Door to Door: THe Laundry

Written by Pam Preedy.

From time immemorial, it was merely left to women to organise and carry out the laundry. It was a time-consuming process, as this folk song tells us.

Dashing Away With the Smoothing Iron

(A folk song, collected in Somerset and found in the Vaughan Williams catalogue of 1904. I twas arranged by Cecil Sharp)

Each day of the week was allocated to a process in the laundry cycle: washing, hanging it out to dry. And then there was the starching, ironing, folding, airing and finally, after all the hard work during the week, clean clothes and linen could be worn on Sunday. The jobs were time-consuming and labour-intensive.

Early civilisations found themselves at riversides or lakesides, washing clothes. Garments were typically beaten over rocks, scrubbed with abrasive sand or stone, and pounded underfoot or with wooden implements – a labour-intensive task. The Romans turned the laundry into a commercial industry, especially as they placed importance on hygiene and physical appearance. Roman fullers who dyed, washed and dried clothes of all varieties became indispensable to Roman life. While the fuller himself conducted the business side of the operation, salves, whether men or women, undertook the actual work.

The downside to the business was the fact that they used human urine collected from sewers in the streets. Urine contained ammonia which loosened dirt, dissolved grease and bleached yellowing fabrics. It was referred to as chamber-lye.

The process in Medieval Europe had not changed a great deal. There were new aids intended to help poor servants and washerwomen who undertook the job. They had large wooden washtubs and dolly- or possing-tubs and later galvanised ones. The tubs had to be carried to the laundry room in big houses and then filled with water heated over the fire or cold water and beaten and stirred using a wooden dolly.

The handles were held in both hands and swished around for lengthy periods. Wet fabrics were heavy. The washing was put through the mangle to get rid of as much dirty water as possible and then rinsed several times using the mangle each time. It was very hard work and the women who did it often had back problems, though wearing a corset often helped.

Commercial laundries continued through the Middle Ages to more recent times. Henry Podger (1832-1904) was a businessman who ran one of the most successful laundry businesses in Bromley. Henry set up his business in Homesdale Road in 1864 in the business area opposite where Tesco’s is today.

As he progressed and his reputation grew, he added outlets in Tylney Road and Market Square and later Napier Road. The Homesdale Road laundry was destroyed by fire in 1886. He merely rebuilt, and the business continued, giving work to large numbers of local people: men and women.

In West Wickham there was a business called ‘Collars’. It dealt with collecting, cleaning and returning men’s removable collars. There were stiff collars worn by men commuting to London by train – steam trains spewing out smuts, meaning in the 20th century, before electrification, men would have needed a clean collar every day. Just like commercial laundries, this was just one of the door-to-door deleiveries connected with washing.

There are still commercial laundries that deliver door-to-door today, though most of us have washing machines and modern fabrics are ‘machine washable’ (though it pays to check). Next to Bromley Couth Station is a ‘cleaners’ which takes in senstivie garments for cleaning. In fact, the washing is taking care of itself as I write this!

Originally published in Life in Bromley magazine (Issue 38, April 2025)