Peter the Younger lived from 1572 to 1626 and also worked as surgeon and obstetrician. He married Sara de Laune, the daughter of a Huguenot, who lived in London. They had eight children, among them Dr. Peter Chamberlen, an obstetrician who carried on the secret use of the forceps. He lived in Woodham Mortimer in Essex, England.
Peter the Elder is believed to be the inventor of the forceps. The brothers went to great length to keep the secret. When they arrived at the home of a woman in labour, two people had to carry a massive box with gilded carvings into the house. The pregnant patient was blindfolded so as not to reveal the secret, all the others had to leave the room. Then the operator went to work. The people outside heard screams, bells, and other strange noises until the cry of the baby indicated another successful delivery.
The secret was kept in the family for another three generations.
The family home, Woodham Mortimer Hall, a 17th century gabled house, has a blue plaque fixed to the hall noting them as pioneering obstetricians. The hall passed out of the Chamberlen family in 1715 when the family home was sold. The forceps were found in 1813 under a trap door in the loft of the hall and given to the Medical and Chirurgical Society which passed them to the Royal Society of Medicine in 1818.
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