The Belfast Lying-In Hospital
Belfast’s Lying-In Hospital opened in 1793 as The Humane Female Society for the Relief of Lying-In Women, a small hospital to assist poor women in childbirth. This hospital was very unusual across Ireland and Britain. Most women across Ireland did not have access to medical services when it came to pregnancy and childbirth and for the majority, midwives were the only means of help. These midwives were self-taught and sometimes known as handywomen. In Dublin, Dr Bartholomew Mosse opened the first hospital of its kind in the British Isles in 1745, specifically for women in childbirth. He then expanded his venture in 1757, including a number of noblemen and gentlemen as governors of his new hospital, the Rotunda.
However, Belfast’s Lying-In Hospital was not started by a physician nor was it connected to a general hospital. Instead, Belfast’s was set up and managed by a committee of ladies.
The Hospital started out in a house in Donegall Street in 1794 with only 6 beds. The managing committee, all married women, visited the hospital on rotation. They emphasised the importance of cleanliness and had high hygiene standards, consistently ensuring that the Hospital had adequate supplies of soap, clean linens and clean clothes for mothers and babies. They made all the decisions connected to the Hospital but there were limits to what they could achieve in nineteenth-century society.
Donegall Street
By 1828 the Hospital was seeing around 50 patients a year and the house was too small so the committee had to engage men to try to find a more appropriate location. These men were doctors who had attended the Hospital for particularly difficult births, members of the clergy and the husbands of the women on the committee. The same year, the ladies considered it time to hire a midwife to permanently reside in the Hospital, but again the arrangements had to be made through one of the doctors.
The women were able to secure some land owned by the Belfast Charitable Society on Clifton Street and build their new purpose-built Hospital in 1830. With the opening of the new building came a tightening of regulations. The minute books record in March 1832: “Resolved that no person from this day be allowed admittance into the Hospital without a line from some respectable person, stating that they are married women.” Exactly who counted as a “respectable person” is not clear.
Belfast Lying-In Hospital, Clifton Street
In the 1850s, under pressure from local physicians, the ladies allowed medical students to attend the Hospital to gain experience. This started a long-standing dispute with the Charitable Society over whether the Hospital was truly being only used for philanthropic purposes. After expanding in 1862, the Hospital had to move to larger premises on Townsend Street in 1904. At this point, the phrase “lying-in” was no longer widely used for women in childbirth, so the hospital was renamed the Maternity Hospital. In 1933, it moved again and was renamed the Royal Maternity Hospital.
Maternity Hospital, Townsend Street
