Robert Havens was an ACCOUCHEUR, a person who is trained to help at a birth, more commonly known as an obstetrician. He was also an APOTHECARIST, making and dispensing medicines similar to a pharmacist.
Robert Havens was born in 1809, the son of Robert Havens and Janet Crabbe. The family were a distinguished line from Colchester Essex who could trace their ancestry to the 14th century and beyond.
Robert was born in Edinburgh and as a boy in 1822, was apprenticed as an apothecary, to John Stanley of Whitehaven for seven years. Later he was admitted as a Licentiate of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries and as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) in 1831.
He stayed in Kendal and got a job at the Dispensary in 1834 and at some stage met Esther Lee. The couple married in Kendal in 1839 and shortly after their migrated to Australia onboard the Orizaba with other family members. In 1840 he was registered by the Medical Board of NSW to practise and in 1842 acquired land in Reidsdale on the outskirts of Braidwood.
For many years he worked as a doctor and assisted women in childbirth and obstetrics, mostly from his property known as ‘Brookside’. In 1848 he was blinded as a result of a chemical explosion but according to correspondence from one of his daughters, he continued to practise with assistance. Dr Robert Havens died at Reidsdale, in 1885 aged 76 years.
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Very interesting I thought ACCOUCHEURs were women like midwife, as on old birth certificates the Accoucheurs list are Mrs so and so or another woman or female relative.
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