Sir Francis Champneys : address given by Sir Fletcher Shaw, at the centenary Commemoration Service held at St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield, on 25th March, 1948.

  • Shaw, William Fletcher.
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir Francis Champneys : address given by Sir Fletcher Shaw, at the centenary Commemoration Service held at St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield, on 25th March, 1948. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    out these certificates, and even if these had become universal there was no regularized training and no supervision of the work of those in practice. In 1890 Champneys, then 42 years of age and in the full vigour of life, became Chair- man of this board. He quickly realized that the development of these poorly educated, partially trained handy-women into an efficient service could be done only by Government action and, for the next ten years, while at the very height of his busy practice, he set himself the task of persuading the Government to sponsor a Bill which would control the training and examination of those wishful to enter the service, and the supervision of those in practice over the whole country. This suggestion raised much opposition. From the medical profession, who feared that a well-trained body of midwives would reduce medical obstetric practice; from the midwives who were already in practice and feared supervision of their work and com- parison with the new order; and from the laity who would be called upon to provide the money. Champneys, and the men working with _ him, by education and persuasion gradually bore down all opposition and the Bill be- came law in 1902, setting up the Central Midwives Board with charge of a Register of midwives, to which candidates were to be admitted only when the Board was satis- - fied with their training and examination, and from which names were to be erased when the Board was dissatisfied with the standard of practice. To obtain an Act to train, examine and supervise the whole body of midwives was one thing, to administer it and especially to raise the standard of the service so as to attract to it women of a higher social status and education was a much more difficult matter. _ Although the ultimate object was to pro- 315 vide women with better attendance at their confinements and to reduce maternal mor- tality, it was impossible to suspend the physiological activity of parturition until such time as the service was reorganized, and even if this had been possible it would have removed the very teaching material upon which the new service depended. The administration of this Act was in- vested in the new Central Midwives Board, whose first chairman Champneys became. At that period there were, scattered over the whole country, only a small number of hospitals with a trained obstetric staff. To arrange for the training, which for the first time was to be institutional, of a sufficient number of candidates to replace the yearly wastage; to organize examinations which could be gradually raised in standard; to attract to the service candidates with a higher. general education; above all, to supervise the work of those in practice so as to raise the general level of their work without removing so many that the service might break down before the newly-trained candidates could take their place, was a Herculean task. | That these objects were attained and the service gradually raised to its present position without any reduction in the attendance upon parturient women in the transition period was due to the Central Midwives Board and above all to its Chair- man, Sir Francis, who retained this post for 28 years, and through all this long period guided and directed it on practical, com- monsense lines. Under a Chairman with less vision, faith and dynamic force, progress would have been slower and probably halted at a lower level; under one with less patience and less realization of the practical issues the result would have been chaotic. | It is only those who worked with mid- wives practising in the period before the Act
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