Bulawayo 1872

Lady Rodwell: the woman behind Bulawayo's maternity hospital

For generations of Bulawayo families, Lady Rodwell has been a familiar name. But behind the name of the maternity hospital is a woman with a story of her own.

Ask someone who grew up in Bulawayo about Lady Rodwell, and chances are they will think of the maternity hospital rather than the woman herself.

For some, it is where they were born. For others, it is where they first held a son or daughter in their arms, or where a mother, grandmother or relative once worked.

But who was Lady Rodwell?

Her name was Ethel Clarissa Hunter-Rodwell (1883–1960), born Ethel Clarissa Randall in London, England.

Long before her name became associated with a maternity hospital in Bulawayo, Ethel had a life in the theatre.

Known on stage as Chrissie Ralland, she travelled to southern Africa as part of a theatrical company performing Miss Hook of Holland. Her interest in the stage continued after her marriage. In January 1930, she produced a performance of Alice in Wonderland, with four members of the Rodwell family appearing in the cast.1

It is a rather lovely detail to discover about someone whose name we usually encounter on a hospital building.

Her husband, Sir Cecil William Hunter-Rodwell, served as Governor of Southern Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then known, from 1928 to 1934.

In 1933, Lady Rodwell visited Bulawayo with her husband and two daughters, Cecilia and Dorothea. A newspaper account from the time describes the family’s arrival by train and the welcome they received.2

Around this period, the Lady Rodwell Maternity Home was already becoming part of Bulawayo’s growing medical facilities.

The maternity home was the first building developed on the site that would eventually become the United Bulawayo Hospitals complex. Its early operation depended on a local committee, doctors, charitable supporters and financial assistance from the Beit Maternity Trust.3

Although the hospital bears Lady Rodwell’s name, the historical records examined so far do not tell us precisely why it was named in her honour, or whether she played a personal part in its establishment.

What is certain is that the maternity home developed a history far larger than the name on its walls.

Among those who helped shape that history were the nurses, midwives and doctors who cared for mothers and babies over the years. One of them, Matron Doris Ethel Trousdale, was recognised with an MBE in 1951 for her service.4

The hospital’s beginnings also belong to a time when healthcare in colonial Bulawayo was divided along racial lines. The hospital’s own account records that when it opened at Khumalo in 1937, as an extension of the Old Memorial Hospital, it catered for European maternity patients, with a general wing following in 1943. Access was not equal for all the city’s families.56

Over the decades, both the institution and the community it serves have changed.

Today, Lady Rodwell Maternity Hospital remains part of United Bulawayo Hospitals.

For many Bulawayo families, it is a place associated with some of life’s most unforgettable moments: the anticipation of a birth, the kindness of a nurse, the worry of a difficult delivery, or the joy of welcoming a new life.

Lady Rodwell herself died in England in 1960.

She could hardly have imagined how often her name would be spoken in Bulawayo in the decades that followed.

And perhaps that is the most remarkable part of the story. A name associated with a colonial governor’s household became, through the life of a maternity hospital, a name woven into the personal histories of generations of people.

Were you born there? Did you welcome a child into the world there? Perhaps your mother or grandmother worked at the hospital, or you remember a nurse or midwife whose kindness stayed with you. Every recollection, however small, helps preserve another piece of Bulawayo’s history for the generations who come after us.

Do you have a Lady Rodwell memory? We would love to hear your story.

Sources and notes

Footnotes

  1. Samuel Ravengai, University of Cape Town doctoral thesis, on Lady Rodwell’s theatrical activities, drawing in part on Robert Cary, The Story of Reps (1975). Thesis PDF. Not independently checked: the stage name, the touring company and the 1930 production rest on this account. ↩

  2. “Our Fortieth Milestone,” reproduced contemporary newspaper account of 1933, describing the family’s visit to Bulawayo. Read the account. The page could not be reached when this was written — it answers with a redirect loop — so the arrival by train and the daughters’ names are as recorded by the owner and are unchecked. ↩

  3. R. M. Morris, historical account of Bulawayo’s hospitals, Rhodesiana 38 (1978), for the maternity home’s early management, its charitable support and the development of the hospital site. Volume PDF. Not independently checked. Note that United Bulawayo Hospitals’ own account gives 1937 for the opening at Khumalo and does not describe the maternity home as the first building, so the sequence here needs the Morris text read directly. ↩

  4. The London Gazette, issue 39104, supplement to the issue of 1 January 1951, p. 22. Notice PDF. Checked against the original: “Miss Doris Ethel TROUSDALE, Matron of the Lady Rodwell Maternity Home, Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia.” It also independently confirms the home’s name in 1951. ↩

  5. United Bulawayo Hospitals, About Us. Checked: the hospital “was opened in 1937 at Khumalo as an extension of the Old Memorial Hospital” and initially “catered for the European patients (Maternity)”; a general wing followed in 1943. The institution’s own account of whom it first served. It gives no founding date for the maternity home and no explanation of its name. ↩

  6. Japan International Cooperation Agency, report on Zimbabwe’s healthcare system, for the wider pattern of racially segregated medical provision. Report PDF. Not independently checked, and secondary to the hospital’s own account above. ↩

Do you know more about this? Corrections, photographs and your own account are all welcome, and a correction is published on the page with the date it was made. Send something in.