Washing Clothes

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Before the late twentieth century, 'doing the washing' was an arduous and time-consuming chore for working-class women.

In an industrial town like Walsall, hanging washing outside could result in it becoming soiled by airborne grime. The occupations of many Walsall people were often physical and dirty. Poorer women took in extra washing to help with the family income.

For women living in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, washing clothes would probably have been done in the following stages: -

• Early on Monday morning, water would be drawn from a tap in the yard and carried in a bucket to fill the 'copper' or boiler
• The copper would be heated with coal or wood, or anything that would burn
• If washing was very soiled a washboard and soap would be used to loosen the dirt, or clothes could be left to 'soak' in a bucket of water and 'Rinso'
• Soap, washing soda or washing powder would be added to the water. Bleach might be added to a white boil wash
• The clothes would be sorted and pushed into the copper with a boiler-stick or wooden tongs
• Clothes would be agitated in the 'copper' with a long-handled 'dolly'
• Clothes would be lifted out of the 'copper' with a boiler-stick or wooden tongs
• A mangle or wringer might be used to extract most of the soapy water from the washing, although this process often broke buttons
• The washing would be rinsed in cold water. 'Blue' may be added to the rinsing water for whites, and linen and cotton was starched
• A mangle or wringer might be used again
• The washing would be pegged on the line to dry or put in front of the fire on a clothes horse
• The soapy water would be used to wash floors
• The 'copper' would be cleaned and left dry
• The ironing would usually be done on Tuesday. The iron would be heated up on the fire
• Clothes and household linen were repaired

WITNESS

Mrs H, Farringdon Street, describes the scullery in the 1940s

 

"The boiler - that was a brick built thing across the corner of the room… that mom would have a fire underneath when she was doing the washing, heat the water, to boil the whites… it was a cold room, red-quarried floor. The mangle, that was outside, it was a huge mangle with big wooden rollers and I can remember my brother getting his finger caught in there."

 

Advertisement, Walsall Observer, 23 March 1912

WITNESS

Mrs H, Camden Street, describes helping her mother to do the washing in the 1930s and 40s

 

"The rollers on it were 18 or 20 inches long, about 8 or 9 inches in diameter, it was a heavy, heavy thing. And she'd hold it, the washing, out of this tub, and there I would be with both hands to turn this mangle. There was another tub she'd got with cold water in, through the mangle into the cold water to rinse, that was how that was done. It used to kill my shoulders turning this big handle; I could just about reach it. It must have been about 3 feet across."

 

Advertisement, Walsall Observer, 20 April 1912

WITNESS

Mrs B, Margaret Street, recalls her grandmother using soapy water to wash the floor of her shop in the 1940s and 50s

 

"Everybody seemed to wash on a Monday morning. Through the other part of the yard they'd shout, 'We've got water left, do you want water?' They'd share the water and my grandmother would wash the shop out at night with it… Save going to the trouble of boiling up the kettle."

 

 

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