The choice of water was critical: where a stream was the source, the 'Instructions to the Laundry Maid' of 1815 suggested if the water was thick and muddy it was better left to stand for four days to clear. In hard water districts a piece of quicklime or soda lump might be added, and the mixture left to soften for a week. Heavily soiled clothes were left to soak in soda or lye, while more delicate garments were washed by hand in a tub of cold or luke-warm water. Rinsing was a vital part of the process - in towns there was rarely enough water for adequate rinsing, for the supply was restricted by law. In country areas soapy clothes were often rinsed in a stream.

Washing by hand was exhausting, and the invention of the peg dolly, which resembled a miniature three-legged stool with a long handle, was a considerable advance. It was twisted rapidly, and drove the linen through the wash water, spinning it out against the walls of the tub, causing the heavy dirt to collect out of the current.

Until the 1870s linen had been bleached in urine or hog's manure, and the more squeamish Victorian housewife of the 1890s must have welcomed the invention of the bleach with which we are familiar today. In villages, clothes were often laid out on the grass to be whitened by the sun.

The illustration below (also in the 'Country Life and Farming' category on this website) shows a young woman washing clothes in the  Scottish Highlands in Victorian times. Holding her dress up, she treads the clothes in a wooden tub beside a rushing, rocky stream. Carrying the heavy wooden tub from her cottage down to the stream must have been a chore in itself.

Courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection

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