History
The Society was set up in 1858, the successor to an Obstetric Society dating from 1825, and in the aftermath of the Medical Act 1858. The founding group included James Hobson Aveling, Robert Barnes, Graily Hewitt, Henry Oldham, Edward Rigby, William Tyler Smith, Thomas Hawkes Tanner, and John Edward Tilt., Sir Charles Locock and Sir George Duncan Gibb.
Over its first 15 years the membership of the Society rose to about 600. The Act's proposals included regulation of medical practitioners, taken at the time to include midwifery; and the Society turned in time to certifying midwives. The diploma introduced in 1872 recognised the role of the midwife, in supervising "normal labour".
A dispute over ovariotomy, which other members opposed, led Barnes to leave and found the British Gynaecological Society in 1884. In the election for the presidency at the end of that year, matters came to a head when Alfred Meadows, supported by Aveling and Barnes, failed to be chosen by the Council. In 1907 both societies merged into the Royal Society of Medicine.
Presidents
Presidents of the Society served a two-year term.