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Hot and Cold Water in the Home

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The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain

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Abstract

The government’s Social Survey revealed in 1947 that 44% of British households had no piped, hot running water from a single heating source at all: ideal home models containing easily available hot and cold running water in the home, such as those at the ‘Britain Can Make It’ exhibition of 1946, were the stuff of fantasy or science fiction for a majority of Britons. This lack of hot running water placed an enormous physical burden on women in particular, who performed almost all domestic labour functions. Political parties’ need for women voters’ support was one reason why piped hot water to at least a sink and bath became near-ubiquitous, even in rural areas historically relatively deprived of direct supplies from the water mains.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    V. Kelley, ‘“The Virtues of a Drop of Cleansing Water”: Domestic Work and Cleanliness in the British Working Classes, 1880–1914’, Women’s History Review 18, 5 (2009), pp. 722, 727–8, 731–2; V. Kelley, Soap and Water: Cleanliness, Dirt and the Working Classes in Victorian and Edwardian Britain (London: IB Tauris, 2010), esp. pp. 81–2, 84–5; M. Daunton, House and Home in the Victorian City: Working Class Housing, 1850–1914 (London: Edward Arnold, 1983), pp. 246–7.

  2. 2.

    C. Beaumont, ‘“Where to Park the Pram”? Voluntary Women’s Organisations, Citizenship and the Campaign for Better Housing in England, 1928–1945’, Women’s History Review 22, 1 (2013), p. 80.

  3. 3.

    C. Beaumont, ‘Moral Dilemmas and Women’s Rights: The attitude of the Mothers’ Union and Catholic Women’s League to Divorce, Birth Control and Abortion in England, 1928–1939’, Women’s History Review 16, 4 (2007), p. 481.

  4. 4.

    M. Spring Rice, Working-Class Wives: Their Health and Conditions (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939), pp. 97, 137–8, 196–7.

  5. 5.

    L. Ryan, ‘Leaving Home: Irish Press Debates on Female Employment, Domesticity and Emigration to Britain in the 1930s’, Women’s History Review 12, 3 (2003), p. 396.

  6. 6.

    L. Lethbridge, Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth-Century Britain (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 244.

  7. 7.

    Beaumont, Women’s Organisations, p. 81.

  8. 8.

    H. Hiscox, ‘Rural Ambitions: Labour’s Visions of a Reformed Countryside in Interwar Britain’, Oxford Brookes University MA Thesis, 2011, p. 15.

  9. 9.

    C. Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England, 1920–1960 (Manchester, 2000), p. 61.

  10. 10.

    S. Szreter and K. Fisher, Sex before the Sexual Revolution: Intimate Life in England 1918–1963 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 302.

  11. 11.

    P. Shapely, The Politics of Housing: Power, Consumers and Urban Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 111–12.

  12. 12.

    B.S. Rowntree, Poverty and Progress (London: Longmans, 1941), pp. 228, 237, 244, 247, 253–5.

  13. 13.

    M. Bondfield, Our Towns: A Close Up. A Study Made During 1939–42 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1943), pp. 61, 65.

  14. 14.

    E. Colpus, ‘Landscapes of Welfare: Concepts and Cultures of British Women’s Philanthropy, 1919–39’, Oxford University PhD Thesis, 2011, 53–6; I am grateful to Dr Colpus for this reference. See also C. Moyse, ‘Fisher, Lettice (1875–1956)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn., Jan 2009, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/41132, accessed 26 March 2013.

  15. 15.

    L. Fisher,The Housewife and the Town Hall. A Brief Description of What is done by our Local Councils and Public Services (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1934), pp. 56–8.

  16. 16.

    ibid ., p. 60.

  17. 17.

    R. Vinen, National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945–1953 (London: Allen Lane, 2014), pp. 138–9.

  18. 18.

    R. MacKay, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain during the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), pp. 71, 73, 188.

  19. 19.

    Mass-Observation Papers, University of Sussex (hereafter M-O), File Report 1451–2, ‘Reconstruction’, October 1942, p. 38.

  20. 20.

    T. Harrison, ‘Houses or Flats? Mass-Observation’s Facts’, Planning 9 (1941–42), pp. 118.

  21. 21.

    M-O File Report 1456, ‘People’s Homes’, October 1942, p. 140; File Report 1593, ‘The sort of home the Englishman wants’, February 1943.

  22. 22.

    B. Highmore, The Great Indoors: At Home in the Modern British House (London: Profile Books, 2014), p. 144.

  23. 23.

    I. Young, Enigma Variations: Love, War and Bletchley Park (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1990), p. 88.

  24. 24.

    P. Summerfield, Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), pp. 175–7.

  25. 25.

    M-O diarist 5324, entry for 7 February 1942.

  26. 26.

    Muriel Green diary, 29 October 1939: D. Sheridan (ed.), Wartime Women: A Mass-Observation Anthology, 1937–45 (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), p. 57.

  27. 27.

    M-O diarist 5372, entry for 24 July 1944.

  28. 28.

    M-O diarist 5342, entry for 29 August 1942.

  29. 29.

    M-O diarist 5411, entry for 26 April 1940.

  30. 30.

    Naomi Mitchison diary, 17 October 1939: D. Sheridan (ed.), Among You Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison, 1939–1945 (London: pbk. edn., Phoenix Press, 2000), p. 46.

  31. 31.

    J.G. Ballard, Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, an Autobiography (London: Fourth Estate, 2008), pp. 171–2.

  32. 32.

    A. Davis, Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England c.1945–2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 146–59; M. Savage, Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: The Politics ofMethod (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 37–40.

  33. 33.

    NAUK RG 23/119A, GSS report, ‘Water heating’, December 1947.

  34. 34.

    Highmore, Great Indoors, pp. 83–6.

  35. 35.

    D. Kynaston, Modernity Britain: A Shake of the Dice, 1959–62 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 282, 365.

  36. 36.

    A. Johnson, This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood (London: Corgi pbk. edn., 2014), p. 96.

  37. 37.

    M-O 71/1/K, Topic collections, Rent enquiry, London, 1950.

  38. 38.

    M-O 58/2/H, Topic collections, holiday camps, 1947–1951, Gray and Riddell report on Butlin’s Holiday Camp, Clacton, September 1951.

  39. 39.

    I. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, ‘Housewifery’, in Zweiniger-Bargielowska (ed.), Women in Twentieth Century Britain (London: Routledge, 2001), p.

  40. 40.

    Kynaston, Modernity Britain, pp. 61–2, 185.

  41. 41.

    S. Todd, The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, 1910–2010 (London: John Murray, 2014), p. 280.

  42. 42.

    C. Zmroczek, ‘Dirty Linen: Women, Class and Washing Machines, 1920s-1960s’, Women’s Studies International Forum 15, 2 (1992), pp. 179–81, incl. table 1, p. 180.

  43. 43.

    A. Johnson, Please, Mister Postman: A Memoir (London: Bantam, 2014), pp. 102–3.

  44. 44.

    NAUK RG 23/389, GSS presentation, ‘Baths, showers and flush toilets’, 7 November 1969.

  45. 45.

    L. Davidoff, M. Doolittle, J. Fink and K. Holden, The Family Story: Blood, Contract and Intimacy, 1830–1960 (Harlow: Pearson, 1999), pp. 196–7; J.R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 316–17.

  46. 46.

    G. Lees-Maffei, ‘Accommodating “Mrs. Three-in-One”: Homemaking, Home Entertaining and Domestic Advice Literature in Post-War Britain.’ Women’s History Review 16, 5 (2007), pp. 736, 741.

  47. 47.

    V. Klein and A. Myrdal, Women’s Two Roles: Home and Work (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956), p. 38.

  48. 48.

    R.S. Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (London: Free Association edn., 1989), pp. 88–9.

  49. 49.

    E. Roberts, Women and Families: An Oral History 1940–70 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 33–5.

  50. 50.

    E. Shove, Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality (Oxford: Berg, 2003), pp. 81, 142–7.

  51. 51.

    M-O, The Cromwell Collier Publishing Company Research Department, ‘Woman’s Home Companion Reader - Editor Report 37’, September 1940.

  52. 52.

    M-O File Report 2270B, ‘The Postwar Homes Exhibition’, July 1945; File Report 2441, ‘Britain Can Make It’ exhibition, December 1946

  53. 53.

    J. Holder, ‘The Nation State or the United States? The Irresistible Kitchen of the British Ministry of Works, 1944 to 1951’, in R. Oldenziel and K. Zachmann (eds.), Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology, and European Users (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009), p. 240.

  54. 54.

    L. Friedman, ‘The Culture of Living: The Machine The Slave Not The Driver’, in E.G. McAllister and G. McAllister (eds.), Homes, Towns and Countryside: A Practical Plan for Britain (London: Batsford, 1945). pp. 124–25.

  55. 55.

    G. Scott, ‘Workshops Fit For Homeworkers: The Women’s Co-Operative Guild and Housing Reform in Mid-Twentieth Century Britain’, in E. Darling and L. Whitworth (eds.), Women and the Making of Built Space in England, 1870–1950 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 175–6. I am grateful to Dr Darling for this reference.

  56. 56.

    Central Housing Advisory Committee, Design of Dwellings: Report of the Design of Dwellings Sub-Committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee (London: HMSO, 1944), p. 29; Ministry of Health, Design of Dwellings (London: HMSO, 1944), p. 33; Ministry of Health, Housing Manual 1949 (London: HMSO, 1949), pp. 94, 97.

  57. 57.

    Central Housing Advisory Committee, Homes for Today and Tomorrow: Report of a Committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee (London: HMSO, 1961), p. 17.

  58. 58.

    S. Todd, ‘Affluence, Class and Crown Street: Reinvestigating the Post-War Working Class’, Contemporary British History 22, 4 (2008), p. 508; C. Langhamer, ‘The Meanings of Home in Postwar Britain’, Journal of Contemporary History 40, 2 (2005), p. 350.

  59. 59.

    F.R.S. Yorke and F. Gibberd, The Modern Flat (London: Architectural Press, 1950), pp. 37–8.

  60. 60.

    J. Manser, Hugh Casson: A Biography (London: Viking, 2000), pp. 110–11, 120–21, 157–8.

  61. 61.

    H. Casson, Homes By the Million: An Account of the Housing Methods of the United States (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1946), pp. 8, fig. 2, p. 45.

  62. 62.

    P. Novy, Housework without Tears (London: Pilot Press, 1945), pp. 87–8, 90–8.

  63. 63.

    P. Scott, The Making of the Modern British Home: The Suburban Semi and Family Life Between the Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 57 and table 3.3, p. 58.

  64. 64.

    Shapely, Politics of Housing, pp. 133, 118.

  65. 65.

    Kynaston, Shake of the Dice, p. 35.

  66. 66.

    G. O’Neill, My East End: A History of Cockney London (London: Viking, 1999), pp. 283–4.

  67. 67.

    Ministry of Health, Housing Manual 1944 (London: HMSO, 1944), p. 37; idem., Housing Manual 1949, e.g. pp. 51–81 and p. 101. Half of the latter edition’s recommendations for terraced houses are pictured with sinks that are not placed beneath windows on the plans.

  68. 68.

    Yorke and Gibberd, Modern Flat, p. 37.

  69. 69.

    Department of the Environment, Design Bulletins: Housing the Family (London: HMSO, 1974), pp. 9, 11, 12–13, 56, 75, 90–1.

  70. 70.

    S. Strasser, Never Done: A History of American Housework (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), p. 103.

  71. 71.

    C. Davidson, A Woman’s Work is Never Done: A History of Housework in the British Isles, 1650–1950 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1982), p. 32.

  72. 72.

    Kathleen Tipper diary, 24 December 1944: P. Malcomson and R. Malcolmson (eds.), A Woman in Wartime London: The Diary of Kathleen Tipper, 1941–1945 (London: London Record Society, 2006), p. 141.

  73. 73.

    Andrews, Acceptable Face of Feminism, pp. 91, 149. The membership figures are from M-O File Report 26, ‘Women’s organisations in wartime’, February 1940.

  74. 74.

    P. Thane and E. Breitenbach, Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the Twentieth Century: What Difference did the Vote Make? (London: Continuum, 2010), p. 103.

  75. 75.

    LPA R 215, LPRD memorandum, ‘Water supply industry’, February 1953.

  76. 76.

    MAFF, Agriculture, Vol. 63 (1957), p. 553; V. Porter, Yesterday’s Countryside (London: David and Charles, 2006), pp. 36–7.

  77. 77.

    NAUK HLG 50/2124, Errington to Sandys, 22 November 1955.

  78. 78.

    MHLG, Taken for Granted, p. 30.

  79. 79.

    Labour Party, Water Supply: A National Problem and its Solution (London: Labour Party, 1935), pp. 3–4, 6.

  80. 80.

    British Waterworks Association, Organisation of the Water Supply Industry (London: British Waterworks Association, 1950), pp. 11–13.

  81. 81.

    NAUK T 161/1196, Scottish Council on Post-War Problems, ‘Note on water supply and drainage’, 4 December 1941.

  82. 82.

    NAUK T 161/1196, Willink memorandum to Cabinet Reconstruction Committee, ‘Water supplies: the question of national control’, 13 January 1944; NAUK HLG 50/2311, North to McNaughton, 14 June 1944, North to Secretary, 5 September 1944.

  83. 83.

    NRS DD 13/1144, Scottish Development Department memorandum, ‘Highland development’, n.d. but filed in 1948. See also NRS SEP 12/181, Orkney County Council memorandum to Advisory Panel, ‘Sewerage schemes’, 1 October 1958, Sutherland County Council to same, ‘Rural Water Supply and Sewerage Acts’, 14 November 1958, Inverness County Council to same, ‘Lochmaddy water supply – Minish and Blashval’, 13 October 1959.

  84. 84.

    ‘National Water Supplies: Labour Party’s Post-War Policy’, Glasgow Herald, 10 March 1944.

  85. 85.

    NRS DD 13/3045, Burns memorandum, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act’, 3 December 1946, Scottish Office memorandum, ‘Water’, n.d. but filed in May 1947.

  86. 86.

    NRS DD 13/3045, Scottish Development Department note for MacRobbie, 13 July 1946.

  87. 87.

    NRS DD 13/1144, Scottish Development Department memorandum, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944’, April 1950.

  88. 88.

    H. of C. Debs., vol. 476 col. 193, Hector McNeil, Written Answers, ‘Water Supplies, Scotland’, 26 June 1950.

  89. 89.

    For the £15m figure see e.g. NAUK T 161/1196, Willink memorandum to Lord President’s Committee, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill’, 22 March 1944, and NAUK PREM 4/36/2, Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill, draft copy, 29 March 1944.

  90. 90.

    H. of C. Debs. vol. 489, col. 1090, Hugh Dalton, Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill, Second Reading Debate, 25 June 1951.

  91. 91.

    NRS DD 13/3045, Burns to MacRobbie, 6 November 1946, Burns memorandum, ‘Water supply and drainage grants’, 3 December 1946.

  92. 92.

    NRS DD 13/3007, MacRobbie memorandum, ‘Ross & Cromarty County Council’, 11 April 1947.

  93. 93.

    NRS DD 13/3045, Department of Health for Scotland letter to local authorities, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944’, 14 August 1946.

  94. 94.

    See e.g. NAUK CAB 124/234, Bevan memorandum to Socialisation of Industries Committee, ‘Nationalisation of public water supplies’, 10 March 1950.

  95. 95.

    ‘Every Scots Home Will Have Tap Water’, Daily Express, 4 May 1944.

  96. 96.

    Trinity College Cambridge, Richard Austen Butler Papers (hereafter Trinity/ RAB) L3, ‘At Last! Water For Halstead Rural!’, Halstead Gazette and Times, 13 June 1947.

  97. 97.

    ‘Villagers “Crying Out” For More Water: Sorry Story from the Rodings’, Saffron Walden Weekly News, 27 July 1951.

  98. 98.

    ‘“Damnable Conditions” in the Villages’, Saffron Walden Weekly News, 24 February 1950. Groves was left-wing enough to get into trouble with the Labour Party National Executive Committee for his war-time dealings with the Independent Labour Party, and for his 1950 call for US Air Force bombers to leave East Anglia: see UWMRC 172/LA/1/14/7, Groves papers, Shepherd to Groves, 27 April 1942, and other correspondence on file, and UWMRC MSS 172/LP/5/10, Windle to Groves, 23 November 1950; also ‘Repudiate This Man!’, Evening Standard, 23 October 1950.

  99. 99.

    Labour Party, Socialism for the Villages (London: Labour Party, 1939), pp. 7, 11–16.

  100. 100.

    LPA, Local Government Files, Water Supply, LPRD memorandum, ‘Stick to the facts – water supply’, 1964.

  101. 101.

    LSE Liberal Party files, 16/173, Information Department memorandum, ‘Water: Liberal attitude’, December 1958.

  102. 102.

    H. of C. Debs. vol. 489, cols. 1096, 1100, Thomas Dugdale, Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill, Second Reading Debate, 25 June 1951.

  103. 103.

    NAUK HLG 50/2863, Titherley to Gardner, 13 October 1948; Gardner to Titherley, 13 November 1948.

  104. 104.

    NAUK RG 23/119A, GSS report, ‘Water heating’, December 1947.

  105. 105.

    CPA ACP 50 (1), ACP minutes, 25 May 1950, ACP 51 (6), ACP minutes, 14 February 1951.

  106. 106.

    H. of C. Debs., vol. 524 cols. 134–5, James Stuart, Written Answers, ‘Rural Water and Sewerage Schemes (Grants)’, 9 March 1954.

  107. 107.

    NRS DD 13/3007, MacRobbie memorandum, ‘Water and drainage’, 17 July 1952.

  108. 108.

    NAUK CAB 139/226, Kaufmann to Redfern, 22 February 1951; NAUK HLG 53/1693, Treasury to Pike, 22 February 1952, Ministry of Housing and Department of Health for Scotland memorandum, ‘Water supply and sewerage investment, 1954/5 to 1956/7’, n.d. but filed in 1953.

  109. 109.

    NAUK HLG 29/410, Rogerson to Secretary, 30 July 1954.

  110. 110.

    See NRS SOE 6/3/151, Department of Health for Scotland Circular 15/1955, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act 1955’, 23 April 1955.

  111. 111.

    NRS DD 13/3007, Titherley to Cauthery, 26 February 1952.

  112. 112.

    NAUK HLG 52/1693, Titherley to Secretary, 21 August 1952, Titherley to Simon, 12 May 1953, Clarke to Edwards, 9 June 1954.

  113. 113.

    NAUK HLG 50/2060, Circular 87/47, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944’, 12 May 1947; NAUK HLG 72/21, Circular 15/61, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Acts, 1944–55 Grants’, 4 April 1961; NAUK HLG 50/2863, Hall to Hayes, 22 February 1963.

  114. 114.

    NAUK HLG 50/2863, Hall to Hayes, 22 February 1963.

  115. 115.

    NAUK 50/2354, Pearce to Titherley, 3 October 1951. New sewerage schemes were, however, usually allowed even though the piped water to which the scheme related might have been installed before 1934: see ibid ., Dodds to Waddell, 8 January 1960.

  116. 116.

    NAUK HLG 50/2121, Sandys memorandum to Cabinet, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill’, 22 November 1954.

  117. 117.

    NAUK HLG 50/2577, Leedham memorandum, ‘Rules for early payment of grant in hardship cases’, 16 July 1958.

  118. 118.

    NAUK HLG 50/2124, McIntyre, Secretary, Rural District Councils Association, to MHLG, 5 February 1952, Cornwall River Board meeting with MHLG, minutes, 25 January 1955.

  119. 119.

    NAUK HLG 52/2018, Note to Thexton, 15 July 1958, Brain memorandum, 17 July 1958, Brain to Southgate, 22 October 1958.

  120. 120.

    Cmnd. 419, Report of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government for 1957 (May 1958), p. 48; NAUK CAB 134/1250, Sandys memorandum to Home Affairs Cabinet Committee, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill’, 9 July 1955, Home Affairs Cabinet Committee, minutes, 15 July 1955.

  121. 121.

    NAUK 50/2577, Cauthery to O’Brien, 22 July 1954; NAUK HLG 50/2121, Cauthery to Baldwin, 14 February 1955.

  122. 122.

    NAUK T 227/309, Cauthery to Baldwin, 10 June 1955, Baldwin to Clarke, 12 July 1955.

  123. 123.

    NAUK HLG 50/2577, MHLG meeting with Treasury, minutes, n.d. but filed in January-February 1955.

  124. 124.

    NAUK HLG 52/2018, Beddoe to Waddell, 13 January 1960.

  125. 125.

    UWMRC MSS 292/650.1/2, Tewson to Sandys, 29 February 1956, Sandys to Tewson, 21 March 1956. See TUC Economic Committee memoranda, ‘Rural water supplies’, 9 February, 11 May 1955, and, on current payments for works conducted, NAUK HLG 52/2018, Caulcott to Southgate, 2 January and 15 January 1959.

  126. 126.

    UWMRC MSS 292/650.1/3, Sandys to Tewson, 7 March 1956, NUAW to Tewson, 14 March 1956.

  127. 127.

    NRS DD 13/1986, Laing to Glendinning (n.d., 1959?), Plove to Dempster, 10 February 1961.

  128. 128.

    Water Companies Association, A National Water Grid? (London: Water Companies Association, 1957), p. 5.

  129. 129.

    NAUK HLG 127/1178, Rayner to Street, 31 May 1967.

  130. 130.

    NAUK HLG 127/1178, Draft Report, South Atcham Study, ‘Economic appraisal of the provision of mains water in rural areas’, June 1969.

  131. 131.

    NAUK 50/2863, Rhodes to Crocker, MHLG, 27 May 1965.

  132. 132.

    See e.g. NRS DD 13/3021, Scottish Development Department letter to local authorities, ‘Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Acts, 1944–55’, 15 May 1968, Reed to Stark, 13 June 1968.

  133. 133.

    Most influentially, e.g. P. Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain, 1945–1975: A Study of Corporate Power and Professional Influence in the Welfare State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); P. Malpass, ‘The Wobbly Pillar? Housing and the British Postwar Welfare State’, Journal of Social Policy 32, 4 (2003), pp. 589–606.

  134. 134.

    J. Hollows, ‘The Feminist and the Cook: Julia Child, Betty Friedan and Domestic Femininity’, in E. Casey and L. Martens (eds.) Gender and Consumption: Domestic Cultures and the Commercialisation of Everyday Life (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 38–9.

  135. 135.

    J. Boys, F. Bradshaw, J. Darke, B. Foo, S. Francis, B. McFarlane, M. Roberts and S. Wilkes, ‘House Design and Women’s Roles’, in J. Boys, F. Bradshaw and J. Darke (eds.), Making Space: Women and the Man Made Environment (London: Pluto Press, 1984), pp. 55, 75–6, 78–80.

  136. 136.

    M-O diarist 5342, entries for 28 August, 30 August 1942.

  137. 137.

    S. Todd, ‘Domestic Service and Class Relations in Britain, 1900–1950’, Past and Present 203, 1 (2009), pp. 183–4.

  138. 138.

    L. Delap, Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 45, 171.

  139. 139.

    One classic article about ‘domestication’ and new technology is C. Bose, ‘Technology and Changes in the Division of Labour in the American Home’, Women’s Studies International Quarterly 2, 3 (1979), pp. 295–304; details on local laundry labour in the early twentieth century can be found in C. Chinn, They Worked All Their Lives: Women of the Urban Poor in England, 1880–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), pp. 109–13.

  140. 140.

    Nella Last diary, 26 July 1941, 16 August 1941: S. Fleming and R. Broad (eds.), Nella Last’s War: A Mother’s Diary, 1939–45 (London: Sphere, 1981), pp. 163, 167.

  141. 141.

    M. Young and P. Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957); M. Young and P. Willmott, Family and Class in a London Suburb (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), pp. 21–2; M. Young and P. Willmott, The Symmetrical Family: A Study of Work and Leisure in the London Region (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), table 8, p. 95. See A. Davis, ‘A Critical Perspective on British Social Surveys and Community Studies and Their Accounts of Married Life c. 1945–70’, Cultural and Social History 6, 1 (2009), pp. 48, 56.

  142. 142.

    Young and Wilmott, Symmetrical Family, e.g. pp. 117–18.

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    Glen O’Hara

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O’Hara, G. (2017). Hot and Cold Water in the Home. In: The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44640-4_7

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