laundry

This may seem like a boring subject, and I have to admit, doing laundry is one of the most tedious part of my life. Yet the way we do laundry has evolved dramatically over the decades. And during Regency England, at least among the upper class, it was a very different process.

Live-in servants did personal and intimate laundry. The big laundry of sheets, towels, and table linens, however, were sent out when the family was in town and done by the laundress in the country.

Laundry required large containers, big fires, lots of water, soap and a soft brush. Garments such as shifts which were unadorned could be done with the laundry but silk gowns and gowns with trimming were done by hand.

One recipe for cleaning silk stockings was to make a tent of up side down kitchen chairs, put a blaizer of coals, and use vitrolic acid fumes to clean the stockings which were put on the chair legs to dry. The whole was covered by a Holland cloth. As this sounds lethal, I hope most people used tepid water and soap instead!

Dresses and stays were often just spot cleaned and sponged off. Other dresses were unpicked and then washed. The linen and cotton materials were often boiled. Jane Austen often complained about shrinkage and colors running.

The laundress usually had some bluing agent. A scrub board, or wash board, was also necessary.
Spots and stains were treated before the linens were laundered. The clothes , and bed and table linens and towels were scrubbed, boiled in hot water, rinsed in cooler water and hung out to dry. Some items were starched. When dry, or sometimes when partially dry, the items were taken down and "mangled" or ironed.

Soap and hot water and the wash board are all that is absolutely necessary, but starch, bluing, and something to treat stains was usually on hand.

Laundries used hot water from everything I've read and seen. Also, a fun tidbit, the reason most shirts and shifts are monogrammed is that they were sent to the country to be laundered and they had to be marked so they got returned to the right household. This is also why a man of means would have a LOT of shirts (time lag, kind of like dry cleaning, but much worse.)

A large household in the country may only have done large laundry--sheets and table cloths--two times a year. That was one reason why they had large linen presses filled with linens. A servant did the body linen of the upper classes more frequently, thank goodness. Furs were sent to a dry cleaner. Yes, a dry cleaner.

As much as I'm glad I have the modern washer and dryer, it would be nice to have someone do my laundry ;-)

What chore would you hire out if you had the money?


For those who want to look up more material:
Crinolines and Crimping Irons --It focuses mainly on Victorian clothes but some is applicable to the Regency.
The English Laundress.
The Shire Publications has a pamphlet on laundries in the Regency Era.


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