Soap, sand, soda – a clean trio

Soda, sand, seife (soap) — Enamel holders and shelf with floral decoration, early 20th century, in a folk museum in SW Germany: Landesmuseum Württemberg. Seife means soap; the other words are the same in English and German. Photo by Andreas Praefcke.

German kitchens used to have a decorative shelf with a set of pots, neat and tidy, filled with three essentials for a clean home: soap, sand, and soda. Although English-speaking countries never had a special storage unit like this, and didn’t think of the “three esses” as a trio, they also made much use of sand and soda as well as soap.

Soap soda sand 1951 — 1951 German children's book shows the usual soap, sand, soda containers in the kitchen. From diepuppenstubensammlerin.

Antique wall-hung shelves with their three containers appeal to collectors in the USA, not just parts of Europe. The most attractive to me are the ones ornamented in folk art style with full-petalled pink roses and curving outlines. Traditional German lettering adds character too.

They all seem to be made of enamelled sheet metal and belong to the first half of the 20th century, or possibly the late 19th too – the heyday of enamelware. If you know when these first came into use please do add a comment. The early 20th/late 19th century dates would match with cleaning and washing methods in that period.

Washing soda in the late 19th century was factory-made and quite affordable. Among other things, it helps with laundry and with taking out stains from wood, and is simple enough to be seen today as a “green” product. Soap, like soda, was quite plentiful by 1900, not too expensive, and was available in powder or flakes suitable for filling a nice enamel pot.

Wall holder sand soda seife — Another set of enamel containers on a wall-hung shelf. Photo by mhobl.

Sand had been a basic cleaning agent for centuries: for scrubbing floors, scouring iron cooking pots, and much more. This is easier to remember in German-speaking countries where the word Scheuersand, meaning scouring sand, is still recognised. Fine sand for cleaning gradually morphed into white abrasive cleaning powders with hygienic-smelling chemicals. There was an intermediate stage with sand and soda scouring mixes. One brand of “sand”, ATA, was remembered with nostalgia by some older people from former East Germany, after it vanished around 1989.

sal soda — American washing soda, mid-20th century, Arm & Hammer's Sal Soda brand.

Household advice books from 100 years ago tell us about using the three esses. There’s one in German that recommends mixing soda and sand for cleaning wood – no soap as that makes wood look grey. Use all three for metal utensils but be sparing with the sand or you will damage tinned surfaces. Enamel is best cleaned with a soap and soda mixture, after soaking.

Or you can buy some detergent at the supermarket…..

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here: first big picture, child’s book illustration, sepia photo. More picture info here

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Bedroom bath & basin 1800s style

hip bath, sponge bath, foot bath, water can — Victorian hip bath made of varnished (japanned) oak and marble. Both hip and sponging baths came in large or medium sizes. Bedroom foot-tub, in a set with a can to bring water, and pail for carrying away used water. Offered in various styles and patterns.

Having no bathroom was no problem for people with servants. Using your bedroom for bathing was normal in the 1800s. Even if you were rich enough to install indoor plumbing, and enjoyed a bath or shower in a brand new bathroom, you wouldn’t necessarily want to give up the convenience of a commode near your bed, a washstand with warm water supplied by the maid or even a nice hip bath set near to all the bedroom furniture and accessories you used for grooming and dressing. This was especially true in big houses in cold weather. Keeping everything in one warm room was a good idea, or you could use a connecting dressing-room or boudoir, and still avoid unheated hallways.

As well as wardrobes, dressers, vanity tables, mirrors and so on, a 19th century middle or upper class bedroom serving as a bathroom too needed:

Chamber pot or a wooden commode in form of stool or steps, with pot hidden inside.
Washstand with earthenware bowl and accessories
At least one water carrier like can, pitcher, jug etc.
Free-standing wooden towel rail known as a towel horse
Basin for a sponge bath and/or a hip bath

Other things you might have seen include a bidet, a polished wooden clothes horse to hold clothing overnight, soap dishes, and a foot bath.

Washstand with pitcher or faucet — Painted washstand on left offered with a "toilet set complete with two chambers" meaning a bowl, jug, and two lidded containers for soap etc. The deal (pine) washstand with a sloping lid came with a "tank", filled with water by a servant, and imitating indoor plumbing.

Bedsteps may have been useful for climbing into high beds, but from the 18th century people wanted them to conceal a “pan”. The same cabinet-making skills used for clever, folding furniture displayed in public parts of the house, like convertible library steps, were also applied to making bedroom steps double up as a seat and toilet.

Bedstep commodes 1800s — Commodes, bedsteps type, with chamber pots inside. Bidet stool on left.

The bidet here is not much like the modern idea of a bidet, especially as the box top looks as if it only has space for a very shallow pan inside under the lid. Still, the sales catalogue discreetly describes it as “complete”. See something similar in the second bidet photo here.

Towel rails 1800s — Towel horses in a choice of varnished woods and different sizes. Also used for airing clothes overnight.

BIDET…. Amongst cabinet-makers it denotes a small stool with four legs, sometimes fixed, and at others to screw off, to render them more portable. They contain a pan made of tin, and japanned, or are of earthen ware, made for the purpose….
The simple box shaped ones are about 5 inches deep…
Sheraton’s Cabinet Dictionary, 1803

Toilet, basin folding into vanity table or closet — All-in-one toilet and washing furniture for bedroom. Commode pan folds in behind door on left. Tank with "jointed faucet" supplies wash basin on right

The first three pictures on this page are from England in 1875. The last one is from 1874, showing an American inventor’s idea for making a compact piece of furniture that would hide everything away in a kind of convertible vanity table with mirror and doors. No more need for separate washstand and bedsteps or chamber pot.

My invention relates to that class of toilet cases combining a commode, washing facilities, towel-rack, and other devices for use in a chamber or room; and consists in the hereinafter-described parts, combined and arranged in such a manner that the case may, when not in use, present a neat and compact article, capable of being opened out, in its several parts, for several uses incidental to chamber purposes…

Erastus Ewing, US Patent 156,213, October 27,1874

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Victorian nursery furniture

antique nursery furniture crib rocker — Elegant furniture for a baby's nursery of the 1870s. A swinging cradle (wicker or cane?) on a lacquered iron frame, with support for drapes, plus a chair for mother or nurse to rock baby when not in the cot.

Parents planning for a new baby in the 19th century felt some of the same pressures as parents today. From one direction came the voices of “experts” offering advice on safety, health, and hygiene. At the same time magazine writers and furniture salesmen talked up the fun of choosing pretty, fashionable furnishings for a baby’s bedroom, or nursery.

A superior crib with perforated zinc sides, according to an 1870s catalogue

For a young baby’s bed nothing is prettier than the wicker bassinet, trimmed with muslin and lace and with a canopy to match. However, the muslin adornments soon lose their crispness and it is better to purchase a rattan or iron crib…with a frame or rod from which to suspend curtains of China silk or some pretty washing material, held in place with bows of ribbon…Iron cribs painted in white and gold with brass knobs and finishing are very effective.
The Ladies’ Home Journal, Philadelphia, 1893

British magazines as well as American ones described pretty ways of decorating a baby’s room, for families who could give their children a nice space of their own. (The nearest some poorer households got to special sleeping arrangements for children was a trundle bed.)

A furniture store in Bristol, England suggested a “complete furnishing estimate” for a room, or two rooms, where a small child and its nursemaid would sleep and spend much of the day. The total cost was nearly as much as a labourer’s annual wage, but affordable for many successful professional or business families.

baby furniture 19th century catalogue package — Recommended baby furniture for English "day and night" nursery in an 1875 furniture catalogue

The horsehair mattress would have been approved by the American doctor quoted lower down the page. He was one of many 19th century writers criticising featherbeds (feather mattresses) as too warm, too soft, or too unhygienic. This was one topic where health and sales advice generally agreed. The mattresses in that same catalogue for cribs, children’s bedsteads, swing cots, or rocking cradles were offered with these fillings, from cheapest to most expensive:

1800s crib or cot with trim — "Strong iron crib, ornamented" for a Victorian baby

Best flock [fabric and fibre scraps]
Coloured wool
Superior coloured wool
White wool
Horsehair
Best white wool, or French
Superior horsehair

This selection was typical of England. In the USA cotton was a common mattress stuffing. While feather and down were disapproved of for children’s mattresses, down pillows were used for small babies. Doesn’t this seem dangerous and unsuitable by today’s standards?

A fender guard and fire irons were more or less essential. In many houses an open fire would be be the only way of keeping a child’s room warm, but of course this gave rise to lots of warnings and advice on how to manage the fireplace as safely as possible.

Child's washstand, basin — Washstand low enough for child, with shallow bowl, soap holder etc. Victorian England, 1870s

The washstands recommended remind us how much nuisance there would be carrying hot water jugs and basins around. Even with indoor plumbing in wealthy homes, a washstand was standard in middle- and upper-class bedrooms.

The furniture of a nursery should be as little in quantity as convenience will permit…It should therefore consist of the beds for the children and nurse, or I would rather say mattresses, as I am of the opinion feather beds are improper, for the following reasons:—firstly, they are too warm for the purposes of health, …thus giving rise to unnecessary, nay, injurious perspiration; secondly, the effluvium from feathers is extremely oppressive, particularly in warm weather…thirdly, they discharge a prodigious quantity of dust, …occasioning cough and other inconveniences.
Dr Dewees of Philadelphia writing in the Monthly Gazette of Health or Medical, Dietetic, Antiempirical and General Philosophical Journal, 1829

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Bidets past and present

antique porcelain bidet in wooden chair frame — Porcelain bidet from c1800 in wooden chair-shape frame, probably French export to UK, placed alongside newer bathroom fittings. Photo by HomeThingsPast.

Do you have a bidet in your bathroom? It’s always been a difference between English-speaking countries and France. Bidets have never quite caught on in the USA or the UK, except for an occasional “trend” that never really went very far. Some upper class ladies in 19th century England had French-made bidets, and in the 1980s British sanitaryware retailers started stocking bidets.

But in France there’s a bidet in every bathroom, isn’t there? Not any more. In recent years the bidet has been disappearing from new French bathrooms. Only 40% had bidets included in the mid-1990s, as compared with 95% in the 1970s, according to the authors of a French book on the history of the bidet.† In 1995 Italy produced 15 times as many bidets as France.

Bidet-style arrrangements for personal hygiene are not limited to Europe. Arabic-speaking countries use them, and Japan is a leading producer of high-tech bidet/toilet combinations (also called washlets), with jets of water washing after you flush, and warm air following on. This type is used in nursing homes.

Bidet history

Bidet pan in stool with lid — This kind of bidet looks like a stool when the lid is on. As used in a 19th century bedroom or dressing room. Photo by Moresheth.

In France beautful bowls set into elegant seats were fashionable with the upper classes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Napoleon’s will left his silver-gilt bidet to his son. A 1751 rosewood-veneered bidet of Madame de Pompadour’s is preserved at Versailles near Paris. The basin in hers is decorative like this slightly later floral earthenware one.

That last link and the first picture on this page show the curving shape of the antique bowls. This shape explains why the bidet once had nicknames like violin-case or little guitar. Originally the word bidet itself referred to the wooden furniture originally used for holding the bowl, and meant pony.

Debates about who invented the bidet are not likely to be settled any time soon. The French or the Italians? After all, who can say when someone first set a basin of water on a stand at a convenient height for washing the more private parts of the body?

antique bidet austrian — Bidet from the era of indoor plumbing - note the row of little holes - in an Austrian museum. Photo by Alfred Diem.

The earliest written information we have about bidets comes fom a Paris cabinet-maker whose business literature in 1739 offered bidets designed with backs and hinged lids. Rémy Peverie also suggested the possibility of making two-person bidets for his aristocratic clients. Now there’s an idea that didn’t catch on – as far as I know.

Photos

Photographers credited in captions.
Links to originals here:
bidet with lid, Austrian bidet, Japanese controls.
More picture info here

Notes

†F. Beaupré, R-H. Guerrand, Le Confident des dames: Le bidet du XVIIIe au XXe siècle
Katherine Ashenburg, Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing

bidet foot bath — Bidet and footbath combination patented 1879 in USA. Remove soapdish and sit (awkwardly?) on mini-shelf C to use it as a bidet. Invented by Merwin Church of Chicago, owner of large hardware store.

american bidet — Bidet in USA, about 1910.

bidet control panel — Controls for a bidet-toilet aka washlet in a Tokyo hotel. Photo by William Kumberger.

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Showers – 19th century luxury and health

antique shower 1890s — American shower, probably 1890s. Water from above and from the sides, various different settings. Photo by Dan Theurer

The earliest showers were rather like having a pail of water tipped over you from a height. By the 1880s there were some more sophisticated contraptions available. They could be fully integrated with indoor plumbing, and came complete with an array of taps and valves to adjust temperature, water flow, and more. Patent mixers were invented to make sure the water could never be scalding hot. One manufacturer promised their needle shower would not let water go over 98 degrees F (body temperature). Showers were supposed to be invigorating and health-giving, so cool or lukewarm water was considered beneficial.

A needle bath or needle shower directed jets of water all round the torso. Sometimes the water flow could be adjusted, and a particular setting was promoted as a liver shower or bath, supposedly offering a stimulating massage for internal organs. Its energising effects were considered more suitable for men than women. Needle showers were marketed to gentlemen’s athletic clubs as well as private houses. Some people call them cage showers.
A rain bath or shower was an overhead spray coming from a circular head pointing straight down or slightly slanted. Also called a spray bath, it was a desirable fitting for modern, hygienic public baths and hospitals.
Combination showers with a variety of features were promoted by leading manufacturers. Some were decorative as well as cleverly designed. They led to the canopy shower.

vintage canopy shower bath — Canopy bath, made in the UK early 1900s. Photo by HomeThingsPast.

Canopy showers or canopy baths built several bathing features into a fine piece of furniture. Designed for bathrooms in well-decorated homes, these were available for the well-heeled buyer in North America and Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The porcelain enamel tub extended upward at one end into a tall curved shower wall, usually with a hood. This impressive bathroom centrepiece could be seven feet high. Many were fitted inside dark polished wood cases; some had ornamental enamelled metal exteriors. Douche and plunge settings were sometimes included. The plunge was a gushing flow of water, not a spray or fine jets. Other features of needle or canopy baths could include a kidney, spinal, or bidet spray, or a special shampoo spray.

English needle shower bath — "Improved needle bath" by Smeaton of London, 1890, had 6 rows of needles, each with its own controls. Shower, douche, and sitz were "usually fitted". Patent mixer and thermometer were extra. Upmarket Victorian hotels and aristocratic customers using Smeaton baths and showers are listed in the ad.

UK manufacturers tried to entice wealthy late Victorian customers with a steady supply of new features. As well as all the shower options, you could have fine carving on the canopy bath surround, a curving bath with extra space at the shower end, or an open top “Oriental” bath which avoided any “sense of confinement”. Instead of being enclosed in dark wood, the Oriental model was metal decorated with stencilled friezes, fluted columns, and cornices. Copper and other metal canopies came into vogue, and started to replace the heavy mahogany look.

When did ordinary homes get showers?

Around 1900 these were splendid luxuries for rich people, who often bought them for the supposed health benefits of special kinds of bathing. A lot of routine hygiene depended on washstands and hip baths in the bedroom. But when were showers fitted in middle-class homes? There are plenty of statistics about the percentage of homes in various countries with either a bath or a shower, but very little about showers alone.

The 1920s was when showers began to spread to “normal” homes in the USA, especially new homes, according to many writers.† The pictures at the bottom of the page give a foretaste of this, with US bathroom designers illustrating not-too-lavish bathrooms with showers included. Sears Roebuck was selling showers by 1915. By 1965 a study of one thousand American middle-class homes found that 85% had both a tub and a shower.*

needle shower controls — "Turn until temperature of water suits." Faucets on needle shower in Seattle, c1914, with enlargement of one. Photo by Michael Cornelius.

Even though British shower manufacturers and wealthy customers had kept pace with American developments up to WWI, it stopped there. Bathrooms were different on different sides of the Atlantic. Showers appeared in sports clubs and other communal facilities but remained uncommon in private homes in Britain before the 1970s/80s. (Sorry, only anecdotal evidence so far, but I’m pretty sure.)

Many European countries were far slower than the USA to adopt showering at home. Possible reasons include older housing stock without space for showers, and progressive attitudes to new technology in America. Attitudes to hygiene varied from culture to culture. Sweden was one of the first European countries to take home showers to its heart. 1980s studies in Sweden and Minnesota showed that in both places most homes had a shower and a bathtub.‡

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here:
American needle shower, shower controls.
More picture info here

Notes

†For example, Old House Magazine, Nov 1994
*Marilyn Langford, Personal hygiene attitudes and practices in 1000 middleclass households, Cornell University, 1965
‡Rita J. Erickson, Paper or plastic?: energy, environment, and consumerism in Sweden and America, 1997
Also see:
Katherine Ashenburg, The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History
David Eveleigh, Bogs, Baths, and Basins: The Story of Domestic Sanitation

Porcelain and enamel are two different names for the same glazed coating on iron baths: usually white but not always.

shower 1880s — 1888 - nickel-plated brass shower with shampoo pipe, for athletic club rooms, or for fitting over a bath. Curtain ring available as an extra. Ad for Mott of New York.

shower bath 1910 — Shower c1910 over bath. Porcelain enamel on iron tub. Curtain could be thick cotton or silk lined with rubber. USA.

needle shower tub 1916 — c1916 - Mott's combined "needle and rain shower" has foldaway needle "arms" that the user can swing forward when required.

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Boot scrapers

painted boot scraper — Simple scraper at Münster prison, Germany. Photo by Dave.

Who uses boot scrapers in the 21st century? Portable ones are on sale for gardeners, and for anyone else who wants to tackle muddy boots before approaching clean houses, cars, or paths. But the days of iron scrapers being placed at every door are over. The finest ornamental 19th century scrapers are still there beside elegant townhouses and country mansions. Scrapers have stayed on some smaller homes, especially where the scraper is embedded in the wall. Plain, functional scrapers sometimes remain by historic buildings.

Gone are the days of architects and builders planning for boot scrapers:

English boot scraper arch shape — Arch framing scraper set into wall - a design once used widely in England. This one is in Cambridge. Photo by Nick James.

Scrapers for the feet may be let into the wall of the cottage, on each side of the door, a cavity being left over the scraper for the foot, and one under it for the dirt. There are various forms of scrapers for building into walls, which may be had of every ironmonger; and all that the cottager has to do is to choose one analogous to the style of his house. There are detached scrapers in endless variety; the most complete are those which have brushes fixed on edge, on each side of the scraper…
An encyclopædia of cottage, farm, and villa architecture and furniture …John Claudius Loudon, London, 1839

Schools no longer put scrapers on their list of essentials:

The Scraper ….. the steps or platform leading to the door ….. either will be incomplete without a strong, convenient shoe scraper at each side. Two will be required, for the reason that the pupils enter the school, morning and afternoon, about the same time, and if there be only one scraper, it will either cause delay or compel some to enter the building with soiled shoes. Cleanliness and neatness are amongst the cardinal virtues of the school-room ; and every means of inculcating and promoting them should receive the earliest and most constant attention.
JG Hodgins, The school house: its architecture, external and internal arrangements, Toronto, 1876

Canadian boot scraper — Old school in Winnipeg, Canada, with a long boot scraper for several children to use at once. Long scrapers were a typical school design. Photo by Per.

What we do have now are enthusiasts who just love old boot scrapers. Since these are often fixed into stone, they are best collected by photographers. One collection is mostly from the UK or US. Another is from Brussels where, says the introduction, scrapers used to be part of the etiquette and ritual for entering both public buildings and individual homes. A Toulouse “collector” has analysed local styles and named them: ram’s horns, fir-cones etc.

boot scraper railings — Scraper discreetly set at foot of steps with iron railings in New York. Photo by Kim Navarre.

When did boot scrapers arrive as a normal part of daily life? The first print references start mid-18th century, when they are simply called scrapers.* I haven’t seen any that go back as far as this, but am hoping a “collector” may know of one and add a comment – please. Foot scraper and shoe scraper are terms also used, but boot scraper is far the most common name.

portable boot scraper — Movable cast iron scraper with tray to catch dirt. Probably late Victorian. Photo by HomeThingsPast.

They attracted 19th century inventors with an eye on patenting newer, cleverer kinds of scraper: quite often combined with brushes. Some of these look useful, some don’t, but none has the elegance of the best architect-endorsed scrapers, chosen to suit the house they were protecting from mud. One design that stands out from the crowd is seen in New York and Savannah, Georgia. By integrating the scraper into the railings it avoids the “afterthought” look of a shoe-cleaner that doesn’t suit the architectural style of the house, but it isn’t quite as obvious as a free-standing scraper. Did visitors know where they were supposed to clean their footwear?

cast iron scraper in corner — Scraper with dragon head in Oxford on 1882 building. Photo by Barnaby S.

Specification of Works to be done in erecting and completely finishing a Villa….with all the necessary appurtenances [sic]….
Iron-founder…Provide cast-iron strong tray boot scrapers to front and back doorways.
Specification of Works required to be done in erecting and completely finishing a Pair Of Semi-detached Cottages….
Iron-founder….Fit up to each front door a neat iron knocker and a neat iron-pan scraper.
Practical specifications of works executed in architecture, civil and mechanical engineering, London, 1865

boot scrapers 19th century — US boot scraper and brush combinations patented in 1870s and 1880s. Called foot-scraper, boot-cleaner, and shoe scraper, and all portable.

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here:
White boot scraper, school boot scraper, arch scraper, scraper and railings, dragon scraper.
More picture info here

Notes

*Oxford English Dictionary cites Swift’s Directions to Servants 1745

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Medieval and Renaissance combs

H-comb France 1500 — French boxwood comb made c1500. Letters say "por vog servir", "to help you". ("Pour vous servir" in modern French) Photo by Thomas Cowart.

The most beautiful combs owned by ladies in late medieval and Renaissance times were highly ornamented in between their two rows of teeth. They look special, and they are. Some of the best were given as love tokens, and the fine, lacy carving included mottos, hearts, dates or initials. Did the young ladies use their admirers’ gifts? Or did the real hairdressing get done with plainer combs? The simple comb in the 17th century painting below looks easier to hold than a really gorgeous piece of carved wood.

H comb for combing hair 1600s — Combing a young lady's hair in 1633. From a Jan Miense Molenaer painting with various titles: Woman at her Toilet, Vanity, or Lady World.

And would you use your romantic, artistic comb for everyday hair hygiene? Apologies to anyone who is squeamish about infestation, but the fine-toothed side of the comb helped people deal with nits and lice, which people used to take more for granted than today.

H-combs

The H-shaped structure framing the teeth means that some people call these H-combs. Archaeologists call them double-sided. In Northern Europe there were double-sided H-combs in the early medieval period, while in the Middle East they go back more than 2000 years.

In late medieval Europe, especially France and Italy, beautifully decorated combs were considered a desirable gift from a knight to his lady. They could be teamed with a matching mirror and hair parter, and fitted into a dressing case (trousse de toilette), typically made of leather. Boxwood, bone and ivory were the most common materials; in all of these the teeth needed to be cut along the grain for strength. Boxwood is probably the only European wood dense enough to allow a special saw (a stadda) to cut fine teeth into the comb. These saws had two blades set close together and could cut 32 teeth to the inch or even more.† There are numerous pictures from medieval times onward showing ladies using plain H-combs, like the one from the Luttrell Psalter below right. Yet I don’t know of any showing an elaborately carved and pierced comb being used.

Medieval lady hold H comb as maid helps with her hair — A lady and her comb, with a maid helping arrange her hair. Early 14th century.

The most decorative combs started to become less popular as love gifts around 1600, though opinions vary on exactly when the fashion faded away. Plainer wooden H-combs were handmade up to 1900 or so. In the later 17th century there was a fashion for engraved tortoiseshell combs of this shape in the West Indies. Incised patterns with white filler, and frequent use of tulip designs, suggest combs there were influenced by Dutch craftsmanship.

†Information about the saw and other historical details come from Edward Pinto’s Treen and other wooden bygones. He casts doubt on the idea that many surviving combs were “liturgical combs” for priests to use when preparing for church rituals. Some of these were undoubtedly secular combs, made for rich people, but not for the clergy, he believes.

A lover may freely accept from her beloved these things: a handkerchief, a hair band, a circlet of gold or silver, a brooch for the breast, a mirror, a belt, a purse, a lace for clothes, a comb [pecten], sleeves, gloves, a ring, a box, a keepsake of the lover, and, to speak more generally, a lady can accept from her love whatever small gift may be useful in the care of her person, or may look charming, or may remind her of her lover, providing, however, that in accepting the gift it is clear that she is acting quite without avarice. Capellanus, De Amore, Book 2, c1180

Pivoting carved comb from 16th century France — Comb with two flat sections that pivot into a cross shape, from 16th century France. Photo by Kotomi Yamamura

boxwood comb 16th century French — French boxwood comb, 16th century. Photo by Kotomi Yamamura

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here: First comb, Other combs, More picture info here

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Household expenses for a “middling” 18th century family

Mary Johnson's household costs — Weekly expenses for a middling family laid out in Madam Johnson's Present: Or, Every Young Woman's Companion in Useful and Universal Knowledge (1770 edition)

What could you afford if you were of “middling station” in England in the 1760s and 1770s? You would have plenty of beer, ale, meat, and soap, but no wine, according to a detailed budget in Madam (Mary) Johnson’s book on household management. She suggests the mistress of her middle class home will spend £16 a year on her own clothes, and acknowledges this does not allow for “very fine laces”.

Mother and children have pocket money for fruit and toys, and may occasionally go to a “country-lodging” for “health and recreation”. Yet this hypothetical family of two parents and four children have only one live-in maid.* This surely means Mother will have to work hard in the house, on top of the “lying-in” (childbirth) which is budgeted for every other year.

The largest sums go for savings, rent and taxes, clothing for four children, and money set aside to cover bad debts. The bad debts give us a clue that this 18th century “middling” family is a tradesman’s family. Other costs confirm this, like the “expenses of trade with customers”.

Some of the smallest items are the most unfamiliar to us. Who puts sand, fullers earth, whiting, smallcoal, and brickdust on their shopping list today? All these were for cleaning jobs except the smallcoal, or charcoal.

The haberdashery (sewing bits and pieces) expenses were essential then, but more like hobby accessories now. By the way, when she says worsted I think she means worsted wool thread for darning socks etc., not worsted woollen cloth.

Buying two and a half pounds of candles a week seems a lot to most of us. In England day lengths vary hugely between winter and summer so the candle budget would fluctuate accordingly. When she says candles cost 1s 3d “per week the year round” she means on average.

Mary Johnson's household budget 1750 — Annual budget for the same middling family, as suggested by Madam Johnson.

A chaldron of coal was 36 bushels. Five chaldrons might have filled between 60 and 80 sacks, all delivered to the house, of course. A ferkin or firkin of small beer would have been about 8 or 9 gallons. Small beer was fairly weak, for everyday drinking, and considered inferior to ale.

The soap for “family occasions” was not for special occasions or events! Occasions here just means needs.

Money abbreviations:

l … pound
s … shilling (20 in a pound)
d … penny (12 in a shilling)
f … farthing (4 in a penny)

*The mistress of the house had other help as well as the live-in maid: a washerwoman would have needed the soap bought for use “abroad” (away from home), and a wet-nurse would be employed for “nursing a Child abroad”. And it looks as if repair costs covered work that would have been done by live-in servants in much bigger houses.

There’s no perfect way to adjust the prices to today’s values. This website suggests multiplying by somewhere between 75 and 100. That would mean the family’s annual expenditure was equivalent to £30,000+ in today’s world – maybe $50,000. All very rough estimates.

The first edition of Mary Johnson’s book (1753) says she was “for many Years a Superintendent of a Lady of Quality’s Family in the City of York”.

Want to compare prices, incomes etc. over the years?

This page on “changes in the value of money over time” has links to many useful resources.

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