[Voice Outside] "Sir your bath is ready!" [Chris]:
Oh hello, today we're talking about the history of bathing on ships... obviously I'm not doing
this right, but let's go back in history and see how they did it in the old days. I'm Chris Frame
and I write maritime history books and lecture on board cruise ships about maritime history and the
cruising industry. I also make YouTube videos about cruising and maritime history. If that
sounds like the sort of thing you're interested in please hit that subscribe button. When the
first transatlantic steam ship started playing the oceans in the 1830s regular bathing wasn't really
a thing. The rich might have had more access to bathing and thus would have been cleaner,
but for most people bathing on a regular basis wasn't something that they did. And people used to
wear perfume in self-defense yes self-defense you wore perfume so you couldn't smell other people!
And regular teeth brushing also wasn't a thing... I can just leave you to imagine how gross that
must have smelled... and tasted... and felt. Cunard's first purpose-built ship Britannia
entered service in 1840 and there was no running water on board. In the cabins you would find wash
bowls water jugs and chamber pots, and you'd have been given an allocation of water - there was no
desalination plants on board so you couldn't just turn on the tap! This might have sounded a little
bit unsanitary, but it wasn't a vast departure from what people were experiencing at home.
In fact unless you were quite wealthy you didn't have access to regular bathing facilities
and so on board Britannia it was a bit like life as normal. There was however on board the ship,
some communal toilets that could be accessed during the day, but at night time you were limited
to using your chamber pot only, particularly after midnight when it was a strict lights out policy on
board the ship. But as attitudes started to change towards bathing so did standards both on land and
on ships and in fact the Hindostan a P&O Liner from 1843 even had some private facilities in a
few of the first class cabins... everyone else had to still go down the hall. By the turn of
the 20th century attitudes towards bathing had changed, particularly amongst the upper classes
and those people who could afford indoor plumbing. On board ships of this era you also started to see
changes taking place and I thought I'd focus on one of the most famous ships that everyone
knows of, that is the RMS Titanic. Titanic was the second in the Olympic class of liners built
by the White Star Line and they were designed to be ultra luxurious, particularly in first class.
But just because it was a luxurious ship didn't mean you had access to a private bathroom.
In fact on Titanic only a few first-class cabins had their own ensuite. Everybody else in first
class had access to a bathroom, however these were communal bathrooms that while private whilst
you were using them were not attached to the cabin and were accessed by multiple passengers.
And bathing was a little bit different to what it is now as well, because on board the Titanic
and her sister ship the Olympic you had access to sea water only. It did come in hot and cold
but it wasn't the fresh water that we expect in a bath today. By this stage there was a class system
on board the ships; first second and steerage. In second class on board the Olympic and the Titanic
you had access to baths but none of the cabins had ensuite, and there were far fewer bathrooms
per passenger than what you would find in first class. But moving down to third class or steerage
is a completely different situation. While there were a couple of baths available there is no
way that the hundreds of passengers in this class would have got access to the bath. This
wouldn't have been a surprise though because most of the people traveling in third class
probably wouldn't have been accustomed to having a full body submersion wash on a regular basis.
One thing I should mention is on the Titanic and the Olympic there were other bathing facilities
aboard for the crew, including the very famous ensuite bath tub in Captain Smith's cabin,
but there were also bathing facilities available for the other crew members to keep the crew clean
for their service with the passengers. When they proposed to build Titanic II, a replica of the
famous White Star Liner the idea was to replicate the original facilities on board including the
communal bathrooms... would you sail on board a ship that didn't have private facilities? Let me
know what you think in the comments below. If we skip forward a little bit and think of the
golden age of transatlantic travel particularly in the pre-World War II era when Queen Mary and
Normandie were ruling the North Atlantic, this is an era that is romanticized as being luxurious
and the epitome of transatlantic travel. But even on a ship like Queen Mary, which was the flagship
of Cunard-White Star and considered the ultimate ship from a British engineering point of view, in
first class not all cabins had private bathrooms. In fact it was still in the minority. For most
people they needed to make a booking with the bath steward to access the bathrooms on board the ship.
At your allocated time the bath steward would come to your cabin, knock on the door [knocking] and
you'd be escorted to the bathroom which had been prepared for you to enjoy for an
allocated period of time. After your bath was completed, you'd return to your cabin and the
bath steward would prepare the room for the next passenger booking. On board Queen Mary
water was available in both salt and fresh water, both hot and cold, and on board the ship there
were more baths available for passengers in second class and in tourist class. Throughout
the 1950s and 1960s ensuite bathrooms became more common in selected first-class cabins. But even
throughout the 1960s as they were designing and developing ships, they included communal bathrooms
on board. Aboard P&O Canberra for example - which remained in service until 1997 - there were shared
bathrooms for many of the passengers on board the ship. Additionally when QE2 was being developed,
particularly in the early days when they thought she might be a three-class ship, they actually
designed her with communal bathrooms on board. These spaces on board the ship were actually
included in the final design, but converted into store rooms and when you entered into these rooms
some of them were finished with the tiling up the walls as they would have had if they were
bathroom. As it turned out Cunard included a private ensuite in all of the passenger cabins,
one of the things that allowed QE2 to remain in service for almost 40 years.
Today we're kind of obsessed with bathing and cleanliness and that's not just because of COVID.
You only need to go online or switch on the television to be bombarded with ads from shampoos
and conditioners, hands soaps and deodorants, that will have you believe that if you spray on some of
this stuff you'll have hordes of attractive people chasing you down the streets. Today all cabins
have access to a bathroom regardless of the cabin category on board, though baths are still reserved
for the highest quality accommodation onboard most cruise ships. Actually whilst I've got you
here let me know in the comments below do you hate a shower curtain on a ship? Because I really do,
especially when the ship's moving in rough seas... it's just an unpleasant experience...
but let me know what you think shower curtain or shower door? Interestingly enough
even though private facilities became a major part of the cruise industry from the 1980s onwards,
many of the cruise ships that were designed with communal bathrooms lasted until the 1990s.
As I mentioned before Canberra lasted until 1997 and in Australia a very well known and popular
cruise ship the Fair Star also had communal bathrooms and she lasted as well until 1997.
I think today if you boarded a cruise ship and found that there wasn't an ensuite bathroom
on board you'd be pretty surprised and really disappointed, but at the same time you have to
remember that the standards of living have changed compared to those ships of old. When the ocean
liner was first starting to develop on the North Atlantic many people weren't used to having access
to running water or bathing on a daily basis and therefore the experience onboard the ship
was kind of accustomed to what they were used to at home. Just like our experience onboard cruise
ships today demand that we have access to private facilities because that's what we're used to
in our homes. I hope you've enjoyed this little look back in history at the bathing facilities
on board the ships. Was there anything here that you were surprised about? Let me know in
the comments below! If you're interested in more maritime history, please check out my maritime
history playlist. Thanks so much for watching and until next time I hope to see you on board...
Today we're kind of obsessed with COVID... Smelt and tasted and felt...
When the first transatlantic liners started plying the world's oceans... the world's oceans there's
only one ocean - it's the transatlantic! Vast departure from what people are like...
Hi I'm Chris Frame and welcome back to my channel!
[Music of a cheery nature]