Since coal fires were the only form of heating in the early 1900s in working class family houses like ours, they were lit every day in winter. As the chimneys got blocked up with soot, they would billow dirty black smoke out into the room. So it was essential to have the chimney swept once or twice a year. What a business it was!
A London chimney sweep in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of www.wellerschimneysweeps.com
My mother would engage a chimney sweep to come as early in the day as possible, preferably before breakfast. This was because of all the clearing up that had to be done afterwards, which was no quick business.
The day before the sweep was due to come, my mother would take all the china off the dresser. Then everything that was not in everyday use would be taken down, including the curtains and the pictures. All the movable furniture was put into another room or covered with dust sheets. Finally everything that could be washed was washed, ready to be put back when the room had been cleaned up after the sweep had gone.
The sweep would come with his brushes, sacks, shovel and cloths. He would drape a large cloth with a hole in it in front of the fireplace. The hole was for the brush to go through.
We would all go into the scullery to let him get on with his work of joining his lengths of rod together to extend his brush to the right length. After a while, we would hear him shout out. This would mean that the brush was out of the top of the chimney. We would then be expected to go down to the end of the garden to check that the brush really the was out off the top of the chimney, which meant that he had done his job properly. Having seen the brush, we would shout out that we had seen it, and he would pull the brush back down.
An early 1900s chimney sweep with his brushes, sacks, and cloths. The large cloth was for draping in front of the fireplace and had a hole in it for the brush to go through.. Photo courtesy of www.wellerschimneysweeps.com
There was a great deal of soot for him to shovel up because there was no vacuum cleaner to collect it. He shovelled it into sacks, as best he could, but much of it escaped. He would always ask if we wanted soot for the garden, a general belief being that it was good for the ground. My mother's answer was usually no. It was bad enough with all the mess inside the house without him emptying sacks of soot onto the garden making a cloud of black over all the plants. He no doubt had a market elsewhere for our soot.
To allow time for all the dust to settle, we then had our breakfast in the scullery, before starting the major operation of cleaning up. First of all, my mother would sweep and brush up the loose soot from the floor which was oilcloth. [Oil cloth was a heavy duty cloth treated to create a wipe-over surface. It was not unlike vinyl flooring to look at, but would crack easily.] My mother would put a duster around the head of a broom, sweep the ceiling and walls and then with a bucket of soapy water wash everything that was washable including the floor. Then later in the day she would go back with a duster and put the crockery and pictures, etc back in their places. There would still be a film of dust everywhere. So the cleaning had to keep being repeated until everywhere was clean.
If you have an old photo which would illustrate this page, I would very much appreciate a copy. Pat Cryer
Thank goodness we only had to have the sweep once or twice a year!
These childhood recollections from around the time of the 1911 census are of visits from the chimney sweep to a working class family in north London. It was the Edwardian era but little would have changed from late Victorian times.