Baths and wash-houses for the labouring classes.

  • Baly, Price Prichard.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Baths and wash-houses for the labouring classes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is secured to the washers. At the parochial Establishments of St. Mar- garet and St. John’s, Westminster, and All Saints, Poplar, which have also been erected under my directions, the drying closets are heated by iron flues. In the drawings accompanying this Report the drying closets for the second class washers are shown to be heated by iron flues, and those for the first class washers by hot-water pipes; and this arrangement will be adopted at St. George and St. Giles, Bloomsbury, Bermondsey, and St. George, Hanover Square. The arrangement of the hot-water pipes at St. James’s, Westminster, is shown in a drawing annexed to this Report; and it will be seen that no heat can be lost, and, therefore, no fuel wasted. By the old mode of drying, even with an extravagant consumption of fuel, it was found that to maintain a temperature of 230° in one large chamber, was almost, and in numerous small ones, quite impossible. The Committee found such a temperature to be indispensable to the proper purification of the linen of the poor, and especially for that of the towels which had been used by the lowest class of bathers; for, even after they were boiled, and well and carefully washed, it was found to be absolutely necessary to expose them to a high temperature, to deprive them of all ill odour. The difficulty in this respect, which has happily been overcome, was such as to threaten the usefulness of the establish- ment. The towels washed as before, but dried at a high temperature, are now quite sweet, and of better colour than when dried either in the open air in London, or in a chamber at a low temperature. The first class washers have three troughs; the second class washers have two troughs. One of the troughs, in each case, is used as a boiling tub, and the water in it is boiled by blowing steam into it. The other troughs are supplied with hot and cold water by means of taps. When the clothes are thoroughly cleansed they are placed in a wringing machine, which is a chamber with perforated sides, in which they are subjected, by simple machinery, to very rapid rotation, the centrifugal action carrying- off a great portion of the water which they have brought from the wash- ing trough. After this wringing they are hung on horses (or maidens), which are pushed into the drying chamber, where they are exposed to a temperature varying, according to circumstances, from about 140° to 240°, and when they are drawn out sufficiently dried they are taken to the
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