More to follow on this account. For those interested here’s a Bart Mosse primer: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...

Within a week of opening, Judith Rochford gave birth to her son, the first of nearly 1 million Dubliners born in what would eventually become the Rotunda Hospital.

In the Dublin Lying In Hospital, Mother and infant alike will receive all necessities until they are fit to leave. My own wife gave birth to our son Charles this same year of 1745. Alas my first wife Mary Elizabeth was not so fortunate.

The Lying In Hospital opened with but a few beds. My governors and I aimed to have 24 beds, the requisite number, we feel, for the poor women of Dublin. Every woman will have a warm, decent bed to herself.

A contemporary account of the opening of the Dublin Lying In Hospital is below archive.org/details/book...

My vision for the Dublin Lying in Hospital was the relief of the poor & the teaching of Midwifery. The 1st hospital was down a lane opposite Fade St. (the New Booth Theatre in a past life). It was sorely needed- the other 3 Dublin hospitals did not admit lying-in women.

I blush at the extravagant praise on the first centenary of my Hospital:

Their lodgings were generally in cold garrets open to every wind, or in damp cellars subject to floods from excessive rains; themselves destitute of attendence, medicine and proper food; by which hundreds perished with their little infants, at once robbing the community of mother and child.

The misery of the women of the city of Dublin, at the time of their lying in, would scarcely be conceived by any one who had not been an eye witness of their wretched circumstances.

Here, where the skies are blue, I hope to enlighten and entertain. I’ll show you how I realised my dreams and how I ultimately died in poverty, before my time, at the age of 47

Henceforth I will set out the detail, as accurately as I can recall, of the establishment of the Hospital for Poor Lying-In Women and my mission to establish an institution to train midwives and doctors in the art and science of midwifery.

My dear sweet wife Elizabeth Mann and my newborn son both died shortly after his birth in 1737. This set me on my course to improve the lot of the women of Dublin at the time of their Lying-In

Intending to perfect myself in surgery and Midwifery, I travelled into England, France, Holland & other parts of Europe; while so engaged, I became convinced of the necessity for a hospital for lying-in women in the city of Dublin

I practised as a surgeon & man midwife and worked for the government as a ship’s surgeon bound for Menorca.