Living and working conditions in 18th-19th Century Belfast were bleak for many. Outbreaks of disease were common, living conditions were often cramped and unsanitary and there was a constant risk of injury or even death that came from working in the industries around the city. Death was a constant companion in this period, with a lower life expectancy and a high mortality rate, particularly in reference to children and childbirth. Medicine was, at this time, an almost entirely male profession, so doctors often saw the exclusively female focused practice of midwifery as being “less honourable” than other forms of medicine. As a result, there was little formal infrastructure in place to protect women during child birth, which contributed to the high mortality rates. In 1793, ‘The Humane Female Society for the Relief of Lying-In Women’ sought reform.[1] The group wanted to professionalise the practice of child delivery, with the safety of mother and child in mind. A house at 25 Donegall Street with a six bed capacity was opened in the following year to advance these aims. Here, women could give birth under the dedicated supervision of midwives. This was the first maternity hospital in Belfast, following closely behind Dublin’s lead where the first Irish Lying-In hospital was created in 1742.[2] In the modern day, this premises served as Printer’s Café until the Covid-19 Pandemic forced its closure. It is now the site of a popular bakery.


The Belfast Maternity Hospital, seeking to expand their capacity, moved premises in 1830 to land rented from the Belfast Charitable Society. The building had an 18 bed capacity. During it’s stewardship on Clifton Street, its landlord (the Belfast Charitable Society) benevolently provided free water to the hospital. They also arranged for those who passed away during childbirth to be buried in the Clifton Street Cemetery free of charge. They were buried in unmarked graves, alongside residents of the poorhouse. Despite the considerable expansion to the Clifton Street premises and the goodwill of the Charitable Society, the demand for its service once forced the hospital to look elsewhere to expand its operations; new premises were sought again in 1904. The maternity hospital then moved to Townsend Street, West Belfast which was a 28 bed alternative.
These Belfast maternity hospitals were a precursor to the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital in West Belfast. The building opened to great acclaim in June 1935 with both state of the art facilities and a grand scale that made ‘the hospital one of the finest in the United Kingdom’.[3] The hospital remains today, as a legacy of the Humane Female Society’s 18th century demands for safe and professionalised child delivery.
In the aftermath of this move the Clifton Street premises was acquired by Millar and Co. confectioners, who we felt deserved their own post! The building was irrevocably damaged in an 1922 attack by the IRA. It was demolished soon after in 1924. For a number of years the demolition ground lay dormant, as wasteground, until the 1930s when a series of shops were built on the site. Long term sellers on this site include Abrahams Tailors and Quigley’s hairdressers.[4] Currently, though the plot has returned to wasteground, the land is partially obscured from public view by a series of advertising billboards. We will have to wait a bit longer to find out who its next occupant will be.

[1] O’Sullivan, J.F., ‘Two hundred years of midwifery 1806-2006’ in Ulster Medical Society Vol LXXV (2006).
[2] Ibid.
[3] ‘Opening of Belfast’s Jubilee Maternity Hospital’, Northern Whig, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002318/19381214/105/0004, 1st June 1935.
[4] Lennon-Wylie, Belfast Street Directory 1943-1960.
This work was part of a series of research pieces that were conducted by a member of the Queen’s University Public History Course. The work was fully researched to an academic standard, and has been fully referenced. It was updated in 2025 to include more recent information