Margaret Bethune

Margaret Bethune (2 October 1820 – 20 April 1887), born Margaret Peebles, was a Scottish midwife who kept a detailed register of almost 1300 births she attended in Largo parish in Fife. Her register survives as a rich record for the history of midwifery in Scotland.

Margaret Bethune
Born(1820-10-02)2 October 1820
Peebles, Scotland
Died20 April 1887(1887-04-20) (aged 66)
Largo, Fife, Scotland
NationalityScotland
OccupationMidwife

Early life

Bethune was born in Peebles, the daughter of Margaret Walker, a linen worker, and Andrew Peebles, a weaver of Lundin Mill.[1]

Career

In order to provide for her young children and elderly mother, the widowed Bethune moved from Largo to Edinburgh in 1852, to seek midwifery training.[2][3] She purchased a copy of Alexander Hamilton's Concise Rules for the Conduct of Midwives in the Exercise of their Profession, published in 1793, and gained a ticket to work on the wards at a maternity hospital in Edinburgh.[1][4]

Bethune returned to her family in 1853, and began working as a midwife or "howdie" in her community.[5][6] Bethune kept a casebook, recording 1,296 labours she attended, all within the parish of Largo, with only two maternal deaths registered.[7] She was a respected and able midwife, and she attended to the vast majority of births in her parish for several decades.[8]

Personal life and legacy

In 1844, she married William Bethune, a coal miner. They had two children, Margaret (born 1845) and William (born 1847). She was widowed at age 32, when her husband died in a mining accident. Margaret Bethune died from heart disease in Largo in 1887, aged 66 years.[1] Her casebook is preserved in the National Records of Scotland.[7] Bethune's register was featured in a 2015 exhibit in Edinburgh, marking the centenary of the Midwives Act of 1915.[9][10]

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gollark: It's not bad, it's just bad.
gollark: ```GoalsThese goals may change or be refined over time as I experiment with what is possible with the language. Embeddable - Similiar to Lua - it is meant to be included in another program which may use the virtual machine to extend its own functionality. Statically typed - The language uses a Hindley-Milner based type system with some extensions, allowing simple and general type inference. Tiny - By being tiny, the language is easy to learn and has a small implementation footprint. Strict - Strict languages are usually easier to reason about, especially considering that it is what most people are accustomed to. For cases where laziness is desired, an explict type is provided. Modular - The library is split into parser, typechecker, and virtual machine + compiler. Each of these components can be use independently of each other, allowing applications to pick and choose exactly what they need.```
gollark: That's rude.
gollark: ```elmlet factorial n : Int -> Int = if n < 2 then 1 else n * factorial (n - 1)factorial 10```A factorial example from the docs.

References
  1. Mortimer, Barbara E. "Bethune [née Peebles], Margaret (1820–1887), midwife". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/61632. Retrieved 11 May 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. "Safe Delivery: A History of Scottish Midwives". National Records of Scotland. 31 May 2013. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  3. Borsay, Anne; Hunter, Billie (15 May 2012). Nursing and Midwifery in Britain Since 1700. Macmillan International Higher Education. ISBN 978-1-137-29416-6.
  4. Rafferty, Ann Marie; Robinson, Jane (4 August 2005). Nursing History and the Politics of Welfare. Routledge. pp. 146, note 27. ISBN 978-1-134-77354-1.
  5. "Exhibition to celebrate centenary of new standards for midwives". The Courier. 12 October 2015. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  6. Pauline Cairns Speitel, "Scots Word of the Week: Howdie" Scots Language Centre.
  7. Margaret Bethune, register of deliveries (1853-1887), in the National Records of Scotland.
  8. Ewan, Elizabeth L.; Innes, Sue; Reynolds, Sian; Pipes, Rose (27 June 2007). Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. Edinburgh University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7486-2660-1.
  9. Ford, Steve (12 October 2015). "Scottish midwives celebrated in new records exhibition". Nursing Times. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  10. Smith, Gillian (2015). "Centenary Celebrations". Midwives. 18: 55 – via ProQuest.
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