First the Dolly Peg, then the Conical Copper Sucker.
As soon as tap water becomes available, streams are no longer put to use in washing clothes and rinsing under waterfalls stops. The washing tub and the dolly get invented and before too long, clothes are whirling around in electric washer-spinner-driers ‘driven’ by motherboards that are more expensive to replace when they stop functioning than the cost of buying a new washing machine. This is a form of lunacy we cannot continue. It’s an eco crime – an act of ecocide.
Along the way, there have been many interesting inventions and two examples of washday ways have recently been aquired for the World of Water Collections.
Firstly,a copper-bottomed sucker, posser, presser or squasher which was designed to lift up and down to pump and suck the soapy water through the washing in a tub.
Secondly, a washboard made of smoothly ridged glass held in a wooden frame.
Both these inventions pushed the washing dolly into the history books but until we are all wearing spray on clothing that is recyclable, daily, the fast spinning easy iron eco washing machine will continue to keep us grime-free – unless like millions around the World, your weekly wash still takes place on the banks of a large and unclean river like the people washing in the Yamuna river in Agra.
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News
There are also three new publications in the World of Water library. Two donations and one purchase.
- ‘Catalogue of Roman Remains Bath‘ containing photographs and a plan of the Roman Baths in Bath, UK. (Donated) .
2. ‘A Handy Guide To Fish Culture Or Fish Culture Being Specially Designed For The Use Of Amateurs And For Guidance In The Improvements of Fisheries‘ by Armistead J.J. 1st Edition. Pub. 1897 by: The Angler Ltd. Scarborough. Summary: 119 pages, text illus, catalogue at end for fish, plants, apparatus etc. with prices, original covers, unevenly faded as often. Purchased for £22.00. This will help us continue to revise our paper on the chronological dates in the history of aquaculture.
3. ‘Identification of the British Mollusca‘ by Gordon E. Beedham (Donated), which will help us identify more of the molluscs in our Shell Museum.
