Catherine "Kitty" Wilkinson became the
superintendant of the first wash-house
for poor people in Liverpool (and Britain) on Upper Frederick Street in 1842.

Kitty was born Catherine Seaward in Londonderry, in 1786.
When she was only a few years old, her working class parents took the Irish
ferry to Liverpool in order to better themselves. At the mouth of the Mersey,
their ship struck the Hoyle Bank, and her father and sister were drowned. At
the age of twelve, she went to work in a cotton mill in Caton, near Lancaster,
she was an apprentice and had several privileges, not the least being the
opportunity of improving her education at night school. When she eventually
left the mill she went into service for a few years. She later married a
sailor. Sadly, soon after they were married, he was lost at sea, and she was
left a widow with two very young children - one child in need of almost
constant care and the other a new-born babe. In addition to looking after the
children, she cared for her mother who was blind and insane, however, despite all
of this, she opened her door to anyone who wanted help. At one time, she had a
mother and family lodged with her, and on another occasion, a blind
invalid neighbour whom she looked after
for seven years. After the death of her mother, she came back to Liverpool,
there she met and married a young man she had first met in Caton, Tom
Wilkinson, who was a porter in Rathbone's warehouse. They settled down in her
house in Denison Street. Tom, like Kitty was also a caring and compasionate man
always keen to help others and between them they invited may poor, destitute
and orphaned people into their home.
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Frederick Street Wash House |
Dubbed 'the Saint of the Slums', Kitty Wilkinson was responsible for saving many lives, in 1832,
during a cholera epidemic, Kitty took the initiative to offer the use of her
house and yard to neighbours to wash their clothes, at a charge of 1 penny per
week, and showed them how to use a chloride of lime to get them clean. She was
supported by the District Provident Society and William Rathbone. In 1832 a
cholera epidemic was sweeping Liverpool , Kitty and Tom Wilkinson were in the
fortunate position of having the only hot water boiler in their street so they
invited their neighbours down to their cellar to wash their clothes and
bed-linen, hoping to offer some measure of protection against the cholera.
The Wilkinson’s were aided in their work by the Liverpool
District Provident Society and the benevolence of the Rathbone family, each
contributing towards the provision of clean clothes and fresh bedding materials
therefore reducing the spread of
disease. The Wilkinson’s wash-room became so popular that it was moved
upstairs to the kitchen, with a rudimentary drying area established in the back
yard. Kitty and Tom asked the neighbours who used their facilities to
contribute one penny per family, per week to help towards water and new bedding
costs. At the same time, Kitty and a neighbour by the name of Mrs Lloyd
established a rudimentary infant school, in Kitty and Tom’s bedroom. Local
young orphans would be taught, continuing Kitty’s desire to see working-class
children educated as best as possible.
When the cholera epidemic passed, there were many fatherless
motherless children who were neglected and even living rough. Kitty took in
twenty of them every morning and read stories to them and taught them hymns in
her bedroom. They enjoyed themselves so much that Kitty was forced to hire a
room and employ another woman to teach them.
Kitty lost her husband Tom who died in 1848. She outlived him by twelve years and died
aged 73. This was considered to be a
great age, in a time when people did not live far beyond their 40th birthday.
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Frederick Street Public Gardens Wash House |
In 1852, Liverpool Council established a Baths Committee to
oversee the management of the new baths, as well as the building of new ones.
As well as rooms for private bathing and laundry rooms, some of the baths had
larger swimming pools or plunge baths for the public to use. By the end of the
century, twelve such baths and wash-houses had been opened in Liverpool,
including the city’s first free open-air bath, at Burlington Street, in 1895.
Some Liverpool Wash-houses
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Frederick Robinson Public Wash-house |
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Wash-house in Litherland |
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Wavertree Wash-house |
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Albert Street Wash-house |
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Liverpool Women on the way to the Wash-house
Photograph Credit
20th Century Images
|
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Liverpool wash-house (Photograph Scottie Press) |
From great basins in stalls fitted with washboards and hunks
of soap, to electrically-charged rotor-tubs to the comparative luxury of
laundrettes with their padded plastic chairs, the weekly washday had huge
importance in the communities – before we caught up with those rich Americans,
who had their own washing tubs and tumble-dryers in the home. Liverpool’s last
public wash-house, the Fred Robinson laundry in Everton, closed in October 1995
A stained glass window in Liverpools Anglican Cathedral is
dedicated to Kitty Wilkinson
Links
Sources
Liverpool Central Library
Liverpool Records Office
The Scottie Press
Liverpool Anglican Cathedral
British History Online
Robert F Edwards