Cost and standard of living -- England -- London; London (England) -- Economic conditions; Working class -- England -- London
It will be noticed that in none of the bedrooms are any washing
arrangements. The daily ablutions, as a rule, are confined to face and
hands when each person comes downstairs, with the exception of the little
baby, who generally has some sort of wash over every day. Once a week,
however, most of the children get a bath. In the family of eight children
mentioned above, the baby has a daily bath in the washing-up basin. On
Friday evenings two boys and a girl under five years of age are bathed,
all in the same water, in a washing-tub before the kitchen fire. On
Saturday nights two boys under eleven bathe in one water, which is then
changed, and two girls of nine and twelve take their turn, the mother
also washing their hair. The mother manages to bathe herself once a
fortnight in the daytime when the five elder children are at school, and
the father goes to public baths when he can find time and afford twopence.
A woman with six children under thirteen gives them all a bath with two
waters between them on Saturday morning in the washing-tub. She generally
has a bath herself on Sunday evening when her husband is out. All the
water has to be carried upstairs, heated in her kettle, and carried down
again when dirty. Her husband bathes, when he can afford twopence, at the
public baths.
In another family, where there are four children in one room and only a
very small washtub, the children get a bath on Saturday or Sunday. The
mother manages to get hers when the two elder children are at school.
The father, who can never afford a twopenny bath, gets a “wash-down”
sometimes after the children have gone to sleep at night. “A bath it
ain’t, not fer grown-up people,” explained his wife; “it’s just a bit
at a time like.” Some families use the copper when it is built in the
kitchen or in a well-built scullery. But it is more trouble to empty,
and often belongs to the other people’s part of the house. All of these
bathing arrangements imply a great deal of hard work for the mother of
the family. Where the rooms are upstairs and water is not laid on, which
is the case in a great many first-floor tenements, the work is excessive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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