Toilet in the 18 and 18th centuries

TheSunRisesInTheEast

I'm glad I'm not the only one to wonder about such things 😂. I wonder how homeless women get on while menstruating and when needing the loo in general, the poor souls are curled up in a ball, not moving for hours on end 😢. How do people get on in the middle of a packed crowd at music festivals eg. Glastonbury? I've heard of those "she-wee" things, but you couldn't possibly use that in a crowd 🫣😳.

Adult night pads. Why do you think so many wear harem pants 😂

Good video Lemsip. I suppose we are so used to privacy and flushing loos. Tiled bathrooms and wash basins. And we dont have a maid or chamber maid who must have become quite close to her "lady".

www.youtube.com/shorts/6_Y5XmdX9vY

lots of different ones on you tube

Thank you Dreadwitch and AuntieE lots of interesting information.

I read a book about the life of the maids who would have looked after a family like the one in P & P.

With five girls to wash for they were continually doing laundry and washing muslin squares presumably used at period times. Poor things.

We once took a class of junior school children to a mosque. They were fascinated by the ladies toilets. On one side the usual flush sort, on the other a hole in the floor with a lovely little jug of water nearby. Guess which ones they wanted to try.?

When I lived in Malaysia my lovely bungalow had a hole in the ground toilet, with two concrete slabs either side to stand on it was not a problem unless you had a bad tummy when you just wanted to sit down to do it.
In Russia you given literally two small squares of paper by the elderly lady attendant as you go into the toilet tough if you need more.
In Indonesia I got taken short with a bit of a bad tummy, went to a stand up loo, but no paper in sight anywhere , what could I do ? no tissue in my bag, so I used a dollar note rubbed up to soften it, most expensive poo I d had in a long while.

I saw a woman doing that on London Bridge station about 8 months ago

Now THAT really made me laugh Luckygirl! Thank you for sharing 😂

Behind the screen there would be a maid so help with the dress. Or hold a potty.

In daylight crinoline ladies used to go for a walk in the garden. Split crotch bloomers......

I tell you what - these men do not know they are born. No periods to deal with and a convenient portable item for peeing up a tree with.

I once bought myself a Sheewee online for using on the go. and was very amused by the "You bought this, so you might like this" item that appeared: a wooden mallet!

In the end I worked out that the algorithm was based on camping!

I have stayed in Castle Leslie in Ireland, now a top hotel. They've retained their original toilets. They have enormous wooden seats. Enough to spread a flouncy dress over the sides!

when they had grand dinners with lots of people including Royalty etc the dining room had a screen with a potty behind so people could pop there between courses. Would be enough to put me off my dinner. i hated having a pee in a bed pan in hospital as other people could hear me!

And there was a warning cry when emptying chamber pots from a window, 'gardyloo'.

Thanks Nannee49, guarderobe was the word I was looking for.

Jane Austen lived during the Napoleonic wars, when ladies wore thin muslin dresses (think Josephine Bonaparte, or Mme Recamier). They wore underskirts and pantelettes, but the crotch seem of these was left open - a fashion that continued practically up to the first world war. Colette writes in the first of the Claudine books that Claudine'sschoolfriends thought it indecent that Claudine had sewn underpants with a closed crotch seam.

The thin material used in Jane Austen's time made it fairly easy to lift your skirts to urinate.

The water closet had been invented and some upper class houses had one. Others had an earth closet in a backyard.

At parties in private houses, one or more bedrooms were made available for female guests, where they could use a commode or a chamber pot- and yes, a chambermaid would empty these utensils.

Next point: knitted or sewn towels where used during periods. These were fastened , both fore and aft, to a belt. If you went out during your period you brought a suitable supply of clean towels with you in your handbag and probably a sheet or two of newspaper or a piece of sackcloth to wrap the used ones up in, which you took home and washed or let your chambermaid or laundry maid wash. This practice too continued until nurses in military hospitals during WWI started using layers of lint or similar bandaging materials.

Probably, girls wore dark coloured underskirts under their pale dresses in the hope that blood stains would not be noticable if they bled through their towels.

Married women in Jane Austen's day usually gave up dancing - dancing was after all a way of getting to know members of the opposite sex.

The crinoline, which was fashionable during most of Queen Victoria's reign made it easier for women to be certain that any seepage of menstrual blood or urine due to a weak pelvic floor would be undetected, but I have no idea, whether this was in any way responsible for married ladies continuing to dance at social functions.

It seems to really first have been during Victoria's reign that people became so shy about their bodily functions that women and girls became too modest to wee in the presence or hearing of others.

Not that little girls in the 1950s when I started school were bothered by modesty - there were no doors on the girls' toilets in the council school I was sent to aged 5. While one girl weed, the rest of us stood in a queue at the opening to the cubicle!

And if you are wondering, the gentlemen in Jane Austen's day probably just went out into the shubbery or used the stableyard midden.

In the 18th century, "managing" personal needs while in public was a complex feat of engineering and social navigation. For the middle-class "ladies" mentioned in your image, the solution lay in a combination of specialized undergarments, portable vessels, and a strict social code.
1. Toilet Facilities: The "Bourdaloue" & Split Drawers
Contrary to modern assumptions, 18th-century ladies did not wear "panties" as we know them. They typically wore a shift (a linen smock) and numerous petticoats, but no closed undergarments.
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The Bourdaloue: This was a portable, handheld chamber pot, often resembling a porcelain gravy boat. A lady could slip it under her skirts while standing or slightly crouching to relieve herself discreetly in a dark corner, behind a curtain, or even in a "retiring room" at a ball.
Split Drawers: By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some women began wearing pantalettes or drawers, which were intentionally split at the crotch. This allowed them to use a chamber pot or commode by simply lifting their outer skirts without needing to undress or pull down undergarments.
The "Urinary Leash": Because public toilets for women were virtually non-existent until the mid-19th century, women were often on a "leash"—unable to travel further than the homes of friends or family where they knew a private chamber pot would be available.

2. Menstruation: "On the Rag"
Menstrual management was largely a private, DIY affair using materials at hand.
Rags and Clouts: Women used "menstrual cloths" or "clouts"—strips of absorbent linen, cotton, or flannel. These were folded and pinned or belted into place.
Sanitary Belts: To secure these cloths, women often wore a basic belt or piece of string around the waist, looping the fabric over the front and back.
The "Free Bleed" Myth: While some lower-class women may have had no choice but to bleed into their shifts, middle and upper-class women used layers of petticoats as a secondary defense to prevent stains from reaching their expensive silk or muslin outer gowns.
Social Isolation: During heavy flow days, many women simply stayed home or "retired" from social activities, citing a vague "indisposition" to avoid the risk of visible accidents at a ball or dinner.
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3. Public Spaces and "Lax" Pelvic Floors
The concern about "lax pelvic floors" mentioned in your image was a genuine medical worry of the time. 18th-century doctors often associated female health issues with "hysteria" or "weakness," and women who had many children were sometimes advised against overly vigorous dancing. However, the structure of corsets/stays provided significant core and back support, which may have inadvertently helped some women manage physical activity after childbirth.

I travelled to Morroco in the 1960’s.

I’ll always remember sitting in a cafe drinking mint tea.
I enquired where the toilet was and it was a hole in the ground.
Not easy to perch over either.
I was quite shocked.
Hopefully nowadays they have proper lavatories.

As a child visiting my grandparents, they had an upstairs loo! Still it was just a bucket with a seat built over it and someone had to carry it downstairs to empty a couple of times a week. It's probably, in part, why they had newspapers delivered 🤭 Periods involved folded linen which was attached to a belt and washed. In later years kotex pads, which were disposed of in the Aga.

Whilst I appreciate our modern day toilet, water closets are a waste of drinking water. I like the toilets in the shopping centre in Basingstoke and those near Brighton Pavilion which incorporate a vacuum suction. Reduces the amount of water

I was always fascinated by the fact that the French pay such close attention to what goes in (haute cuisine) and so little to what comes out and where.

And I am fascinated about how women dealt with periods, but assume that in the main they were either pregnant, breast-feeding or dead.

Conwy castle has 12 'guarderobe' maremia, still visible today slightly overhanging out from the castle walls! Apparently, they were ruinously expensive to construct.
Great thread HelterSkelter, as a wannabee historical fiction writer there's some fab facts here to reference.

Maybe they did what 500 million Indians still do and pee and poo in the street?

At balls etc they had a Ladies retiring room. China pots behind screens .

Stone castles had 'toilet' rooms, from which the 'produce' dropped into the moat.