1900s: Tuesday ironing in a working class London household

Like most women in the early part of the twentieth century, my mother was always very particular about the appearance of her finished weekly wash. This meant that it didn't only have to be clean; it also had to be free of creases. So everything had to be ironed. But there were no electric irons, steam irons or crease-resistant fabrics to made her work easier.

Fortunately, though, if the weather on washday had been windy and sunny some of the creases had blown out. The mangling helped too, as did the careful folding.

It was quite a skill to get the washing to the right dampness for ironing, because if it was too dry, the creases wouldn't iron out. Yet if it was too wet it creased again immediately afterwards. So the washing was always carefully folded and rolled up on Mondays, so that the dampness would spread evenly  through it by the next day. If my mother thought that the washing might be too dry, she would 'damp it down' by sprinkling it all with water before rolling it up.

The irons were made of cast iron and were known as flat irons. They had to be heated on the kitchen range by placing their flat faces close up against the bars. There were always two irons, so that one could be in use while the other was heating up.

My mother would test the temperature, either by putting it close to her cheek or by licking her finger and touching the iron to see how quickly it went "psh" as the wet on her finger evaporated. As the irons got so hot, the handles did too. So a cloth had to be wrapped round the handles before the irons could be used.

My mother, like all the other women I knew, always did her ironing on the table in the kitchen. Its full width was particularly useful for ironing sheets and table cloths. She protected the table with an old blanket folded into several layers with an old sheet on top, kept specially for ironing.

My mother always had a bar of Sunlight soap on the sheet-blanket combination and she placed the iron on it while she was moving the clothes around. The soap apparently made the iron glide more easily while also keeping the intense heat of the iron off the old sheet. It was hot work, because the range had to be kept hot enough to heat the irons. It was also steamy work which made it all the more exhausting; also there was a lot of it because there were no crease-resistant fabrics.

In the summer, after the washing had been ironed, it would be put out into the garden again to air, and the smell that came from it was wonderful. It was really lovely to get into bed between clean sheets that had been washed at home and dried outside in the sun and wind.

In the cold and damp of winter the washing would be put on the wooden clothes horse or fireguard to air after being ironed. The fireguard was made of strong wire mesh with a half inch strip of metal round the top and could be secured to the wall. It well and truly guarded against fire.

Although Tuesday's ironing was probably not as tiring as Monday's washdays, there still wasn't really enough time for my mother to do cooking. So Tuesday dinner [lunch] saw the last of the Sunday roast in the form of cold meat, with mustard pickle and bubble and squeak made from Sunday's vegetables.

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.