Lucy Baldwin

Lucy Baldwin, Countess Baldwin of Bewdley, GBE, DStJ (née Ridsdale; 19 June 1869 – 17 June 1945) was an English writer and activist for maternal health. From 1892 until her death in 1945, she was the wife of Stanley Baldwin, three-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 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.[1]

The Right Honourable

The Countess Baldwin of Bewdley

GBE DStJ
Lady Baldwin in 1935
Born
Lucy Ridsdale

(1869-06-19)19 June 1869
London, England
Died17 June 1945(1945-06-17) (aged 75)
Astley Hall, Worcestershire, England
Resting placeWorcester Cathedral
Spouse
​
(m. 1892)​
Children7, including Oliver Ridsdale and Arthur Windham
Awards

Family

She was born Lucy Ridsdale in Bayswater, 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, on the Sussex coast. Her brother Edward became a Member of Parliament for Brighton.[2][3]

She married Stanley Baldwin on 12 September 1892 in Rottingdean. Among the attendees were Stanley's aunt Alice and her son, Rudyard Kipling.[4] The couple had seven children:[1][3][5]

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, Yorkshire. It was on the field where she met her future husband.[4][6]

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 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.[3]

She was involved in the Young Women's Christian Association 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 hospitals 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.[7] Her work contributed to the passage of the Midwives Act 1936.[8] (See Royal College of Midwives.)

Death
Worcester Cathedral, grave of the 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and his wife Lucy, née Ridsdale

She died suddenly of a heart attack in 1945 at Astley Hall, their country home in Worcestershire, She was cremated and her ashes were interred, with those of her husband, after his death in 1947 in the nave of Worcester Cathedral.[3]

Legacy

In honour of her work for maternity care, philanthropist and cricket enthusiast Julien Cahn donated funds to build the Lucy Baldwin Maternity Hospital in Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire.[8] It was commemorated by the prime minister on 16 April 1929, with a bronze dedication plaque over the main entrance reading "What she wanted most in the world. Presented to her by Julien Cahn Esq".[9] It expanded beyond maternity and became known as the Lucy Baldwin Hospital until its closure in 2006.[10]

In the 1960s, a new device that administered a combination of Nitrous oxide and oxygen for obstetrics, was named the Lucy Baldwin Apparatus For Obstetric Analgesia.[11]

Baldwin also wrote valuable notes of two major events in politics, the fall of the Lloyd George ministry and the Abdication Crisis.[12]

References
  1. "Lucy Ridsdale". The Peerage. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  2. "Lucy Ridsdale (1869–1945)". Stanford University. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  3. Stuart Ball (2004). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 3. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  4. Judith Flanders (2001). A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 240–242. ISBN 9780393052107. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  5. "Lady Leonora Stanley Baldwin (I19856)". Stanford University. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  6. Geoff Tibballs (2013). No-Balls and Googlies: A Cricket Companion. Michael O'Mara Books. p. 73. ISBN 9781782430742. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  7. Lucy Baldwin (1 February 1930). "A Fund For Anaesthetics in Midwifery". British Medical Journal. 1 (3604): 220. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.3604.220. PMC 2312642.
  8. Philip Williamson; Edward Baldwin, eds. (2004). Baldwin Papers: A Conservative Statesman, 1908–1947. Cambridge University Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780521580809. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  9. Becky Carr (27 June 2013). "Thieves smash piece of history at Lucy Baldwin hospital". Kidderminster Shuttle. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  10. William Tomaney (6 February 2013). "Changes to Lucy Baldwin Hospital development proposals". Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  11. "Lucy Baldwin Apparatus For Obstetric Analgesia" (PDF). British Journal of Anaesthesia. XXXIV (3). March 1962. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  12. Philip Williamson; Edward Baldwin, eds. (2004). Baldwin Papers: A Conservative Statesman, 1908–1947. Cambridge University Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780521580809. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
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