Chesterfield maternity hospital/home

[Aquilegia18]

I recall Fairfield Nursing Home when I worked in Chesterfield in the 1950s.   Drs. Duthie and MacFarland ran a private maternity home and there seemed to be a lot of adoptions from there.
Don't know what happened to the building as don't live in the area now.

[piscesPISCES2015]

hi do you know if people who went this hospital had to give there babies up for adoption or was it choice thanks

[Aquilegia18]

Could not say for sure, but adoptions seemed to be on a regular basis.   The two doctors had very caring reputations as I recall but it's all a long time ago now.   At the time, I did get the impression that the girls were not pressurised into parting with their babies by the Fairfield staff but, again, I could not be sure.   
I do believe that it was also a normal nursing/maternity home and ladies went there on a private fee paying basis to have their babies.   A bit up-market you might say and, so I was once told, "a bit posh".
Aquilegia18

[piscesPISCES2015]

Hi thanks for your reply well it turned out my father and his brother weren't full siblings and it was my father who was born in fairfield and his parents weren't living together or married this was in 1954 plus they look nothing alike

[govig]

A bit up-market you might say and, so I was once told, "a bit posh"

I still have the invoice from Drs Duthie & McFarland for my mother's stay at Fairfield for my birth on 12th January 1955.

She stayed for a remarkable 11 days at a total cost of £19/16/0 which is about £450 in today's money.

[NodrogL]

I too was born in Fairfield in Dec 1948.
I remember my Mum talking about Dr Duthie.
Although we lived in Bakewell  my grandfather was a director of a corn merchants in Saltegate and lived ivthinkvat that time at a house called Loundsley on Ashgate Road - they moved to Somersall Lane after that before moving south in 1954.
I am singing with a choir in the parish church next month and hope to do a bit of looking around while there as I've been in Yorkshire  since 1953.
I think Grandpa's old office/ grain warehouse at 14 Saltergate is now a carpark, but I see No 116 where they lived in 1917 when Mum was born us still standing if Google 7s to be believed.
I suspect  Grandpa  would have footed Dr Duthie's bill, he was very generous.
Interesting to read about the adoptions, I had no idea.
I just assumed it was a private Maternity home.
The suspicious retired solicitor in wonders if prospective adopters paid Dr D' s bills !!!

[chesterfield1959]

My name is David Marshall ... born October 21st 1959, in Fairfield Nursing Home. at 12.30pm !
And ... at the cost of 19 Pounds, 9 Shillings & 6 Pence ! ... Yes ! somehow that receipt has survived.
I remember my Mother telling me, a baby girl with the surname Burgen, was born at exactly the same time 12.30pm. We were the only babies born there that week. Say hello if you are still out there! Gosh!, or maybe an altogether much stronger word ... Isn’t life short !

[Jeanette Mosley-Pratt]

Hi - think I've come to this post a few years late but never mind.  I was born in Fairfield Nursing Home Chesterfield in 1949.  I had no idea that a lot of babies were adopted from there.  Many years ago I had cause to stay in Chesterfield on business and stayed at a B&B on Fairfield Road.  Apparently the owners came from Wales but told me that the building was at one time the nursing home.  It is possible and if so I could have slept in the room where I was born!  Any photos?