The practice of midwifery, that is, the art or practice of assisting women in childbirth, has obviously been in existence for untold millennia, but in England the first attempt to legitimise and control the practice was when in 1512 Parliament placed the licensure of midwives under the control of the Church. It became illegal to practice midwifery without a licence granted by a Bishop, which was apparently sometimes at relatively great expense. Midwives had to produce either clients who would testify to their skills or testimonials from other medical practitioners or church ministers before they were licenced, an interesting conundrum as it implied that the skills had to be acquired in unlicenced circumstances!

Through the 18th and 19th centuries the medical profession, all men of course, took more and more control of midwifery theory and practice, but it was not until the Midwives Act of 1902 was passed, largely as a result of pressure from The Midwives Institute (a group of middle- and upper- class nurses and trained midwives who sought to provide respectable employment for middle-class women) that the training of midwives became compulsory to stop the perpetuation of the attendance at birth by lay (and, it should be noted, largely working-class) women.

The Act, which came into effect in 1903, established a Central Midwives Board for England and Wales, which became responsible for the regulation of the certification and examination of midwives, admission to the Roll of Midwives and annual publication of the Roll, together with the regulation of the practice of midwives.

Data as follows on Lovelocks and Lovelucks who appeared in the Roll between 1904 and 1959 has been transcribed from information at Ancestry.co.uk.