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3
INTRODUCTION.
Medical Officer's Department,
Town Hall,
Tottenham.
April, 1920.
To the Chairman and other Members of the Tottenham Maternity and
Child Welfare Committee.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Maternity end Child Welfare section of the Council's
functions took its origin in the School for Mothers situated at 97,
St. Ann s Road. This School for Mothers was a voluntary movement
carried on by a number of philanthropic ladies—with the co-operation
of the Lady Assistant Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Sophia Seekings,
and the Women Sanitary Inspectors. It was opened in September, 1912,
and was carried successfully forward with the aid of grants from the
Board of Education until April, 1916, when the Council acquired the
undertaking. This was necessitated because the success of the movement
required that larger premises should be obtained, further assistance
engaged, and another branch opened.
Two lady doctors, Dr. Rachel McKenzie—now Assistant
Medical Officer of Health of Woolwich—and Dr. Alice i^ing, of the
Queen's Hospital for Children, attended periodically and their advice
was sought so frequently on behalf of ailing children, that some measure
of prescribing of simple remedies was introduced. The dispensing of
these simple remedies became in time so important a part of the functions
of the School for Mothers that the Local Government Board considered
that the education of the mothers was but a subsidiary part of the
work carried on and urged that it should be transferred under the aegis
of that body. The Council acquiesced in this view, and while permanent
premises were being sought for the Maternity and Child Welfare