[Jarred Santos]

Laundry Day​

Image Credit: Facebook/National Archives of Australia

This blast from the past was taken sometime in the early 1930s, way before the time of washing machines! This was when you had to put in the elbow grease to ensure clothes were spotless.

In this picture are Frank Hurley and Dr James Marr aboard a ship en route to Antarctica for a research expedition. They’re all smiles, but those arms must have been burning from all that cleaning, eh?

Were you ever assigned by the parents to take care of your laundry back in the day? How did it go? Tell us all about it here!

If you have other images or musings about the past, please feel free to post here on our Yesterday’s Australia forum!

 

[Jethrotull]

My mum never had a washing machine when we lived in Burnley Richmond.. up until I was around 14, mum had to light a fire under a copper boiler and use use Blue tablets to make the washing whiter.. then when they had been boiled, it was my job to transfer the still hot washing across into the washing troughs, with a stick.. then put them through a hand ringer to get excess water out of them.. we only had a singe clothes line, pushed up with a pole.. it was very hard work just to do the washing… still think of mum each day and I am in my seventies..

 

[starrysnan]

My mum never had a washing machine when we lived in Burnley Richmond.. up until I was around 14, mum had to light a fire under a copper boiler and use use Blue tablets to make the washing whiter.. then when they had been boiled, it was my job to transfer the still hot washing across into the washing troughs, with a stick.. then put them through a hand ringer to get excess water out of them.. we only had a singe clothes line, pushed up with a pole.. it was very hard work just to do the washing… still think of mum each day and I am in my seventies..

I can agree wholeheartedly with your description as washing machines were not around when I was a girl either. I can vividly remember that horrible ringer that quite often popped off buttons on shirts or broke them making even more work for Mum to replace them. I just love my LG washing machine!

 

[Jethrotull]

I can agree wholeheartedly with your description as washing machines were not around when I was a girl either. I can vividly remember that horrible ringer that quite often popped off buttons on shirts or broke them making even more work for Mum to replace them. I just love my LG washing machine!

We are so lucky to have the appliances now.. generations take everything for granted.. I now have central heating.. as a boy growing up with mum as a widow.. we had a threepence gas supply, to get gas for cooking or a candle gas heating, I had to put threepences in the supply and turn the handle to get gas.. we wouldn’t always have enough money.. so had dripping on bread for dinner.. mum would always get excited once a month when the gas man would come to collect the threepences in the gas meter.. there was always a few that he gave back to mum as the bill was paid.. it was like Xmas..

 

[Gsr]

Monday was always washing day, first the sheets, which were all white back then, tableclothes, dishcloths and tea towels, then the underwear and girls clothes, then the towels, lastly the boys clothes as it was assumed they were the dirtiest. Boil the copper, throw in the bags of blue and washing powder, throw in the clothes, swirl and prod them with a stick til clean, carefully lift out with the stick and carry to clothesline and throw over line. We didn’t have a wringer. Put next load on. When clothes on line cool wring them by hand and spread along line, peg with wooden dolly pegs out of peg tin, an empty arnotts biscuit tin in our house. Clothesline was a piece of wire strung between two posts. Prop up with a fairly sturdy tree branch, had to be long enough and have a fork at the top to hold the line. Dig prop into ground so it didn’t slip and let the washing fall to the ground. When dry clothes were brought in, folded and put away. I helped with the washing as much as I could, getting up early on Mondays to get a few loads done before I had to walk to school. Monday night I ironed with a flat iron heated up on the wood stove, later on we had a Shellite iron, it had a container at the back filled with Shellite and lit with a match to heat it up. My grandmother had a washing board she used to lay the men’s clothes on and scrub them with washing soap, I loved having a go at it. Such wonderful memories of a much harder but simpler life back in the late 50s, early 60s.

 

[Jarred Santos]

I love reading responses like these and just letting my mind run free imagining things the way you all wrote them... One realisation: I love washing machines too!

 

[Gsr]

Another part of the washing routine was the doileys, they were used on bedside chests, dressing tables, sideboards, pretty much any piece of furniture in bedrooms and lounge rooms. Most were hand embroidered and crocheted around the edge. Some were matching sets of one large and two small doileys. They were usually hand washed, line dried, then starched with powdered Reckitts starch, mixed in water. How much used determined how stiff the doiley ended up. They were then ironed. One of my aunts used to crochet doileys with swans around the edge which were starched to make them sit up creating a circular doiley with the swans upright around the edge, so pretty. She also crocheted baskets we would starch and use as ornaments on our dressing tables. When I was a nursing student in the early 70s our uniforms were so starched by the hospital laundry it felt like wearing a board. Our caps and the RNs veils were also starched to make them sit properly. Thank goodness times have changed so nurses can dress more comfortably.