Central Midwives Board , Register of Cases 1906-1927

Midwife ; Margaret Davies, Coffee Tavern, 34 Gors Street, Cwmgors, Glamorgan.

Listing of names compiled by Gareth Hicks Sept 2000.

As much of the information contained in the Register is of a personal nature it is only the Name and Address of the mother and Date of Birth that have been extracted for this name listing. Any name after the surname is likely the husband's or his wife's christian name, NOT that of the child. The entries are as listed and are generally in date order [with exceptions] and the village is Cwmgors[e] unless stated otherwise. GCG is the abbreviation for Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen.
An * indicates my own family, the mother giving birth being the daughter in law of the midwife.

The register and midwife's certificate/licence have been lodged with W Glamorgan Archives [ Nov 2000].

• Contents of Register
• Names
• Margaret Davies, the person

Names

Any numbers shown by themselves are merely location marks

Entries are in date order.

Margaret Davies, the person

Margaret Davies, midwife of Cwmgors, Glamorgan

By Gareth Hicks

Margaret Davies is one of my maternal great grandmothers, she became the local midwife in the village of Cwmgors, Llangiwg parish, Glamorgan.
I had in my possession her midwife's Register of Cases and Midwife's Certificate and in the process of depositing these with West Glamorgan Archives I thought it would be a suitable touch if a brief story of her life, as I know it, accompanied the documents. This is it below, together with some comments about the Register and midwifery.

Margaret was born at Velindre, Llansadwrn parish, Carmarthenshire on 5th May 1854, one of 10 children of John and Susannah Davies. I have traced John's line back to the 1770s in Cynwyl Gaeo, and Susannah's back to the 1790s in Llansadwrn.

Apart from her birth entry, my first sighting of Margaret is on the 1861 census at Joining House, Felindre Mill, Llansadwrn---John DAVIES, 40, road lab,[Cayo], Susannah 38, Eliza 11, Margaret 8, Timothy 3, Mary 5[ all born Llansadwrn].

And it was probably her on the 1871 census at Cwmeilath, Llansadwrn, with an Edwards family, she was a general servant, age 19.

I don't know the exact circumstances of her leaving Llansadwrn for Glamorgan but family lore has it that she was a servant at Nant-y-gasseg farm, Cwmgors before she married John Davies on 29 May 1880 at St Peter's Church, Llanguicke, Glamorgan. John, originally from Llandeilo fawr, was a manservant at Cwrt y Bariwns farm, on nearby Gwrhyd mountain.

The 1881 census finds them at Pencaergarreg, Llangiwg, with son William aged 1.

William was born at Glynceirch, Llandeilo on 9 June 1880 [!] but the certificate shows his father as William Davies, farm labourer, not John. Naturally I queried this with the Registrar, and have seen the actual entry which does indeed say William. The informant was David Davies, occupier of Glynceirch, who presumably misunderstood the question re the father, or is there another explanation ?? This David Davies was probably the widower of Eliza, Margaret's aunt.

The 1891 census shows them at [Pt of] Llwynrhidiau, Cwmgors--John Davies 31 coal miner, Margaret 35, wife, William 10, son, scholar, David John ISAAC 5, scholar, Mary Lewis 15, visitor, William Davies 65, father, widower, labourer,[Llansawel], all Welsh speaking.
From papers held it is clear that the 1891 house was either 34 or 38 Gors St., Cwmgors.

The extended family eventually lived in three terrace houses on this site which became known locally as "Tirbach Terrace", after the farm called Tirbach, Llandeilo fawr that Margaret's husband John was born in. And indeed the family became known as "the Tirbachs" to distinguish them from the many other Davieses in the village.

Margaret and John only had the one child, William, and her ten grandchildren mostly became coal miners, with a farmer thrown in. I wonder what she thought of her grandson William [Wil Sgili] playing rugby for his country in 1931/32 ?
I know that the photograph of him being presented to the Prince of Wales had pride of place on the 'gegin' [kitchen] wall at 34 Gors St ever since I can remember.

Margaret ran a 'Coffee Tavern' in the front parlour at 34 Gors St for some time, certainly c 1910, and let the same room to Lloyds Bank later on.

She also took in 'strays'...local orphans, usually older children.

And put up visiting preachers to Tabernacle for the weekend.

I think she must have been an unusual woman in many ways, another family story has her walking over the mountains from Cwmgors to Maesteg, all of 15 miles as the crow flies, knitting a shawl on the way, and bringing back a baby in it to look after; this is assumed to be the David John Isaac who is shown with the family on the 1891 census. Margaret brought him up, he was her sister Anne's son.

The family were members of Tabernacle Independent Chapel Cwmgors, where Margaret's husband John Davies was a deacon in his time.

Margaret is mentioned as the "Chwaer hynaf yr Eglwys" [Elder sister of the church] at a presentation at Tabernacle in 1938.["Annibynwyr Gwaun-cae-gurwen " L Hughes].

The midwife's Register of Cases covers the period Feb 1906 to Sept 1927 and, allowing for numbering errors, it has entries for 475 babies delivered in Cwmgors, and sometimes in the next door village of Gwaun-cae-gurwen. This includes my own mother amongst seven of the ten children of Margaret's daughter in law.

I have nothing to compare these figures with but an analysis of the entries shows that one mother died, 10 days after giving birth , 2 babies were still born, and 21 babies died at birth. Five of the latter were in 1910 which must have been a very distressing year for Margaret.

I recently had an email from someone who had looked at the index, who told me "she actually delivered my mother in law at ... farm on ...1915. My mother in law has just been here and was overwhelmed to read the entry. What's more your g grand mother's brother was fighting in Louvaine in France at the time and your g grandmother persuaded my mother in law's mother to name her baby after the place -- and she became Esther Louvaine.

That seems to also explain why Margaret's own grand daughter was named Susanah Mary Alsace Lorraine in 1914 !

The columns in the Register that were actually used are ; Name and address; No. of previous Labours and Miscarriages; Age; Date and hour of Midwife's arrival ; Date and hour of Birth ; Presentation ; Duration of 1st, 2nd, 3rd Stage of Labour[not completed after 1910] ; Sex of Infant.Born Living or Dead ; Full time or Premature No.of Months ; If Doctor called, Name of Doctor ; Date of Midwife's last Visit ; Condition of Mother then ; Condition of Child then ; Remarks.

To give an idea of the required "tools of the trade", on an inside front page of the Register is written "Lysol " and "Jeyes' Fluid" and on the back inside cover "The Medical Supply, 4 Newport Rd, Cardiff" and "Enema Syringe & glass vaginal nozzle-6/-". Deleted is "Midwives red lined thermometer 1/-, by post 1/1."

We also have Margaret's certificate, number 13008, dated January 26 1905 issued by the Central Midwives Board. This says that " Margaret Davies is entitled by law to practice as a Midwife in accordance with the provisions of the Midwives Act, 1902...by virtue of having been in bona fide practice as a Midwife for one year prior to the 31 July 1902."

Although I have no information as to what training Margaret herself received, if any, I understand that there was training of midwives which started formally in the late 1860s; before that it was `on the job` training .

It was the 1902 Act that recognised the training and licensed midwives, but it was still possible to obtain a licence if you could show `experience`, until formal registration of midwives started around 1924.

The Boards of Guardians in different Unions throughout the land had different standards which didn't always require even a trained midwife to be employed for the needy as the Union doctor was generally responsible for their care. To keep the costs down for the Union it was often the case that the doctor would pay for the midwife or whoever he trusted out of his midwifery fee, usually about 10 shillings of which the midwife took half. I don't know what the local practice was in Cwmgors.

Margaret was known as Mamgu White in the family, reflecting the colour of her hair and to distinguish her from the other mamgu in the house, Sarah, her daughter in law.

Margaret had been widowed in 1922, lost her son in 1930 and she died herself aged 85 on 23 September 1939.

That was before I was born but I am fortunate in having two large photographs of her hanging on my walls, a quite severe looking 'Victorian matriarch', I wouldn't want to have crossed her too often !

It seems extraordinary to me that she was aged 52 when the Register commences and aged 73 when it ends.

She is buried in the family plot at Hen Garmel, Gwaun-cae-gurwen, the headstone inscription appears particularly apt ;

"Ar hyn a allodd hon, hi ai gwnaeth ", [Whatever this one could do, that she did].

Gareth Hicks, November 2000

My Davies homepage is on http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~tirbach/family/tirbach.html