Reading Barbara Penner’s fascinating book ‘Bathroom’ (2013) about how the modern, predominantly Western, bathroom has evolved, the parallels with the energy transition felt noticeable. Very different technologies involved but both water and energy consumption are so firmly entrenched in our lives, expectations and daily practices. The history of bathrooms shows how differently we can behave and therefore suggests we shouldn’t assume we’ve reached an unimprovable, or unchanging situation with the current entrenched position of bathrooms in our lives. How they came to be so offers reflections for the energy transition.
Penner traces the development and refinement of different technologies, showing a mix of reasons and circumstance that dictated which became more widely adopted and which fell by the wayside. How, despite new bathroom related technologies becoming available, there were issues with deployment. They were usually only available to the rich, and even then often only taken up by those who were prepared to deal with the issues getting technologies put in to their home, particularly when the wider infrastructure like sewage pipes wasn’t there to support it. Many poorer areas struggled to get the new products because companies weren’t interested, with a more widespread approach only happening when the public sector got involved. Where efforts were targeted at those who were less well-off, it was often driven by a sense of morality and desire to improve health but also behaviour. Henry Roberts, a Victorian architect, designed flats for poor families which were radical in their inclusion of a room specifically designated as a bathroom. The aim of Roberts was to provide the occupants with the ‘moral training of a well-ordered family’, looking to introduce and enforce an appropriate distance between the bodies of the various occupants and also between the bodies and their waste.
The patchy, ad hoc nature of the change and take-up of bathrooms was interesting to read about. In a world where fitted, matching suites are the norm, hearing about people starting to get some elements of what we would now consider to be fundamental parts of the bathroom, the toilet, sink and bath or shower, but not all of them showed how much has changed. Striking too, how those decisions would be driven by considerations around space, cost and availability, with factors such as health, morality and norms also playing a big part. Even where people did get some aspects of the bathroom put into their home, they would often continue with older technologies in parallel.
In the world of energy transitions, the take-up of new technologies is patchy too – globally but also within countries and across geographies, property types and personal circumstances. Even in the same home, people can have a few different technologies. Perhaps getting some insulation or a heat pump to serve an extension, whilst still having the boiler as the main heating source for instance. Although less explicitly moralistic than some of the efforts in relation to water and bathrooms, there is still a sense that it’s the ‘right thing to do’ to try and support those who are less well-off to get energy measures installed. That said, it’s also true that lots of the early adopters for energy measures are those who are well-off and prepared to navigate the complexity of installation.
Penner is also really strong on showing how the development of the bathroom allowed for our homes and bodies to become much more private spaces whilst also making bathrooms, and by extension homes, much more connected to the public sphere and regulated. Previously, all the functions we would use a bathroom for were done in more communal spaces. People would go to the toilet together, or in more public or shared spaces. Bathing, or cleaning yourself if not actually taking a bath, would be done in spaces with other uses, such as the kitchen, scullery or bedroom. As well as sharing spaces, people would often share the washing water itself.
To allow for the infrastructure which could underpin the kind of toilets we now consider to be standard, regulation and government action happened. The Public Health Act 1848 had clauses regarding domestic sanitary arrangements, marking the first moment when government entered the private bathroom in a meaningful way. The Act required that any new built or rebuilt house needed a sufficient WC or privy and an ashpit with doors and covering. Homeowners were required to notify the local board of health in writing prior to constructing privy/cesspool and surveyors were given the power to shut down any judged to be nuisance or injurious to health. Eventually The Great Stink of 1858 led to the closing of private cesspools and stopped people putting their waste into the Thames, facilitated by the building of a co-ordinated waste system to manage and treat the waste. This led to the adoption of that approach nationally and internationally too.
A criticism of action on climate by those who would consider themselves to be right-wing is that it’s really just cover for more intervention by the State. It was clear reading the book how development of products by the market helped make deployment possible. Without that range of options available, the problem solving to try and improve measures and the mix and match potential that marked the start of the development of the bathroom, it’s hard to see either why more infrastructure might be needed or how it could develop. That said, and I’ve not done further reading so perhaps other accounts might take a different view, it’s hard to see how the development of the infrastructure could have developed in an holistic way without the intervention of government. The private sector focus on generating a desire in those who could pay, and would put up with the challenges of getting measures installed and adapting their homes and way of life, didn’t seem able to provide a comprehensive offer to everyone. Private sector effort and enterprise could generate a want and partially fulfil it.
That sense of the attitudinal changes shifting over time, which fed into and out of the technology changes, was such a strong part of the story for me. As someone who has been brought up with certain norms around cleanliness, so much of what was normal for so many seems unthinkable now. It was a reminder of the fact that even though things can feel quite fixed in terms of behaviours and norms, they are constantly changing, as are how we use spaces, or even if we have designated spaces at all for certain activities. With the advent of new technologies it became easier for people to decry public defecation, once normal and necessary but less so when technology provided other options and design allowed for privacy.
I came to the book to get an understanding of how a part of the home has changed. One of the things that became quickly obvious but I hadn’t consciously engaged with when starting my PhD, was that different parts of the home are subject to change in different ways and over varied timescales. It was therefore really useful to get a sense of how changes to bathing and toilet habits have affected what we now think of as the bathroom, as well as other parts of the home. What was reassuring was how much of it felt relevant for the changes in how homes are designed and used now from an energy and broader environmental perspective. Despite the different technical challenges, I finished the book with a deeper sense of how fundamental social and cultural changes are to if and how positive change unfolds.
‘While it often feels as if change is unthinkable – that people’s beliefs and behaviours are as deeply entrenched and immovable as infrastructure – this history has shown time and time again that our ideas about and our methods of dealing with water and waste are much less uniform, inevitable and fixed than we usually realize. Bathrooms, like sewers, are relatively recent inventions and they constantly evolve and adapt in the face of shifting social, medical, economic, political and environmental factors.’
Barbara Penner, ‘Bathroom’
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