Dirty Old London by Jackson Lee

Author:Jackson, Lee [Jackson, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2014-12-07T10:18:23+00:00

T H E G R E AT U N WA S H E D

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stated the rules in the first-class bath: ‘All bathers to use bathing drawers either their own or those provided for their use, for which 1d charged.’ There seems to have been no such restriction in the second-class bath. Either the managers considered the humble labourer was too accustomed to nude bathing in parks and rivers; or they simply thought he could not afford the additional penny.

One local magistrate, Sir Peter Laurie, inspecting the George Street baths

upon their opening, did complain that the plunge baths allowed ‘indecent

exposure’ and said ‘he had seen two or three dozen bathers . . . whose gambols were indecent and disgusting’, an indirect allusion to homosexual activity. He was, however, flatly contradicted by the superintendent who had taken him round the building; and the popular press mocked him for preferring ‘Prudery’

to cleanliness: ‘there is no more likelihood of finding any disgusting indecency than amongst a parcel of Eton boys amusing themselves in the Thames’.51

This is not to say, however, that there were no concerns about behaviour.

Washhouses, in particular, were carefully superintended by matrons to ensure there was no stealing, arguments or general rowdiness; and there were wooden divisions between washtubs which rather resembled the ‘separate system’ of the model Victorian prison, preventing gossip and distraction. Likewise, individual separate ‘drying closets’ were abandoned with reluctance when it

became clear how inefficient they were in comparison with large heated

‘drying rooms’. Outside the building, there were usually entirely separate

entrances to the men’s and women’s baths to prevent casual mixing of the

sexes; inside, bath attendants were expected to keep good order. Maintaining discipline was one reason why the water supply to slipper baths was generally controlled by the attendants, using turncocks on the outside of cubicles. As one attendant, asked about dealing with troublesome bathers in Goulston Square, explained: ‘When they refused to be quiet at my request, I turned off the water from their baths and they found themselves dry at the bottom. ’52

Bathers in the cubicles were generally enjoined not to talk to each other.

Decoration in public baths and pools was typically plain tiling or glazed

brick, with some modest motif. The walls of the City of London swimming

baths in Golden Lane, however, were ‘painted over with pious texts’ which,

noted an 1870s’ visitor, were not in keeping with the rather more earthy

language of the local bathers.53 Public health propaganda also appeared in poster form and on flyers within and without the baths: ‘Sickness is Often Brought on by Having a Dirty Skin’; ‘Dirty Clothes are Like a Second Dirty

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D I R T Y O L D L O N D O N

Skin, and Help to Make the Body Sickly’. 54 An early poster publicising the

George Street baths in Euston Square gives an indication of the high-minded sentiments foisted upon the mid-Victorian working class during their ablu-tions. Talking up the danger of a new cholera epidemic, the 1848 notice reads: To raise yourselves to the proper position in the social scale, you must practice sobriety, morality and cleanliness .

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