Help Our Mothers: Lucy Baldwin's Campaign

For the 9th annual Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art International Women's Day lecture, Dr Susan Williams will speak about Lady Lucy Baldwin's campaign to improve women's care during childbirth.

In 1928, almost one in 200 women in Britain lost their lives through childbirth. Lucy Baldwin regarded this rate of death as an unacceptable evil and made full use of her position as the Prime Minister's wife to improve maternal welfare. She challenged the widespread prejudice against pain relief in labour and led a national campaign to make anaesthesia available to all women, regardless of income.

In 1936 Lucy Baldwin saw the culmination of a campaign in which she took a leading role - the passing of legislation to create a national service of midwives. This lecture tells the remarkable story of her crusade for mothers and of its impact on policy and public opinion.

Dr Susan Williams is a senior research fellow in the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her many books of history include Ladies of Influence, which features Lucy Baldwin; Colour Bar, the story of Botswana's independence from Britain, which became the major film 'A United Kingdom'; Who Killed Hammarskjöld?; and White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa (2021).

Dr Williams will deliver her lecture to a small group of Parliamentary passholders at Westminster and you are invited to join online as part of a much wider audience. The event lasts for 75 minutes in total, and you can ask questions via the chat function. These will be put to Dr Williams at the end.