Today, almost 90 per cent of British households own a washing machine. Front-loading, automatic, with a long list of digital programmes for almost every type of wash.
Very different from less than a century ago. It was in 1937 that US manufacturer of starter motors, Bendix, brought the first domestic, automatic washing machine into the UK. But it took until the1950s before people could afford to buy an electric washing machine.
It was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that commercial steam and sanitary laundries replaced the long hours of physical labour. The back-breaking work was usually carried out by a household ’launderess’ using tubs, washboards, and boiling coppers. Although there was also a labour-intensive, cottage-industry of small-scale manual laundries that many working-class families relied upon.
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Eventually, almost every small town across the UK had its own purpose-built steam laundry with horse-drawn collection vans. Now the drudgery of manual wringing and heavy flat-irons was replaced by wooden rotary washing machines, metal power-washers, steam-heated drying tumblers, and large mechanical rollers or "calenders" that ironed linens instantly.
So too, in Bushey where between 1890 and 1900, the new steam laundries appeared, including, the early Bushey Steam Laundry nearby to the old White Hart pub at 27 High Street, now Zaza Restaurant. The operation later expanded its main works to Walton Road, off Bushey Hall Road, and advertised as ‘Whites Laundry’. A dropping-off point for linens was kept on Glencoe Road, advertised as "The Sanitary Laundry" in 1910.
By the 1940s, commercial high street laundries were providing a much-needed lifeline to many households. “There was hardly room to swing a cat in our tiny house never mind big wash tubs and mangles which were out in the back yard … and trying to hang up clothes to dry properly.” recalls one Bushey resident.
Another remembers, “Gran used to say they didn’t have any hot running water, and had to heat it up themselves - it took a long while”.
However, by the end of the decade, the communal washhouse was slowly overtaken by the arrival of the Bendix self-service launderette for direct public use. Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, coin-operated, front-loading washing machines spread to most high streets, including Bushey, as recalled, “One day a week, I would go with my mum to the launderette on Chalk Hill parade where we sometimes had to wait for a machine to use”.
One Bushey resident who remembers working Saturday shifts during the 1970s at one of the launderettes along Bushey High Street says they noticed, “They were often twice the physical size back then with owners living right above the premises”.
But already at the start of the 1970s household washing machines had become more affordable, and nearly two thirds bought their own, which led to the slow decline of the high street launderette. By the 1980s, around 12,500 remained on UK high streets, according to the National Association of the Launderette Industry (NALI).
Thirty years later - in the 21st century - around 97 per cent of homes own a washing machine. But the local high street still boasts the Bushey Dry Cleaners & Launderette. For those items you still need a specialised service, such as the duvet, curtains, suits, even shirts or blouses for busy working people.
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