentions of labour and birth, the practical business of the lying-in chamber remains obscure for most. However, one disturbing and graphic account remains, which bears repetition in full here because of its rarity and because of its horror – an account of birth that stunningly demonstrates the physical and emotional trauma that a woman, whatever her rank, might have to undergo. In June 1739 Anne Gossip laboured in agony for forty-nine and a half hours, and with a stoicism barely imaginable suffered her dead baby to be torn apart within her and removed in pieces. A nightmare in the fullest sense, this episode was recorded with almost dispassionate clarity by Wi
lliam Gossip her devoted spouse:
about 2 in ye Afternoon my dear A.G. fell into a most painfull tedious & dangerous Labour; she was not [delivered] before Jun 14 about ½ an hour past three in ye afternoon. The child a Boy was dead & lay cross for the birth, with his arm forward, which made it necessary (I suppose it's Death being not then perfectly known) to turn it in order for a more natural posture. But unfortunately in the Operation, the Child flew so high up, & the womb was so much contracted for want of the water, which had broke in a very large quantity 2 days before & continued from thence to run away perpetually that the surgeon could not possibly lay hold of it again, with any firmness, after 3 severall efforts to no purpose, which my pore Dear bore with a patience, resolution & resignation that was truly surprising I prevailed upon Mr Dawes to sit down once more & try if he cd not by ye help of his Instrument tear ye child in pieces & bring it away in [that] manner. The Event answered beyond expectation, after a tedious & terrible operation in which the surgeon was sooner tired with afflicting her than she with Suffering, His Spirits & Strength were quite exhausted, whilst hers continued fresh & vigorous under such torments as it is surprising how human Nature could subsist under it He rose from his knees to refresh himself & then returning to his business broke into the abdomen of ye Child with his Instruments, & thence extracted the bowels & other viscera & broke of part of ye ribs, this evacuation made room in ye Uterus for him to insinuate his hand between the belly of ye child & the sides of the collapsed womb, by which means he got hold of ye feet of ye child which were turned quite upwards almost as high as the diaphragm & thus with all the violence he durst use for fear of breaking the child in the back which was much weakened by the Crosse of ye ribs, he happily under ye Providence of God extracted the remains of his mangled Carcass, except the arm which first present itself, & which had been cut of as soon as the Childs Death was preceived. Its shattered remains were buried near ye rest of my Children in … St Martins Church in Coney Street York.62
Of course, a grotesque ordeal was not the universal experience, yet the potential for it haunted most. A crescendo of anxiety and hope was almost invariably experienced by the family of the labouring mother. Let the following account of an uneventful London labour penned by an exhausted mother-in-law in 1821 stand for the many apprehensive households:
I knew you would kindly desire to hear how our dear Invalid Recovered. Thank God! She is as well as we ought to expect, considering the sufferings she went thro' for two days & a half, she was wonderfully supported, her spirits & good humour never failed, except when nature was quite exhausted. The anxiety has been almost too much for her husband & Myself, I am going for a few days to my sister Leghs to strengthen my Nerves … Altho' I have not named it, yet I am a very proud Grandmother, the sweet Girl is already my darling, tho' till her Mother was safe, I did not care at all whether the baby was dead or alive indeed so great was my indifference about it and anxiety for my Daughter, that when told she was safely delivered, I went out of the house without looking at it or asking if it was Well, or Perfect. I must make it up by future love. I rejoice in its being a girl, Tom is too young a man to have a son treading on his heels, and wanting his estate before he is ready to part with it.63
After the birth, it was the female kin or the father (by his wife's directions) who communicated the good news to their kin and consequently it was to them that the first congratulations were often addressed. When they did eventually take up their pens, genteel mothers expressed their profound relief and thankfulness for God's great mercies. To have safely delivered ‘a fine living child’, endowed with all its ‘Senses Limbs & Faculties’, marked with no disfigurement, was a blessing indeed.64
Genteel women appear to have recognized the traditional lying-in period of about four weeks, as Bessy Ramsden's relief confirms: ‘thank God I had a very good Lying in, for had not an hour's illness the whole month and my Littel Boy as well as myself.’ However, the post-natal period was still seen as a period of risk to the mother as well as the baby, unsurprisingly given the significant dangers of puerperal fever, haemorrhage, thrombosis and, perhaps above all, milk-fever – given the traditional habit of keeping the baby from the breast until the flow of colostrum had ceased. So ardent prayers were offered for a safe recovery and remedies exchanged to prevent hardness or soreness in the breasts and looseness in the bowels.65 Yet, if the mother was relatively well and the baby thriving, this was a period of pleasurable recuperation and polite celebration. There is no indication of post-partum disappointment if the babe was not a son and heir; indeed the only positive preference which surfaces in genteel correspondence is for girls, although this may be because most of the matrons studied here had plenty of boys.66 Presents were received for the new-born, godparents were sought to stand as sponsors at the christening and names were chosen; more often that not being family names, ‘shewing the respect that's due’.67 Bessy Ramsden gave small parties for her gossips to drink the spicy potion caudle. In fact, this was such a customary accompaniment of labour and lying-in, that ‘giving caudle’ served as a euphemism in the Ramsden letters for giving birth. For Bessy Ramsden, and doubtless for other successful mothers, lying-in was a well-earned excuse to leave off domestic duties and enjoy the fruits of their labour. William Ramsden's letters reveal his sunny spouse basking in bustling attention:
thank you … for remembring so kindly the Good woman in the straw, hitherto all has gone exceedingly well, the Baggage looks sleek and saucy; the Brat fat and healthy … I wish the next Week over that I may resign the Keys of my Office, for indeed most heartily am I tired of being both Mistress & Master … Madam has got her [Chamber] full of Gossips this afternoon one of whom is a Reverend Dockter of Divinity. Pray do the Ladies of Lancashire take the Benefit of the Clergy on the like Occasions? half a score … at least I have been call'd up, since this scribble was begun. 68
What remains unclear is the stages by which elite women emerged from the lying-in chamber, and whether they observed the traditional sequence of first lying prone in bed, sitting up in bed after one week, moving around the chamber after two, keeping to the house after three, and finally after four or five weeks emerging for the ritual purification and thanksgiving of churching.69 For genteel matrons, no absolute ban on mixed-sex sociability or leaving the house is detectable, although female kin recommended that ‘the good woman in the straw’ keep warm, take care, limit company and late nights, and avoid larking and jaunting about. In the 1750s Elizabeth Parker received many cautions from Aunt Pellet: ‘As this month is the most precarious, she begs Mrs Parker will be very careful of taking cold & desires her not to be too venturesome.’ By the 1760s and 1770s Elizabeth Parker was offering exactly the same advice to Bessy Ramsden, as William's acknowledgement reveals: ‘Thank you for all … your most friendly Cautions against catching Cold &c tis the very Doctrine that has been preached to us by all the Matrons of [Charterhouse] & cannot therefore fail, I hope of being put into Practice.’70
Understandably, rates of recovery of strength and spirits varied from woman to woman. After the traumatic birth and death of her infant son in 1757, Barbara Parker lay near death herself and had mourning to add to the tedium of convalescence. In the same decade Jane Scrimshire endured ‘low spirits’ for at least four months after birth and commiserated with Elizabeth Parker who suffered for six. By contrast, the fortunate Bessy Ramsden enjoyed miraculous recoveries in both 1764 and 1768, boasting not half an hour's sickness in either case. The Mancunian Bertha Starkie got ‘pure well’ after the birth of her first baby in 1769, yet her sister still hoped ‘she won't breed till she [has] got a little more Strength’. The Liverpudlian Elizabeth Addison regained her health and figure very quickly after her confinement in 1816, but admitted ‘my nervous head will not allow me to take very great liberties with it’. Ellen Stock left Wigan in June 1815 to convalesce in Southport but ‘laboured under so great a depression of spirits that my recovery was slow’. In 1824 Ellen Parker's confinement almost killed her
and she took six months to recuperate in Selby, during which time four of her brood were farmed out to their great-aunts in Colne.71 The possibility of post-natal melancholy was widely recognized and the experience of it acknowledged by the sufferers. It is estimated today that between 50 and 80 per cent of mothers will suffer a fleeting bout of ‘the blues’ shortly after birth, between 7 and 30 per cent will endure a more prolonged post-natal depression and a blighted 0.1–0.2 per cent will be assailed by puerperal psychosis.72 However, low spirits were by no means inevitable; biological experience could bear quite differently on different women despite their shared cultural assumptions and similar background.
Moreover, the rate of recovery both physical and emotional also varied for individual women from confinement to confinement. In 1749 Anne Stanhope's post-partum sufferings put her family to ‘a great deal of concern’. The doctor was called in and she was bled repeatedly, but fortunately her husband the Leeds merchant Walter Stanhope was able to report ‘in all our hurry abot its Mama, we have had no care, nor trouble’ with the baby. A later birth was much less physically damaging to the mother. In March 1753 Stanhope was thankful that ‘never any body coud have a more easy & speedy delivery, than she had’. Catastrophically, however, the infant began to fail within days of birth and to compound the family's distress, the elder boy Watty was seized with ‘convulsion fits’ heralding the onset of smallpox. A wretched Walter Stanhope feared his wife was ‘not recovered enough to bear such a shock’. However, by April 1753 he was able to report ‘your sister has been low this day or two’, in the sombre aftermath of the baby's funeral, but ‘in other ways she is [purely] recovered’. Conversely, in 1783 Betty Parker of Alkincoats was less well after the birth of her second child than after the first because ‘her labour was rather more severe than before’. Her doctor gave strict instructions to keep her quiet and cool which he hoped would ‘abate the fever and danger that usually ensue’. Uncharacteristically, the widowed Anne Robbins retrieved her wits and strength very shortly after her fifth delivery in 1814 and, unusually for her, was able to name her daughter almost immediately. Still grieving for her barrister husband, however, her spirits took months to revive.73 Even for seasoned matrons the aftermath of birth remained hard to predict.
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