Lucy Baldwin, Countess Baldwin of Bewdley (; 19 June 1869 – 17 June 1945) was an English writer and activist for
maternal health
Maternal health is the health of people during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. In most cases, maternal health encompasses the health care dimensions of family planning, Pre-conception counseling, preconception, Prenatal care, pr ...
. From 1892 until her death in 1945, she was the wife of
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime ministe ...
, three-time
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister Advice (constitutional law), advises the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, sovereign on the exercise of much of the Royal prerogative ...
. She was invested as a
Dame of Grace, Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and a
Dame Grand Cross, Order of the British Empire, and styled as Countess Baldwin of Bewdley on 8 June 1937.
Family
She was born Lucy Ridsdale in
Bayswater
Bayswater is an area in the City of Westminster in West London. It is a built-up district with a population density of 17,500 per square kilometre, and is located between Kensington Gardens to the south, Paddington to the north-east, and ...
, London, the oldest daughter of Edward Lucas Jenks and Esther Lucy Ridsdale (''née'' Thacker).
Known as "Cissie", she grew up with her sister and three brothers in the village of
Rottingdean
Rottingdean is a village in the city of Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of England. It borders the villages of Saltdean, Ovingdean and Woodingdean, and has a historic centre, often the subject of picture postcards.
Name
The name Rotting ...
, on the
Sussex
Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...
coast. Her brother
Aurelian
Aurelian (; ; 9 September ) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 270 to 275 AD during the Crisis of the Third Century. As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited the Roman Empire after it had nearly disinte ...
became a Member of Parliament for
Brighton
Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...
.
She married
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime ministe ...
on 12 September 1892 in Rottingdean. Among the attendees were Stanley's aunt Alice and her son,
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
.
The couple had seven children:
*Unnamed son (stillborn January 1894)
*Lady Diana Lucy (born 8 April 1895 – 1982), married Capt Sir Richard Gordon Munro (divorced 1934) and Capt
George Durant Kemp-Welch
*Lady Leonora Stanley (10 July 1896 – 1989), married Sir
Arthur Howard
Arthur Howard (born Arthur John Steiner; 18 January 1910 – 18 June 1995) was an English stage, film and television actor.
Life and career
Born in Camberwell, London, Howard was the younger son of Lilian (née Blumberg) and Ferdinand "Frank" ...
*Lady Pamela Margaret (16 September 1897 – 14 August 1976), married Sir Herbert Huntington-Whiteley, 2nd Baronet
*Major
Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (1 March 1899 – 10 August 1958)
*Lady Esther Louisa Baldwin (16 March 1902 – 1981)
*
Arthur Windham Baldwin, 3rd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (22 March 1904 – 5 July 1976), married Sarah MacMurray James
Interests and activities
As a girl, she was a member of the
White Heather Club,
the first women's cricket club, founded in 1887 at
Nun Appleton Hall near
Appleton Roebuck
Appleton Roebuck is a village and civil parish in the county of North Yorkshire, England. The village is about south-west of York. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Holme Green and Nun Appleton, and covers an area of around . The parish ...
, Yorkshire. It was on the field where she met her future husband.
Apart from her home-making and raising of six children, she was also a formidable personality in her own right. She was very active and sociable, quite different from her husband in nature. Unlike her husband, she preferred the city life of London to the country. Their daughter Margaret Huntington-Whiteley said, "two people could not have been more unlike", but that "should they ever differ, it was always done quietly and politely." They shared the same deep
Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
faith and moral outlook, and she was very supportive and encouraging of her husband. She often travelled with her husband during his time as prime minister, and she was an excellent speaker who found her own voice in politics.
She was involved in the
Young Women's Christian Association
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swit ...
and other charitable bodies for women, especially those concerned to improve maternity care, after having herself suffered difficult pregnancies and the loss of her first child. In 1928, she became vice-chairman of the newly established
National Birthday Trust Fund to address the high incidence of maternal mortality. Its original aims were to support
maternity hospital
A maternity hospital specializes in caring for women during pregnancy and childbirth. It also provides care for newborn infants, and may act as a centre for clinical training in midwifery and obstetrics. Formerly known as lying-in hospitals, most ...
s and contribute to the development of midwifery practice. In 1929, she helped found the Anæsthetics Appeal Fund with speeches, broadcasts and fund-raising. She was particularly concerned with reducing the pain of childbirth, and lobbied for new funds to make anaesthesia affordable for low-income women. Her work contributed to the passage of the
Midwives Act 1936.
(See
Royal College of Midwives
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is a British midwives organisation founded in 1881 by Louisa Hubbard and Zepherina Smith. It has existed under its present name since 1947 and is the United Kingdom's only trade union or professional organisati ...
.)
Death

She died suddenly of a heart attack in 1945 at
Astley Hall, their country home in
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...
. She was cremated and her ashes were interred, with those of her husband, after his death in 1947 in the nave of
Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin, is a Church of England cathedral in Worcester, England, Worcester, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Worcester and is the Mother Church# ...
.
Legacy
In honour of her work for maternity care, philanthropist and cricket enthusiast
Julien Cahn
Sir Julien Cahn, 1st Baronet (21 October 1882 – 26 September 1944) was a British businessman, philanthropist and cricket enthusiast.
Early life and family
Cahn was born in Cardiff in 1882 to parents of German Jewish descent. His father, Alber ...
donated funds to build the Lucy Baldwin Maternity Hospital in
Stourport-on-Severn
Stourport-on-Severn, often shortened to Stourport, is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest (district), Wyre Forest District of North Worcestershire, England, 4 miles to the south of Kidderminster and downstream on the River Severn from Be ...
, Worcestershire.
It was commemorated by the prime minister on 16 April 1929, with a bronze dedication plaque over the main entrance reading . It expanded beyond maternity and became known as the Lucy Baldwin Hospital until its closure in 2006.
In the 1960s, a new device that administered a combination of
Nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or factitious air, among others, is a chemical compound, an Nitrogen oxide, oxide of nitrogen with the Chemical formula, formula . At room te ...
and
oxygen
Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...
for
obstetrics
Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a su ...
, was named the Lucy Baldwin Apparatus For Obstetric
Analgesia
Pain management is an aspect of medicine and health care involving relief of pain (pain relief, analgesia, pain control) in various dimensions, from acute and simple to chronic and challenging. Most physicians and other health professionals ...
.
Baldwin also wrote valuable notes of two major events in politics, the fall of the
Lloyd George ministry
Liberal David Lloyd George formed a coalition government in the United Kingdom in December 1916, and was appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by King George V. It replaced the earlier wartime coalition under H. H. Asquith, which had ...
and the
Abdication Crisis
In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was in the process of divorcing her second.
T ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin of Bewdley, Lucy Baldwin, Countess
1869 births
1945 deaths
20th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English women writers
Lucy
Lucy is an English language, English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings ar ...
British countesses
Burials at Worcester Cathedral
Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
Dames of Grace of the Order of St John
English health activists
English non-fiction writers
People from Bayswater
Spouses of prime ministers of the United Kingdom
Wives of knights
Writers from the City of Westminster
Writers from Sussex