The first midwifery records of the Lying-In Hospital are among the Royal Women’s Hospital’s greatest historical treasures. They begin with the first patient, Mrs Kinsman, in August 1856 and are among the oldest surviving systematic records of childbirth in the world. The two midwifery books covering 1856 to 1887 are in the form of ‘Simpson midwifery books’, named after the great Scottish obstetrician, James Young Simpson, of the Edinburgh Lying-In Hospital. They record a range of personal and medical details that the doctors needed so that they could analyse and evaluate their practice. In the early years, maternal deaths were described in detail in the midwifery book, but later they were recorded in a separate casebook, which has since been lost. Some maternal deaths were concealed when women who had a post-partum infection were transferred to the Infirmary wing and were recorded as gynaecological deaths.