Contributions to the historical archive have been made by several people. We would welcome further contributions in the form of written material, books, pamphlets, personal stories, publications, photographs or anything that you feel would help the project. If you have written a project or dissertation or have photographs relating to the subject areas covered by the Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive please get in touch. info@bathsandwashhouses.co.uk

Carl Evans MSc is the Founder of the Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive and a past National President of the Institute of Sport & Recreation Management. Carl retired from a career in local government baths and recreation management, consultancy and the private sector. Publications; Health & Fitness Centres – A Guide to their Management & Operation Longmans 1992. Contributions to; Practical Leisure Centre Management Volume 2 Institute of Baths & Recreation Management. Articles to Recreation and Leisure Manager journals.

Carl Evans | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Dr Keith Myerscough PhD (ICSHC at De Montfort), MA (ICSHC), MEd (Manchester) B Ed (OU), Cert. Ed (Keele) Associate Member of SpLeisH (Manchester Metropolitan University).

Keith began his career as a teacher of physical education within the State School sector before moving on to manage the UK’s first basketball/netball facility in Stockport, Greater Manchester. He returned to teaching in the FE/HE sectors in 1999. He took early retirement from his post as a Senior Lecturer in Sport Studies at the University Centre, Blackpool in 2014.

Keith has written extensively on the social and cultural aspects of swimming. His PhD thesis was titled ‘Commercial Swimming in Nineteenth Century Lancashire’. Aspects of central government legislation on health reforms and how they were implemented by regional government are discussed. Lancashire influenced both public baths provision and commercial swimming as a branch of the entertainment industry. Blackpool, as a working class holiday destination served to promote Grand Water Shows for its Victorian visitors from the wealthy cotton mill-towns in Lancashire.

Keith has also researched and published a book entitled Joey Nuttall Champion Swimmer of the World – “The Stalybridge Merman”.

Keith Myerscough | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Simon Allen MA BA(Hons) F.Inst.SRM.Hons joined Cardiff County Council’s Leisure Department in 1986 and is currently employed by Cardiff County Council in its Harbour Authority as a Leisure Activity Officer with responsibility for assisting with the development and delivery of a water activity event programme for Cardiff Bay. Simon obtained a MA in Sport and Leisure Studies from UWIC in 1998, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Sport and Recreation Management.  Masters dissertation on Baths and Wash Houses in Cardiff:
Simon Graham Allen | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Scott Flemming Professor of Sport and Leisure Studies at UWIC. He has long standing interests in the sport and leisure cultures. He has co-edited a number of Leisure Studies Association publications including: Policy and politics in sport, physical education and leisure (with Margaret Talbot and Alan Tomlinson); Masculinities: Leisure identities, cultures and consumption (with John Horne); and Events management – Education, impacts and experiences (with Fiona Jordan). He has also been the Chair of the LSA.

Scott Fleming | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Simon Allen & Scott Fleming Cardiff School of Sport, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff Pubic Baths and Wash Houses in Cardiff: A Case Study of Public Health in 1900. Article published in the Leisure Studies Journal. 

Steven Robb DipBS MSc. FSAScot IHBC MRTPI is Depute Head of Casework for Historic Environment Scotland, and previously was a Senior Inspector of Historic Buildings In London with English Heritage.  He is particularly interested in inter-war social housing in Edinburgh and the work of the City Architect’s Department.  His great uncle worked for the City Architect and was involved in designing the Union Street public washhouse.  This led to a desire to find out more about the building type and the social history behind the washhouses, especially relevant as only two now remain. The Public Wash Houses of Edinburgh.

Steven Rob | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Frances M Worsley was born in the Lancashire town of Bury during WW2.  She attended a small, rural primary school and then went on to Bury Grammar School for Girls. After school, she spent 6 months working in France before going up to London University to read philosophy. She left after just a year. Later, whilst raising a family, Frances trained as a teacher and then re-trained as a social worker. Twenty years after dropping out of university Frances returned part time to complete a BA Hons in History and Philosophy. Thirty years in social work, ending as a supervisor for students on practice placement, had entailed driving round all areas of Manchester and some of the older, poorer areas in particular. There, Frances had noticed some neglected and abandoned municipal buildings, soon to be demolished. These turned out to be the old Corporation baths and washhouses. A developing interest in social history eventually led to a Masters Degree in the History of the Manchester Region. During the course Frances noted how much history is written by and about men. The ordinary lives of ordinary women rarely seemed to get a mention. These were the women who used the washhouses, and who became the focus of the MA dissertation in 2000. The Public Wash House In Manchester 1850 – 1980 And Its Importance For Working Class Women.

Frances M Worsley | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Sylvia Kölling is an independent researcher with links to the SpLeisH team at MMU Cheshire. Sylvia has an interest in public health provision in early Victorian Manchester. Sylvia has presented her research at a number of public talks. An English graduate, she came to History indirectly, through a passion for local history and a fascination with Manchester’s early baths and wash-houses which are at the intersection of public health provision, the municipal administrative and financial situation, and the history of civil engineering. Sylvia’s current research concerns the history of baths and wash-houses in Manchester.
Sylvia Kölling | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Author of Municipal Dreams for the article about Ironmonger Row Baths, Finsbury and identifying several related links.

Michael Loftus is an economist who has worked in academia, the wider public sector and the private sector. Much of his professional career has focused on issues of planning and managing the post industrial environment. More recently he has also developed an interest in how issues of urbanisation and the other consequences of industrialisation were tackled in nineteenth century England.

Michael Loftus | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Judy Goldsmith is a near neighbour of the Victorian Jacobs Wells Baths in Bristol. As a member of Jacobs Wells Community Hub she has campaigned to save and bring recognition to the building and its location. Her research at Bristol Archives in the past year has unearthed a wealth of original plans and more for this and other historic Bristol swimming baths, warm baths and washhouses all available and waiting for others to research. Jacobs Wells Baths is in an area of historic springs from which it was fed and a current Heritage Lottery Grant for community research into the area means her internet based History of Jacobs Wells Baths on this site is a live project, subject to expansion before any printed version is produced. The baths are due to be refurbished and reopen.  She would happily share information with anyone researching other Bristol baths locations.

Judy Goldsmith | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Elizabeth Graham has an MA in eighteenth-century French history from the University of Melbourne; an MA in eighteenth-century French decorative art from the Courtauld Institute of Art; a PhD on eighteenth-century British bathrooms from the University of Edinburgh; and a Grad. Dip. in architectural conservation from the Edinburgh College of Art.  

Her research interests are in the history of comfort, and the relationship between evolving ideas about comfort and advances in domestic technology in the eighteenth century.  She is on the council of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, and is an active campaigner on heritage issues.

Elizabeth Graham | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Malcolm Shifrin FRHistS worked as an education librarian before retiring in 1985 as head of the Inner London Education Authority’s central library resources service. In 1973 he wrote the first British textbook on audio-visual librarianship. Since his retirement he has researched the Victorian Turkish bath, writing and maintaining the world’s only website (www.victorianturkishbath.org ) dealing with the subject. He also presents illustrated lectures. Malcolm is the author of Victorian Turkish Baths (Historic England 2015).

Malcolm Shifrin | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Gillian Mawson is the author of Guernsey Evacuees The Forgotten Evacuees of the Second Wold War History Press 2012 and Evacuees: Children’s Lives on the World War 2 Home Front Pen & Sword Books September 2014. 

Gillian Mawson | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Annie Stannard is completing her MA in History of Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum/Royal College of Art, London, where her dissertation has focused on the history of women’s bathing caps in Britain during 1920-1970. Examining the role that the swim cap played in constructs of gender, changing notions of femininity, and systems of power amongst sporting women, her research looks at changes in bath house regulations across this time.

She is a freelance writer and researcher, with interests in twentieth century fashion, women’s histories, youth culture, and gender histories with particular reference to consumption, visual culture and the media.

Annie Stannard | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Shanique Thompson is a Special Collections and Archives Assistant at Goldsmiths University of London where she works across all the special collection and archives in the security, care and cataloguing, accessioning, labelling, curating, social media promotion, event organising, unpacking, and repackaging. She is a freelance researcher, seamstress and independent game developer with varied interest in multidisciplinary social cultural research.

Shanique Thompson | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive

Dr Richard Talbot MBE, PhD., M.Phil., Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Tutor to the Penkhull History Society. Richard is prominent local historian and author of several books including a comprehensive work entitled ‘The Royal Manor of Penkhull’. Richard has made significant contributions to the local community of Stoke-on-Trent, especially with his campaign to restore and re-open the 1929 Art Deco Gaumont cinema in Hanley as the ‘Regent Theatre’. His contributions have been recognised by the award of an MBE.

Dr Richard Talbot MBE, PhD, M.Phil. | Baths and Wash Houses Historical Archive