Washing powder used to keep whites looking bright… ‘Reckitts Blue’ seen on the side of this tramcar, possibly on Norton Road was one of the first widely marketed laundry products manufactured by Hull based Reckitts and Sons.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
I suppose today’s highly qualified marketing-men would call the above advertising, that of a rock-solid established ‘brand’. The whole side of the tram-car features just two words and nothing else, no ‘pay off’ line, no price, no illustration or inessential description. Quite amazing, when one thinks that at the time of this photograph, this Hull manufactured laundry ‘additive’ product, was perhaps only 40 or so, years old and had already established a world-wide distribution/franchise network, including the USA.
To give a more recent example, ‘Fairy Liquid’, the washing-up detergent, only became widely available in the UK during the early 1960’s and yet, if those two words where displayed on the side of a modern bus…we’d also know, exactly what it meant!
Not only the 19th Century Bob, my Mother and most people I knew used them until well after the war. Monday was wash day and the boiler would be lit in the corner of the back kitchen to boil enough water for the mornings wash out came the mangle tub and posser ready and I would often flake bar soap with a kind of cheese grater for the tub. She got her first electric washer in 1950-ish a Goblin which really only agitated the clothes, they still had to be rinsed in the big Belfast sink then put through the machine roller now rubber rollers but still hand turned. Mother would over fill it and I had it upside down refitting the agitator arms and pins so often that when it saw me coming it flipped on its back.
The next was the Hoover twin tub and that definitely made her life easier plus we had soap flakes although the blue bag still went in, old habits die hard.
I got bathed as a lad with Carbolic soap and you could smell it for hours after, hair was washed with Fairy block soap slightly less chemist shop smelling than Carbolic.
Looking back Monday was also bread baking day for the week, how did they do it although the warm steamy atmosphere was probably ideal for raising the dough.
I wonder how modern girls would manage as our mothers did, my modern washer would have amazed my mother throw it in and leave it to get on with things, yes that was their attitude too, just get on with things.
Before modern laundry detergents were marketed housewives added in the final rinse water on washday a small blue bag which was stirred around. This 1d bag contained an additive for whitening clothes. It disguised any hint of yellow and helped the household linen including mens shirts look ‘whiter than white’. Over the years this bluing product had various names: Reckitt’s Blue, Bag Blue, Paris Blue, Crown Blue, or Laundry Blue. The ingredients were synthetic ultramarine whitener and baking soda, the original “squares” weighed an ounce.
Reckitt’s wanted people to know their blue was used in the royal laundries, and Victorian advertising in the UK carried a recommendation from the Prince of Wales’ laundress, it said: I have been laundress to the Prince of Wales for several years, and I consider Reckitt’s Paris blue is the best I ever used, and is undoubtedly greatly superior to the old-fashioned dark blue. Signed, Eliza Elder, April 12th, 1873. Price one penny per ounce. Can be obtained from all respectable Grocers, Oilmen, and Druggists. Beware of imitations.
During the 19th century our forbears used bar soap for washing clothing, housewives had poss-tubs, poss-sticks and wood wash boards to make the task easier and, in the back yard, they’d have a mangle roller built into an heavy cast iron frame. Popular soap powders at that time 1850-1950 were: Borax, Laundry Flakes, Lux, Omo, Daz, Oxydol, Fairy Snow, Vim Scourer, and soaps: Sunlight Soap, Lifebuoy Soap, White Windsor, and Matchless Soap. Leading manufacturers: Lever Bros, Bolton, Lancs, Thomas Hedley, Newcastle Upon Tyne, and Rekitt’s of Hull who amalgamated with Colman’s of Norwich; to form Rekitt and Colman Limited.