This picture is simply called The Nativity, Flemish School, and is in the Walker Art Gallery. It interests me because the poor baby Jesus is totally naked, thankfully a couple of animals, a cow and a donkey, are breathing on Him. And what about this one? Mary looks totally shocked at the arrival of her infant who has not got a stitch of clothing, not even any hay in the manger. This painting is called The Nativity at Night and is by Geertgen tot Sint Jans [1460 - 1490] and is in the National Gallery. The Adoration of the Magi by Hugo van der Goes [1440 - 1482] at the Victoria Art Gallery is another naked babe (although Mary is unwrapping Him) being closely inspected by the Wise Men. These are very early paintings, and later depictions of the Nativity do have the baby with some clothes. As you know I love looking at pictures on the ArtUk website. This picture is called The Nativity and it is from the studio of Lucas Cranach the elder [1472 - 1553] held by the National Trust at Knightshayes Court. Not only a naked Jesus but some naked angels as well. Fortunately it is fothering time and it looks like some sheaves are being brought for the animals [which look identical breed as the animals in the first picture]. I can only conclude that these fifteenth century depictions of the Holy Infant are to impress upon the viewer the humanity of this Divine being, rather than the poverty of Joseph and Mary. Mary was far from home, not in her own village, and very shortly was to flee as a refugee to Egypt to escape Herod's soldiers. So how did she cope? And how have countless other newly delivered mothers coped? Sometimes there are distressing stories of pregnant women on board these dreadful rubber boats crossing oceans ... I shudder to think. So how did Mary manage? she would need clothes too. Did she have her suitcase packed ready to go to Bethlehem? Some babies can arrive quite unexpectedly. Some mothers are terribly poor. I came across this report many, many years ago in the British Library in London. It was shocking. It was all to do with the price of lead and the reduced wages paid to miners which had created a huge number of paupers who could not be supported. A petition from Reeth was signed by nearly 3,000 names and was 33 feet long! It gave the number of paupers in each township of Grinton parish - in Grinton 160; Melbecks 621; Muker 400; Arkengarthdale 332; Marrick 207. The parish could only support the poor by raising the rates on land, and many miners preferred to go hungry than take Parish Relief. Subscriptions for a relief fund were gathered in. The most shocking part of the report was about a midwife called Susannah Buxton. Susannah was the wife of Thomas Buxton a miner. I think this is the family - 1794 6 November Thomas and Susannah Buxton had a son Thomas baptised at the non-conformist chapel. Thomas swore an affidavit which was presented to the report in 1818 - that his wife Susannah was a midwife and in the course of her duty she attended the wife of Christopher Metcalfe in Gunnerside. The wife was in labour with her sixth child and when it was born they had nothing to wrap the infant in, and that there was nothing upon the bed to cover the poor woman or the child, not even a blanket or a sheet upon the bed and that the bed was filled with chaff. Susannah was obliged to send to her own house for the blankets off her own bed to cover the poor woman or she would have died. The rest of the children in the house had no clothes but only clouts (rags) and that they had nothing whatever in the house but a little of the coarsest of bread made out of oatmeal - no milk, no beer or any other particle of food. Thomas Buxton visited the family again before he set off to London to give his report about the condition of miners and Mrs Metcalfe told him she "had got through her month as by a miracle of God, having been supported by nothing but a little oat meal and water during that time". Christopher Metcalfe did have a little bit of land as well as being a miner but had been obliged to sell his cow before winter so that he could pay the poor rates, and could not claim parish relief because he had a little bit of land! He was a miner at Surrender. Thomas Buxton gave many other such examples of dire need. But poor Mrs Metcalfe. Is this the family in 1841? Lodge Green. James Metcalfe born 1791 Lead Miner Christopher Metcalfe 1785 Lead Miner Mary Metcalfe 1784 Margaret Metcalfe 1816 John Metcalfe 1819 Lead Miner Thomas Metcalfe 1821 Christopher Metcalfe 1826 Lead Miner Leonard Metcalfe 1827 Lead Miner. There were so many Metcalfes I can't be sure, and Mrs Metcalfe was on her sixth pregnancy by New Year 1818. But all this does raise questions about looking after mothers as well as new infants and providing clothes for them. Bequests left in wills for cloathing must have been appreciated. This is a snippet from the will of Barbara Skaife of East Witton, 1715. She was a spinster and was very generous in her bequests setting up apprenticeships and also - Item I give and bequeath 20 shilllings per annum for ever to be secured by my executor out of my effects for the yearly cloathing of the most Indigent Poor People in the Township of East Witton at the discretion of my said Executor during his natural life & at the discretion of the Overseers of the Poor of East Witton after the death of my said Executor. Most parishes had local charities, the benefactors names inscribed on a Benefaction Board on the wall of the church, who left money for the poor. Not many specified that it as for the Lying In of new mothers, but there were costs. So when poor Mary Preston found herself in Bainbridge in Wensleydale, about to give birth, having come over the tops from Wharfedale in 1765, the costs of delivering her of her female bastard child and her lying in was laid at the door of the Bainbridge Overseer of the Poor, John Wetherald. On the 12th of August she was apprehended for wandering and begging in Bainbridge and the very same day delivered of her baby. She was allowed to remain there until the 9th of September when she was carted off to give an account of herself before two magistrates and then committed to Richmond House of Correction. All this cost Bainbridge £3 2s 9d and a halfpenny. In Thirsk in 1774 Jane Atkinson, another wandering beggar, was delivered of a child and then stayed for 31 days after her delivery, which cost £1 18s 9d. Mr Whytehead was paid for delivering the child and for medicines 1 guinea. Mrs Peat the midwife was paid for 5 days attendance 6s. And sadly the accounts end with Paid for coffin and burying the child 2s. What facilities were available for pregnant ladies other than the local midwife? The Wellcome Collection has some information and this picture - The British Lying-in Hospital, Holborn: the facade and an allegorical scene of charity. Engraving by J.S. Miller after himself. I noted that it was only available to MARRIED women. This hospital was founded in 1749 by some of the Governors of the Middlesex Hospital. Their first property was in Brownlow Street in London which they equipped with twenty beds. There were rules. A woman could only attend if she had been nominated by a subscriber or produced a letter of recommendation, and had to have proof of her marriage. Here is the equivalent of giving birth in a layby on your way to hospital! Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal 27 July 1754 Yesterday a poor Woman with Child, being carried in a coach by Charing Cross in order to go to the Lying In Hospital, Brownlow Street, she was taken in Labour and a Man-Midwife in that neighbourhood being luckily at home, she was deliver’d in the coach and she and the child sent to the Hospital. Oh dear! The idea spread. This is from the Newcastle Courant 6 September 1760. The idea took a hold and by the 18th October 1760 there was a committee and by November a meeting for all the subscribers. By December it was open. The Newcastle Courant 6 December 1760. Notice is hereby given that the House is now open for the Admission of pregnant women; and a committee will sit on every Wednesday: And each woman desiring to be received into the Hospital must produce a Letter of recommendation to the Committee from a benefactor of twenty guineas, a subscriber of two guineas per Annum, or a joint letter from two annual subscribers of one guinea each; and also must produce a Certificate of their Marriage and lawful settlement, or a full Affidavit of such marriage and lawful settlement, to the satisfaction of the Committee. So this arrangement was restricted to married women with good connections. What about the poor or the single mother? I was quite cheered to spy this at the back of Easingwold Parish Church. It was quite difficult to photograph, the Parish Church only being open when there is a service, and the box between lots of clutter and a fire extinguisher. But I like to think of the Goodwives of Easingwold teaching their daughters plain sewing and making up shifts and other necessary linen underclothes. This little booklet by Joan Grundy explains that through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries midwives had to have a licence issued by the Church of England. They did not have to show proof of any training, but they did have to swear an oath and make a long list of promises which included not using any witchcraft, sorcery or magic charms; they had not to allow any priest to baptise a child other than an Anglican one; never perform an abortion, and to bury any stillborn in a decent manner. Joan Grundy, having studied the lists of licences thinks that there were many, many more women who were local midwives than ever obtained a licence. They did not always get there in time. It was shocking indeed to read a Coroner's Report on the death of a new born who only lived a quarter of an hour because there was no midwife. It was March 1867 in Grinton and Sarah Alderson, widow, had gone into labour in the small hours of the morning. She called up Isabella Nelson, and told her to go for Betty White (who was a widow in Grinton) and Mary Wood, wife of the joiner. Betty White would not come, Mary said that she would come but never did, so Isabella called for someone else to fetch Doctor Smith. By the time Isabella got back to Sarah Alderson the baby had been born but she did not know what to do, she went again for Mrs Wood but her husband said she would not come. Isabella then went for a Mrs Bradwick (or Bradbury), returned to Sarah and thought the baby was dead. She then went back to Mrs B again who told her to go to fetch Mary D, Isabella did but she would not come either. Eventually Mrs B and Mrs Wood did go but the baby was dead. Verdict "Natural causes during childbirth". Tragic for Sarah, and you wonder if being a widow and pregnant she was a social outcast in the tiny village of Grinton. We will never know. So I was heartened to find Elizabeth Walker, midwife in the 1841 census in the house of John Stott in Gammersgill in Coverdale. Also in the house is a Male Child 1 day old. However, all was not as it seems. The Baptism Register for Horsehouse records that this infant was baptised Peter son of Ann Stott 25th July 1841, so he was a grandchild of John the head of the household, but nevertheless there was midwife Elizabeth looking after the newly delivered mother. I wonder if she delivered my Coverdale ancestors too. All of us owe our first breath to the experience of such capable women. The heavenly babe you there shall find To human view displayed, All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands And in a manger laid [Nahum Tate 1652 - 1715] So here is Mary swaddling her baby and laying Him in the manger. This is part of a triptych by Bernard Daddi [circa 1280 - 1348] and is in The Wallace Collection. Christmas is all about the Baby, but don't forget to look after the mother.
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AuthorThis is where you can share creativity with me. I believe that everyone has something creative within them, and it is a joy to find ways of being creative. Blogging is NEW to me, so here goes ..... Archives
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