Profit is a dirty word: The development of public baths and wash-houses in Britain 1847-1915

Social History of Medicine

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 63-85

  Sheard, Sally ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Belfast; Glasgow; Liverpool; Municipal trading; Nineteenth century Britain; Personal hygiene; Public baths; Sanitary reform; Wash houses

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BATH; COMMUNITY CARE; COST; HEALTH PROMOTION; HEALTH SERVICE; HISTORY; HYGIENE; SANITATION; UNITED KINGDOM;

BATHS; COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES; COSTS AND COST ANALYSIS; GREAT BRITAIN; HEALTH PROMOTION; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HYGIENE; SANITATION; URBAN HEALTH SERVICES;

EID: 0034166223     PISSN: 0951631X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/shm/13.1.63     Document Type: Review

References (106)

1. This phrase was coined by Gerry Keams to explain the urban-rural mortality differential in nineteenth-century Britain. G. Kearns, 'Biology, Class and the Urban Penalty', in G. Kearns and C. Withers (eds.), Urbanising Britain: Essays on Class and Community in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 12-30.
2. B. Luckin, 'Evaluating the Sanitary Revolution: Typhus and Typhoid in London, 1851-1900', in R. I. Woods and J. Woodward (eds.), Urban Disease and Mortality in Nineteenth Century England (London, 1984), p. 111; G. Rosen, 'Disease, Debility and Death', in H. J. Dyos and M. Wolff (eds.), The Victorian City: Images and Realities, II (London, 1973), p. 635.
3. B. Luckin, 'Evaluating the Sanitary Revolution: Typhus and Typhoid in London, 1851-1900', in R. I. Woods and J. Woodward (eds.), Urban Disease and Mortality in Nineteenth Century England (London, 1984), p. 111; G. Rosen, 'Disease, Debility and Death', in H. J. Dyos and M. Wolff (eds.), The Victorian City: Images and Realities, II (London, 1973), p. 635.
4. The discovery was made by Charles Nicolle. The number of typhus deaths in England had fallen from 4,281 in 1869 to 318 by 1885. By 1900 there were only a handful of isolated cases.
5. N. Tomes, The Gospel of Genus: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge, MA, 1998); N. Tomes, 'The Private Side of Public Health: Sanitary Science, Domestic Hygiene and the Germ Theory, 1870-1900', Bulletin of History of Medicine, 64 (1990), 509-39.
6. N. Tomes, The Gospel of Genus: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge, MA, 1998); N. Tomes, 'The Private Side of Public Health: Sanitary Science, Domestic Hygiene and the Germ Theory, 1870-1900', Bulletin of History of Medicine, 64 (1990), 509-39.
7. S. Hoy, Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness (Oxford, 1995), p. 88.
8. V. S. Smith, 'Cleanliness: The Development of Ideas and Practice in Britain 1770-1850' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London School of Economics, 1985). I am grateful to one of the referees for bringing this interesting point to my attention.
9. A. Corbain, The Foul and the Fragrant: Odour and the French Social Imagination (Leamington Spa, 1986), p. 92. Paris had a street cleaning competition from 1779. See also the work of S. Williams, The Rich Man and the Diseased Poor in Early Victorian Literature (London, 1986).
10. A. Corbain, The Foul and the Fragrant: Odour and the French Social Imagination (Leamington Spa, 1986), p. 92. Paris had a street cleaning competition from 1779. See also the work of S. Williams, The Rich Man and the Diseased Poor in Early Victorian Literature (London, 1986).
11. W. Heberden, Observations on the Increase and Decrease of Different Diseases (London, 1801), p. 68. Cited in C. Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick: Britain 1800-1854 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 59.
12. W. Heberden, Observations on the Increase and Decrease of Different Diseases (London, 1801), p. 68. Cited in C. Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick: Britain 1800-1854 (Cambridge, 1998), p. 59.
13. Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice, p. 26.
14. Ibid., p. 12.
15. The Times, 25 November 1840. Cited in Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice, p. 131.
16. The Times, 25 November 1840. Cited in Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice, p. 131.
17. M. Sigsworth and M. Worboys, 'The Public's View of Public Health in Mid-Victorian Britain', Urban History, 21 (1994), p. 237.
18. A. Wohl, Endangered Lives (London, 1983), p. 64.
19. A. Wear, 'The History of Personal Hygiene', in W. F. Bynum and R. Porter (eds.), Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (London, 1993), p. 1298.
20. V. Smith, 'Prescribing the Rules of Health: Self-help and Advice in the Late Eighteenth Century', in R. Porter (ed.), Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-industrial Society (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 249-82.
21. Report of the Select Committee on Hand Loom Weavers' Petitions (P.P., 1834, X) Q666-7 and 2694.
22. The Times, 18 October 1844.
23. There is a substantial amount of literature on the development of class consciousness in nineteenth-century urban areas, and the associated politicization of local government. One of the best studies is that by G. Stedman Jones, Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship Between Classes in Victorian Society (Oxford, 1971).
24. Smith, 'Prescribing the Rules of Health', p. 262.
25. An Act to encourage the establishment of public baths and wash-houses 9&10 Vict.c.74 (1846). This was modified the following year by an Act to amend the Act for the establishment of public baths and wash-houses 10&11 Vict c.61 (1847).
26. Hansard LXXXVII (4 June 1846-24 July 1846) p. 104.
27. Hansard LXXXVIII (27 July 1846-28 August 1846) p. 278.
28. Ibid.
29. 10 & 10 Vict. c.61.
30. E. H. Gibson, 'Baths and Wash-houses in the English Public Health Agitation, 1839-48', Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 9 (1954), p. 406.
31. The 1865 Return, showing the places where the Acts had been adopted, listed only 26 towns, and 167 towns which had not adopted the Acts. This list, however, is misleading. Some towns were operating public baths and wash-houses without having adopted either of the Acts.
32. A. Campbell, Report on Public Baths and Wash-houses in the United Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1918), p. 8.
33. S. B. Sheard, 'Nineteenth-Century Public Health: A Study of Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1994).
34. Liverpool had a very strong philanthropic community, whose activities were funded by the profitable merchant shipping interests. See M. Simey, Charitable Effort in Liverpool in the Nineteenth Century (Liverpool, 1951).
35. J. Newlands, Report to the Baths Committee Liverpool Corporation, October 1856.
36. Liverpool Corporation Baths Committee Minute Book, 6 December 1852, p. 79. (Liverpool Record Office, hereafter LRO 352 MIN/BAT 1/1).
37. Vapour baths resembled Turkish baths and were for relaxation rather than for just cleansing the body. It could be suggested therefore that this is an indication of the corporation moving away from their initial target market of the very poor, towards the middle classes who saw baths as a social activity.
38. Liverpool Corporation Baths Committee Minute Book, 1 March 1852, p. 13 (LRO 352 MIN/BAT 1/1).
39. Liverpool Corporation Council Minutes, 1 October 1845 (LRO 352 COU).
40. First Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring into the State of Large Town and Populous Districts (P.P., 1844, XVII) Appendix pp. 195-7.
41. Liverpool Corporation Health Committee Minutes, 30 November 1847 (LRO 352 COU).
42. J. K. Walton and A. Wilcox (eds.), Low Life and Moral Improvement in Mid-Victorian England (Leicester, 1991), p. 214.
43. Glasgow Police Commissioners Sanitary Committee Minute Book Vol. 1, p. 6, 18 August 1863 (Strathclyde Regional Archives, hereafter SRA, E1/16/1).
44. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 58, 30 August 1864.
45. Glasgow Police Act 1866. The sections of the act which relate to the provision of baths and washhouses are 387 and 389.
46. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, hereafter PRONI, Ulster Museum papers D.1860/1.
47. H. G. Calwell, Andrew Malcolm of Belfast: Physician and Historian (Belfast, 1977), p. 79.
48. Ibid., p. 81.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., p. 83.
51. The Baths and Wash-houses (Ireland) Act was passed without any parliamentary debates. It received Royal Assent on 26 August 1846.
52. Belfast Newsletter, 5 October 1847, 3 December 1847, 2 May 1848, 3 October 1848.
53. Belfast Newsletter, 2 January 1852.
54. Northern Whig, 27 January 1853, article by Revd William O'Hanlon.
55. A.G. Malcolm, Cleanliness and the Advantages of the Bath (Belfast, 1848).
56. E. P. Hennock, 'Finance and Politics in Urban Local Government in England, 1835-1900', Historical Journal, VI (1963), 212-25. Hennock discusses the problem of water supply in Manchester in the 1840s which was only solved by using the municipal gas profits as security for the loan to construct the Longdendale reservoir. Manchester's water supply was heavily and openly subsidized by profits from the gas trading and Hennock states that the waterworks were politically dependent on that subsidy.
57. P. J. Waller, Town, City and Nation (Oxford, 1993), p. 307.
58. Hennock, 'Finance and Politics', p. 218.
59. H. Finer, Municipal Trading (London, 1941), p. 49. In 1882 an inquiry found that £182,000 had been set aside from the Borough Fund in Birmingham, partly because the Corporation had access to cheaper interest rates than private companies did.
60. Hennock, 'Finance and Politics', p. 222.
61. Sidney Webb quoted in H. Laski, A Century of Municipal Progress (London, 1935), p. 167.
62. J. Kellet, 'Municipal Socialism, Enterprise and Trading in the Victorian city', Urban History Yearbook 1978, p. 41.
63. Sigsworth and Worboys, 'The Public's View', p. 246.
64. W. Bate, 'Sanitary Administration of Liverpool 1847-1900' (unpublished MA thesis, University of Liverpool, 1955), p. 127.
65. Porcupine, 23 July 1870, vol. 12, p. 166 'Free Bathing Needed'.
66. Porcupine, 18 February 1871, vol.12, p. 573 'Free Baths'.
67. Liverpool Daily Post, 25 December 1883.
68. Annual Report of the MOH for Liverpool, 1898.
69. City of Liverpool, Handbook Compiled for the Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health (Liverpool, 1903), p. 235.
70. Liverpool Corporation Baths Committee Minute Book, 20 September 1899 (LRO 352 COU). Bate, 'Sanitary Administration', p. 132.
71. Liverpool Corporation Baths Committee Minute Book, 20 September 1899 (LRO 352 COU). Bate, 'Sanitary Administration', p. 132.
72. Annual Report of the MOH for Liverpool, 1898.
73. J. Newlands, Report to the Baths Committee of the Borough of Liverpool by the Borough Engineer, 1856. p. 91. Fifty per cent of those using the Frederick Street facilities were washerwomen or servants, and only eight per cent were labourers' wives.
74. Ibid., p. 92.
75. Report of the Joint Select Committee on Municipal Trading (P.P., 1900, VII) Minutes of Evidence, p. 180 Q2261-62.
76. M. T. Williams, 'New York City's Baths. A Case Study in Urban Progressive Reform', Journal of Urban History, 7 (1980), 49-81.
77. J. Bell and J. Paton, Glasgow its Municipal Organisation and Administration (Glasgow, 1896), p. 175.
78. Glasgow Police Board Baths and Wash-houses Committee Minute Book, Vol. I, p. 67, 26 May 1892 (SRA E1/24/1). The committee minute book for this committee begins in May 1891, although the committee seems to have been created in 1875. Therefore there is no detailed information on the establishment of the other facilities. The minutes are brief-detailing amounts of paybills authorized, considering applications from swimming clubs for reduced rates and reports of committee members who have visited the establishments in the past month.
79. Ibid., p. 84, 16 September 1892.
80. Bell and Paton, 'Glasgow', p. 17.
81. Glasgow Police Board Baths and Wash-houses Committee Minute Book, Vol. I, p. 7, May 1891 (SRA E1/24/1).
82. Ibid., p. 5.
83. J. B. Russell, Public Health Administration in Glasgow (Glasgow, 1905), p. 42.
84. Glasgow Police Board Baths and Wash-houses Committee Minute Book, p. 359, 24 January 1896 (SRA E1/24/1).
85. The accounts for the year to 31 May 1895 show an income of £1,378 and an expenditure of £1,130 (which was mainly the wages for the washerwomen), thus realizing a profit of £248. Glasgow Police Board Baths and Wash-houses Committee Minute Book, p. 355, 24 January 1896 (SRA E1/24/1).
86. H. Fraser, 'Municipal Socialism and Social Policy', in R. J. Morris and R. Rodger (eds.), The Victorian City: A Reader in British Urban History 1820-1914 (London, 1993), p. 277.
87. Glasgow Police Board Baths and Wash-houses Committee Minute Book, p. 95, 11 November 1892 (SRA E1/24/1).
88. Fraser, 'Municipal Socialism', p. 261.
89. R. Blaney, Belfast: 100 Years of Public Health (Belfast, 1988), p. 12.
90. B. Ladd, 'Public Baths and Civic Improvement in Nineteenth Century German Cities', Journal of Urban History, 14 (1988), p. 383.
91. Wear, 'History of Personal Hygiene', p. 1302.
92. Williams, 'New York's City Baths', p. 70.
93. Campbell, Report on Public Baths, p. 77.
94. Ibid., p. 78.
95. Ibid., p. 93.
96. The Scottish Acts relating to public baths and wash-houses did not, like their English equivalents, contain maximum charges clauses. Thus the cost of the cheapest bath in Scotland was often twice the price in an English bath.
97. Although the Carnegie report shows 69 establishments, these were located in only 26 towns.
98. However, the data give no indication of the size of the additions.
99. J. Wilson, R. Millward, and S. Sheard, Trends in Local Authority Loan Expenditure in England and Wales 1870-1914 (University of Manchester Working Papers in Economic and Social History, 22, 1993), p. 4.
100. Sigsworth and Worboys, 'The Public's View', p. 246.
101. F. Bell and R. Millward, 'Public Health Expenditure and Mortality in England and Wales 1870-1914', Continuity and Change, 13 (1998), 221-49. See also S. Szreter, 'The Importance of Social Intervention in Britain's Mortality Decline c.1850-1914: A Re-interpretation of the Role of Public Health', Social History of Medicine, 1 (1988), 1-39.
102. F. Bell and R. Millward, 'Public Health Expenditure and Mortality in England and Wales 1870-1914', Continuity and Change, 13 (1998), 221-49. See also S. Szreter, 'The Importance of Social Intervention in Britain's Mortality Decline c.1850-1914: A Re-interpretation of the Role of Public Health', Social History of Medicine, 1 (1988), 1-39.
103. R. Millward and S. B. Sheard, 'The Urban Fiscal Problem, 1870-1914: Government Expenditure and Finance in England and Wales', Economic History Review, XLVIII (1995), 501-35.
104. Report of the Joint Select Committee on Municipal Trading (P.P., 1900, VII). Q946. The figure of £710,000 comprises £608,000 sanctioned under general acts and £102,000 under local acts.
105. Wilson, Millward and Sheard, 'Trends', p. 4.
106. Hoy, Chasing Dirt, p. 86 (caption to photograph).