Calling for memories of midwives

25 Apr 2023 ARCHIVED (over 3 months old) - view latest news

Researchers are calling for more information about a maternity home where the lives of hundreds of residents of Northumberland began.

As part of a project looking at maternity care in the county, investigators are looking at the Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington.

And, while plenty is known about Mona Taylor herself, the Northumberland Archives team is looking for memories of the maternity home from people who worked there, gave birth or were born there.

Councillor Jeff Watson, Cabinet Member for Culture, Heritage and Libraries, said: “It is an interesting topic, as the success of a certain TV show would suggest!

“We’d like information and particularly photographs of the maternity home, which operated from the 1940s to the 1960s as even though the home existed in living memory there isn’t a lot of information about it or the care provided.

“Times were very different then. Giving birth today is another experience altogether - there were many now debunked ideas and beliefs. Also, thankfully now a thing of the past, the stigma around ‘unmarried’ mothers was strong.

“We’d like to know how the new mums were treated medically and from a pastoral care point of view - and look forward to hopefully hearing more happy memories than horror stories.”

Mona Taylor was born Maria Mona Waldie Griffith in 1852. She married Thomas Taylor a mine owner whose business interests were in County Durham in 1880. They had two sons Hugh and Thomas and two daughters Margery and Violet.

In 1900 Thomas inherited Chipchase Castle in Northumberland where their descendants still live. 

She was a fierce supporter of the women’s suffrage movement, organising meetings and conferences in the North East spending 30 years campaigning for equal voting rights for women.

Mona also became a vocal anti-war campaigner after losing her elder son Hugh in the 1914-18 War. By the time she died in 1936 universal suffrage had been introduced - the fulfilment of her life’s work campaigning for Women’s Rights. 

When her husband died in 1942 the Woodhouse Homes in Stannington were renamed The Thomas Taylor Homes in recognition of his work for the people of Northumberland and the neighbouring maternity home was named after Mona. 

The project is supported by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Bright Charity and the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust.

Information can be passed on via the website www.northumberland archives.com
By phone 01670 624358 or email: archives@northumberland.gov.uk