Wikipedia

Mary Kirkpatrick

Mary Kirkpatrick (née Magee; November c. 1863–16 February 1943) was a pioneer of women's healthcare and the first trained midwife on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. She established the first private maternity hospital, eventually establishing three more. Kirkpatrick worked with and mentored many of the midwives and nurses who followed her to the coast.[1][2]

Nurse Mary Kirkpatrick, 1862-1943, with Casement baby, c.1903-1908, AMN807, Macleay River Historical Society, Angus McNeil Collection.
Hollywood Private Hospital, Marsh Street Kempsey, AMN0016419, courtesy of Macleay River Historical Society.

She was born to a poulterer and his wife in Bridge End, Ballymacarrett, East Belfast.[3][4][5][6]

Midwife edit

At the age of twenty, Kirkpatrick immigrated to New South Wales with her husband, Hugh Kirkpatrick, and their 11-month-old David in 1884.[7] After separating from Hugh in the late 1890s, Kirkpatrick became a midwife working in Armidale, an inland town.

In the 1900s, with David and another son, George, she moved to the Mid North Coast of New South Wales to the Macleay Valley, where she would work and live for the rest of her life.[6] Kirkpatrick would eventually become one of the most well-known midwives in the Macleay Valley, caring for the health of women and babies for more than 30 years. She trained in midwifery in 1902 at the Home Training and Lying in Hospital in Sydney under the renowned midwife and lecturer Louisa Ardill and her staff.

She was the first trained midwife in Kempsey and her first private hospital was established in River Street, West Kempsey, in 1904. Her next private maternity was named The Poplars, also in River Street. She moved to Marsh Street, West Kempsey to open Hollywood, her third private maternity hospital. She advertised Hollywood in 1913. She resigned from Hollywood in 1915 with Martha Norman taking over its management.[8] Her youngest son George was killed during the German attack on Lagincourt, France in April 1917[9] and Mary did not return to midwifery until 1922. In the intervening years, she turned to raising funds for the "boys coming home". She worked with the Red Cross and took part in many community events. Her grief, like that of many other mothers, drove her to support the war effort, but in particular, the wounded men who returned, some of whom she nursed in her own home. When Kirkpatrick returned to midwifery in 1922, she established her fourth private maternity hospital, named Down after County Down in Northern Ireland. She worked as a midwife until late 1937. When she became too ill to do it on her own, she began work for other midwives.[10][11]

Mary Kirkpatrick died on 16 February 1943.

Northern Ireland origins edit

Kirkpatrick was born around 1863 to George McGee and his wife. Her father was a poulterer.[3]

In 1872 the first nationalist parade, led by Joseph Biggar, was held in Belfast. That same night Protestants from Sandy Row clashed bitterly with Catholics from streets near Great Victoria Street Railway Station, the General Hospital full of the injured and maimed. That bitter conflict raged for days with increasingly violent attacks on nearby churches and houses.[12] [3] But of course, it is difficult to find a time in Ireland, in Belfast, when there were no political troubles or religious conflicts. It is difficult to find a time when the Irish did not leave Ireland as Mary did, to put those conflicts behind them. To leave behind the awful tensions, the bitter divisions as Catholic and Protestant alike turned on one another in the same streets in which their children walked to school, and in the same houses and churches in which they were baptised, where they were married and where now they too often mourned.[13]

When Kirkpatrick married Hugh Kirkpatrick in 1880 in the brilliant red Ballymacarrett Methodist Church, they moved to Howard Street South placing them between the Protestant Shankill Road on one side and the Catholic Falls on the other. Kirkpatrick had lived with this history every day. Fear of political conflict and poverty drove the Irish to leave all that they loved. In 1884 Kirkpatrick and her husband Hugh and David their 11 month old son left her mother, her sister Margaret, her brothers George and James and her father. She never saw them again.[14][15]

Kirkpatrick never returned to Belfast but lived a long and successful life in the Macleay Valley becoming one of the most loved and respected midwives in the area. Kirkpatrick worked with early doctors such as Brabazon Casement. She is remembered today by the families of the Macleay Valley who continue to tell stories of how Kirkpatrick worked through the night to deliver their mother or father, or indeed their grandparents. Kirkpatrick became financially secure but gave much it away for the good of her community. She made a difference in women's lives, as did many other country midwives, [16][6] at a time when the health and welfare of women and children in rural areas was often very poor.

Descendants edit

Nelson McCausland wrote the following in the Belfast Telegraph newspaper, about one of her famous descendants to ensure that her life too would be seen and remembered:

Here's a question for readers. What is the connection between Mountpottinger Methodist Churst in east Belfast, a pioneer in women's health in Australia and the old humorous country song 'A pub with no beer?'[17]

The answer to McCausland's question? Slim Dusty who had the international hit country and western song 'The Pub with No Beer,' and who went on to become the most recorded performer in Australia, actual name David Gordon Kirkpatrick, was the grandson of Nurse Kirkpatrick. She was not just that grandmother but was a pioneer in the health of women and babies on the mid north coast of New South Wales. In 2017 the BBC TV filmed the story of Nurse Kirkpatrick for their program Brave New World.[18]

References edit

  1. ^ Berzins, Baiba (1996). North Coast Women: A History to 1939. Sydney: Royal Australian Historical Society. p. 84. ISBN 09-099-54-496.
  2. ^ Noeline Williamson, 'She walked ...with great purpose': Mary Kirkpatrick and the history of midwifery in New South Wales' in Margaret Bevege, Margaret James & Carmel Shute, eds, Worth Her Salt: Women at Work in Australia, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1982, ISBN 0868060038 pp.3-15.
  3. ^ a b c Williamson, Noeline, "Mary Kirkpatrick (1863–1943)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2023-04-30
  4. ^ Bell, Robert (2021). The Book of Ulster Surnames. Newtownlands: Ulster Historicsl Foundation. pp. 182–184. ISBN 9781909556867.
  5. ^ Nelson McCausland, Belfast Telegraph, 20 November, 2014: Slim Dusty and John Lapsley, Walk a Country Mile, Rigby, 1981, pp.111-130, (first published in 1927) ISBN 0727020471
  6. ^ a b c Kyle, Noeline (2001). Memories & Dreams; A Biography of Nurse Mary Kirkpatrick. Mullumbimby. pp. 44–49. ISBN 0957870019.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ "NSW State Records and Archives". Assisted Immigrants Index 1839-1896. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  8. ^ Kyle, Noeline (2017). Women's Business: Midwives on the Mid North Coast of NSW to 1950, a story of Armidale, Kempsey and Port Macquarie. Port Macquarie: the author. pp. 97–99. ISBN 9780957870093.
  9. ^ Citation, Australian Infantry Brigade, 5th Australian Infantry, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 24 April, 1917; K W Mackenzie, The Story of the Seventeenth Battalion in the great war 1914-1918, Naval & Military Press, East Sussex, 2010, 9781845748616.
  10. ^ Bevege, Margaret (1982). Noeline Williamson, 'She walked with great purpose,' Mary Kirkpatrick and the history of midwifery in New South Wales,' in M Bevege et al eds, Worth Her Salt: Women at Work in Australia. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger. pp. 3–15. ISBN 0868060038.
  11. ^ Riggs, Patricia (1981). A Century of Caring: The Kempsey District Hospital 1881-1981. Kwmpsey: Kempsey District Hospital. p. 16. ISBN 0959356606.
  12. ^ Bardon & Burnett, Jonathan & David (1996). Belfast: A Pocket History. Belfast: The Blackstaff Press. pp. 39–61.
  13. ^ Taylor, Peter (2000). Loyalists. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747545197.
  14. ^ O'Farrell, Patrick (1987). The Irish in Australia (Reprinted 1988 ed.). Kensington, Sydney: New South Wales University Press. pp. 2–10. ISBN 9780868402345.
  15. ^ Slim and John, Dusty and Lapsley (1981). Slim Dusty: Walk a Country Mile (2nd ed.). Sydney: Rigby Publishers. pp. 13–16. ISBN 07-270-20471.
  16. ^ Adcock, Winifred (1984). With Courage and Devotion: A History of Midwifery in New South Wales. Wamberal, NSW: Anvil Press, Wamberal, NSW. pp. 46–51. ISBN 0959590692.
  17. ^ Nelson McCausland, Belfast Telegraph, 20 November 2014.
  18. ^ Anne Kirkpatrick, The Dusty Journal, Issue 34, Winter 2017, see at: https://slimdustycentre.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Dusty-Journal-Edition-34-Winter-2017.pdf.
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