A BIT OF THE MARVELLOUS, EXETER, 1841

"We are told that there is now living in Bartholomew Street, in this city, an old midwife, upwards of ninety years of age, who has actually assisted at the birth of eleven thousand children.   Our informant says that she has carefully registered the names of the mothers."  

This brief report in The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette was not believed by its 'cotemporaries' and so the following week The Gazette felt obliged to inform its readership:

"In these days of refined taste, we can scarcely venture upon a bit of the marvellous, however true, without chapter and verse being demanded for our authority; and as it is our wish to be kind and obliging to our cotemporaries,....we beg to inform them that the midwife alluded to is Mts. Elizabeth Hole, now residing in Bartholomew street, who is still upon the books of that excellent institution, the Exeter Lying-in Charity, as the senior Obstetric,  and our medical informant tells us that he has heard the old lady say that seven or eight years since, in the month of January, she attended 39 women, who gave birth to 40 children; and that, on one occasion, in 14 hours she assisted at 8 births!

"We cannot vouch for the truth of these statements , but the incredulous now have the means of inquiring for themselves; and we further understand that Mrs Hole does nor consider her case to be at all marvellous, for she says that her predecessor in the Lying-in-Charity (Mrs. Weekes) beat her by odds, having assisted at 12,633 births; and that the first and the last attended her funeral - the one being an old man upwards of 60 and the other an infant carried in arms.

"Mrs Hole is not of that advanced age mentioned in our last, but is between eighty and ninety years of age." 

*

 Mrs. Elizabeth Hole and Mrs. Weekes clearly had very long working lives.  It would seem that Mrs. Weekes' midwifery had lasted more than 60 years and that she was still working until shortly before her death. The 'marvellous' statistics could well be true.   

Many another poor old Exonian must have worked literally until she or he dropped. 

 I have the feeling Mrs. Hole was no Sairey Gamp.  She sounds very efficient, delivering babies day and night, no doubt, and keeping a record of the thousands of mothers she had assisted.

Cotemporary looks like a typographical error but it is a good dictionary word.

Source The Exeter and Plymouth Gazetter, 2nd and 9th January, 1841