Rusks, rattles and nappies – seeking donations for the…

Work is well underway on the Museum’s new 1960s mother and baby centre, which is a recreation of Wolverhampton’s Lea Road Infant Welfare Centre. But, before it opens later this year, donated objects are needed to bring the building to life.

The Infant Welfare Centre will enable the Museum to tell the story of the birth of the NHS, the growing community of Commonwealth nurses and doctors who brought their skills to the Black Country in the 1950s and 60s, and the lives of young women and children in this period. It will also help inform visitors’ understanding of public health in the present day.

In the Museum’s recreation, visitors will be able to explore the main hall, doctor’s surgery and dispensary, as well as meeting brand new characters who will share what life was like as doctors and midwives of the 1960s.

To help complete their recreation, the Museum is seeking donations of objects from the late 1950s which would have been commonplace in the centre. This might include changing bags, nappies, food packaging (for example, orange juice or cod liver oil bottles, milk tins or rusk boxes) or even toys which would have been available for little ones to play with while their mothers consulted with the midwives. 

Nadia Awal, researcher, said: “The stories which we will be telling in the Infant Welfare Centre are hugely important to the history of the region and the NHS. Not only will it enable us to share the advances in childcare seen post-war, such as increased availability of vaccines, technology, and medicines, but it will also serve as an opportunity to showcase stories of doctors and nurses from the commonwealth who came to the Black Country to support the new health service. Seventy-five years ago this July, the NHS was born, and so the opening of the centre will enable us to mark this milestone when it opens later this year.”

The centre was a hub for young families, for education and to provide goods to mothers. It was designed as somewhere for new and expectant mothers to meet, learn about their and their babies’ health, and have their children fed, weighed, and vaccinated. Most memorably, much like other clinics of the period, the centre distributed welfare foods: vitamins, bottles of thick, sticky orange juice, tins of National Dried Milk, and the much-hated cod liver oil.

Having first been established in 1928, the centre became part of the brand-new NHS twenty years later. Visitors to Lea Road in the 1950s and 1960s would have found a busy environment, overseen by staff and volunteers. The main hall was a waiting room, which doubled up as a venue for ante-natal and “mothercraft” classes, baby clothes sales, and as a social gathering for new mothers – always with a fresh cup of tea in hand.

The recreation of the Infant Welfare Centre has been made possible with investment from the Wellcome Trust, among other Forging Ahead project investors including National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Black Country LEP, West Midlands Combined Authority and the Cultural Capital Kickstart Fund.

If you have any objects you would like to donate to the Museum, please contact them via email on collections@bclm.com or contact by telephone on 0121 521 5600.