200-year-old maternity register auctioned for £4.9k

A handwritten maternity register recording births in rural Oxfordshire has sold for £4,900 at auction against an estimate of £200-£400.

The register, dating from 1820 to 1830, documents childbirth and the medical care available to rural communities, offering a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people in the early 19th century,

It records the names and addresses of patients in villages including Hook Norton, Epwell, Sibford Gower, Hornton and Shenington.

It was part of a collection of documents from a family of doctors, discovered in a Dorset loft during a house clearance, which sold for a total of £10,600.

Rare Book Auctions, which held the auction, said entries in the maternity register detail the date and time of each birth, whether the mother was a new or returning patient, how many children she had previously had and the fee charged for the visit.

In one account of a labour lasting 44 hours, the writer said: "The pains appeared excruciating, and I think may properly be termed (if any may) thundering labour pains."

Another entry records a woman saying: "You little toad, you caused all this."

Jim Spencer, director of Rare Book Auctions, said: "It was a great result for a unique piece of history documented by a medical family at the heart of it.

"One got a real sense of this doctor setting out at night, through snow, visiting these candlelit homes where expectant mothers faced the trials of childbirth without modern medicine.

"It was an unpublished primary resource for historians, which just felt so important.

"These were not wealthy private patients whose correspondence and portraits were preserved by their families, but ordinary people – rural labourers, workhouse inmates, mothers, children and those suffering from mental illness – recorded because they had come into contact with their doctor."

The archive also included medical books and lecture notes annotated by the doctor.

These had been expected to sell for £80-£160 but sold for £2,100 in the online auction, which ended on Wednesday.

Jim Spencer added: "It was an incredible find to have been unearthed from a routine house clearance and a reminder to all to consider the potential worth of an item before it is consigned to the rubbish bin or tip."