A Male Midwife announces his services- Leek 1799

Mr Thomas Birch advertised his profession with the address of his establishment in Market Square Leek. He hoped to follow the late John Wooliscroft who previous ran his surgery from the premises. Mr Birch announced in January 1799 in the “Staffordshire Advertiser “that he was Leek's male midwife and surgeon and  promised that he would apply himself diligently to the task. Mr Birch also required an apprentice.

Earlier  in the century  a baby was born with the assistance of a self- taught traditional midwife. The skin was scoured with salt to remove the “ slippery glue” from its skin. The baby was then wrapped up tightly in swaddling cloth. It was thought  swaddling was needed to protect the delicate limbs of the child , it kept the baby warm as well as for the convenience of the mother and resulted in passivity and therefore easier to manage. The infant could then be hung by a nail on a beam and left so that other tasks could be could be got on with.

The baby would be put to the mother's breast only after milk was seen to come, meanwhile it was purged. Oil of almonds, rose syrup and chicory with rhubarb were given. A strengthening glass of wine or in Scotland oatmeal and whisky was also taken. If the child had difficulty in suckling the midwife would cut through the skin beneath the tongue by finger nails kept long and sharp for the purpose.

By the end of the century that situation began to change as Thomas Birch would have recognised and taken advantage of. More men began to take over the role of the traditional midwife, partly this was due to fashion, but also the consequence of  technological changes. One development that began to be more widely used was the invention of forceps.( Women were thought not to have the technical ability to use them) There was also a class element as the middle class began to prefer a fee paying male practitioners at the birth to demonstrate their higher status . Society seemed to enjoy this mode due to an increase in an interest in science. By 1800 almost half the deliveries were attended by male midwives.

Irrespective of whether a child was born to a male doctor or female midwife the mortality rates of the newly born were extremely high in the 18^th century with around 1 in 5 babies not living to the first year , higher when epidemics swept the country. Nor should we suppose that the parents of the time were indifferent to loss, there exist enough letters and diary entries to suggest that infant death  effected parents as badly then as it does now.

"The Boss" was the greatest leader.

A hundred years ago the adventurer  Sir Philip Brocklehurst married in the society wedding of the year at Swythamley. The guests included  the principle families of the area including the Nicholson's. A telegram of congratulations was received from the King's sister Princess Victoria. The best man was the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleon. Brocklehurst had met Shackleton some 5 years before when the Ulsterman led an expedition to the South Pole which included the 21 year old Sir Philip. It is certain that the young man was mesmerised by the charismatic Shackleton. He would not have been alone.

What makes a great leader? If you were to ask to name an example then Ernest Shackleton would certainly be close to the top of the list. The remarkable 1914-7 Polar expedition lay in the future which cemented his reputation for command for all time. He lost his ship Endurance in the ice , but led his crew to safety after a two year titanic struggle. When the ship finally sank he allowed each member of the expedition to carry only a few items necessary for survival- one took a banjo! For months the men camped on a large floe, hoping that it would drift towards Paulet Island approximately 250 miles away, where it was known that stores existed. They spent months in the darkness and cold of a polar winter huddled together for warmth in tents so thin that the Moon could be seen through the sides.  After the thaw the men took to three  lifeboats. They fought huge seas before landing on the storm lashed Elephant Island. The crew were cold, hungry and so thirsty that their tongues swelled. Shackleton showed his concern for his men by giving his mittens to the expedition's photographer Frank Hurley as a result he suffered frost bite.  Eventually Shackleton took a small group  leaving the majority on Elephant Island and sailed 800 miles to South Georgia. On landing they climbed over frozen  mountain peaks with only very basic climbing equipment before reaching a whaling station and safety. Shackleton then turned around and rescued the 22 men left on Elephant Island after three attempts foiled by sea ice and worsening weather.  No one was lost in this heroic struggle for survival.

“The Boss” as the crew called him based his leadership skills on a foundation of experience, trust, courage and optimism. Many years later the First Officer of the Endurance Lionel Greenstreet was asked “ How did you survive when so many expeditions perished”. The old man replied in one word “ Shackleton”.

Kitten Overboard!

We have recently acquired a kitten called Lola. She is a tabby cat and, as kittens do, spends her life in a flurry of activity.

I am told on good authority that the Tabby is a descendent of the Wild African Cat. The long legs of the tabby are an indicator of its ancestors need to hunt in the  grasses of the Savannah. I gather that the  tabby cats were first introduced into England in the early 17th century when a number were given as a gift to William Laud ,Archbishop of Canterbury who according to the gossip John Aubrey was  "a great lover of Catts”  and "was presented with some Cyprus-catts, i.e. our Tabby-catts".
I do like cats although I do wish they would drag something useful through the cat flap other  than some poor bird or mouse. A bottle of wine, vintage immaterial, would do. The capacity for cats to embarrass is well-known.

 On one occasion when I lived in Lancashire the two cats I owned had dragged a magpie into the house. The local Council were called by a neighbour and the dog catcher came along although for what purpose I know not. By the time I got home the bird had  made something of a mess of the house before the gaze of two bemused cats who had realised it had bitten  off smore than they could chew.

Have we always been sentimental about animals? I would have thought the Georgian Age was a time of cruelty, both to man and beast. Cheering crowds gathered at Tyburn to see some poor criminal throttled on the gallows, the “quality” paid to mock the mad at Bedlam and all classes betted on the outcome of  cock fighting and bull baiting. And yet, the writer Henry Fielding in “Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon” written in the 1740s described the attempt to rescue the ship's captain's  kitten when it fell over board. The captain ordered all hands to try to deliver the young cat from its peril.

“ I was , I own, extremely surprised at all this; less, indeed at the Captain's extreme Tenderness, than any Possibility of Success; for, if Puss  had nine thousand , instead of nine Lives. I concluded they had all been lost”.

However a Boatswain saved the Cat by diving into the water returning to the ship “ bearing the motionless Animal in his Mouth..... the Kitten was now exposed to Air and Sun on the deck, where its Life, of which it retained no Symptoms, was despaired of by all”

However ,Fielding concluded happily

“I have too wantonly endeavoured to raise the tender Passions of my Readers in this Narrative.. the Kitten at last recovered, to the great Joy of the good Captain”

Perhaps compassion especially when Kittens are concerned transcends the ages?

Leek Cycling Club in the Edwardian Age

Some time ago the BBC repeated Alan Bennett's 1972 play “ A Day Out”. It concerns a group going on a cycling trip to the Yorkshire Dales in 1911. The piece is elegiac, funny and concludes poignantly. At the end of the play there is a reunion of the club in 1920 who stop before a First World War memorial to honour the memory of members of the club who did not return from the trenches.

I was thinking of the programme after an afternoon spent in Leek Library turning the pages of local newspapers of the Edwardian Era. A report of Leek Cycling Club's tour of the Isle of Man in May 1904 caught my attention. The anonymous writer of the article detailed evocatively an escapade that a group of friends made ten years before the outbreak of war, and I am sure that as in the Bennett play, some of the cyclists would have died in the war.

After a rough crossing from Liverpool the men meet up with old friends in the Smoke Room of the Talbot Hotel, kept by a Staffordshire man Mr Weston. They refreshed themselves and set out for a tour of the island. The camp-site is at the Union Mills near Peel. The weather conditions are poor( so much for the Golden Edwardian summer) and the camp site waterlogged . The party were forced to seek refuge in a laundry room where they make the best of it. The conversations are boisterous and good natured joshing occurs. It is obvious the men delight in each others company. Engaging fragments of comment illuminate the article- the erratic chiming of Douglas Town Clock, the novelty of an early telephone box, the Whit Sunday parade with children dressed in white and a military band playing Strauss.

Cycling by 1904 was a major leisure activity. It was made easier by a number of innovations in the design of the bike. By the 1880s springs were added to seats ( not for nothing were early bikes called bone shakers), later pneumatic tyres was invented. In 1891 Eduard Michelin had patented the inner tube making the speedy repair of the tyre far more easier. ( The intrepid adventurers of the Leek Club repaired punctured tyres at Rainhill on the way back). By the last years of the century Cycling Clubs were being created . Leek now is one of the longest surviving clubs in the country.

An early problem which Clubs tried to exert an influence over was the lamentable state of the roads. A particularly egregious example were the roads of North Staffordshire. According to the 1874 'Book for Riders' “ Liverpool to Prescott 8 miles of good road, then within 6 miles of Newcastle under Lyme a very bad bit full of holes”... plus ça change

Leek Labour Church: On ale houses and sedition

Leek Labour Church: On ale houses and sedition

On ale houses and sedition

My usual hostelry on a Friday night is the Wilkes Head named after the radical politician John Wilkes whose cross-eyed portrait stares ,one eye looking down St Edward Street and the other toward Napoli Pizza restaurant. Wilkes libertine, zealous defender of free speech and dogged opponent of monarchical absolutism-was still alive when the pub was called after him in 1786.

( Wilkes was responsible for a memorable put down directed at his great rival and inventor of the snack, the Earl of Sandwich. “ Wilkes, I have long considered your fate and have concluded that you will either hang or die of a pox” Wilkes “ It depends if I embrace your Lordship’s principles or your Lordship’s mistress”)

T.here are now only two pubs named after the great reprobate . One in in Leek and the other in up Chichester in Sussex.

I believe that the pub has a long history in the dissident tradition from its earliest days to 1900s where it was the meeting place of trade unionists up until today. In the early 19^th century it was a much bigger pub and crucial to my argument it was also a coaching inn with regular coaches to Birmingham and Manchester ,both hotbeds of radicalism. News would have been carried and information on the upheavals gripping the country in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars would have been eagerly debated. Every town would have a pub while working men, some in more formal groups than others met to discuss current affairs.

The Tory poet Southey described the scene, the crackling fire, a hard days labour done, smoking pipes, heady brews and over heated political debate. “ Every pot house is supplied with the Sunday papers- doses of weekly poisons . One reader serves for the whole tap room full of open mouthed listeners and at the moment the army is the single plank between us and destruction”. He wrote this on the day that the Prime Minster Percieval was assassinated in 1812.

For the authorities it was a dangerous, unsettling prospect. In 1819 Magistrates issued a threat . “They had learnt that SEDITIOUS PAPERS are taken in, for the purpose of poisoning the minds of the ignorant and unwary” so they reminded the publicans that their business could be closed any time until they stopped circulating such papers. Despite the threat of official sanction alehouses like the Wilkes Head provided a rowdy setting for political debate and would not have been exceptional.

Early women's rights campaigners in Leek 1872

I saw “Lincoln” at the Foxlowe some weeks ago. The film describes the struggles the American President had in getting through the House of Representatives legislation granting civil rights for slaves in the last days of the Civil War. In one incident a speaker argues against the proposition that Negroes should have the vote and mockingly describes an even more absurd suggestion that women should qualify for the franchise. The debating chamber erupts in derisive laughter.

That was in 1865, but only 7 years later the notion that women should exercise their democratic rights was earnestly debated in Leek. In October 1872 at the Temperance Hall, the site of which is occupied by the College, the following motion was passed without dissent at a well attended meeting.

“ That the exclusion of women from voting in the election of Members of Parliament is contrary to the principles of just representation”

Two formidable women addressed the meeting- Lydia Becker and Elizabeth Wolstenholme. These Manchester women can with some justification be described as some of the earliest exponents of women’s rights in the Victorian era. They set the path that was followed by others into the early 20th century.

Lydia Becker was the granddaughter of German immigrants. A scientist by training, Becker in 1868 moved the resolution that women should be granted voting rights on the same terms as men at the first public meeting of the National Society for Women's Suffrage in Manchester. In June 1869, Becker and others were successful in securing the vote for women in council elections. The following year women gained the right to vote and stand for election in the School Boards in England and Wales. She successfully stood for and was elected to the Manchester School Board.

In 1870 Becker founded the Women's Suffrage Journal. Soon afterwards, she began organising speaking tours– a rarity in Britain at the time. At an 1874 speaking event in Manchester organised by Becker, fifteen-year-old Emmeline Pankhurst attended her first public meeting in the name of women's suffrage.

 Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy was one of the most significant pioneers of the British women's emancipation movement; though she is now overlooked. She was central to every campaign Victorian feminists conducted.

A strong advocate of human rights, as the secretary of the Vigilance Association for the Defence of Personal Rights she earned the nickname of the parliamentary watch-dog from Members of Parliament anxious to escape her persistent lobbying.

Elizabeth Wolstenholme, who was pregnant at the time, married a poet from Congleton named Elmy at Kensington Register Office in October 1874. The wedding was a civil ceremony and true to her principles, Elizabeth refused to make a promise of obedience to her husband and to wear a wedding ring or to give up her surname.

She supported the rights of the disenfranchised to exert force in pursuit of the vote and Emmeline Pankhurst lauded her as first among the most determined of suffragettes.

Where Becker and Wolstenholme led , the Pankhurst's, Emily Davison and Leek's own Harriet Kidd followed. Poignantly, Elizabeth Wolstenholme died only days after women over 30 obtained the vote in 1918.