Most
of the few historians who have discussed the Foreign Affairs Committees are
agreed that their political work had little effect on the events they sought to
influence. But no one has been able to explain the loyalty, to Urquhart and his
ideals, of so many committeemen, selflessly working for political beliefs which
would never affect them personally.
Undoubtedly,
Urquhart first saw his working men as a means of putting pressure on members of
the government. But he soon became aware of them as people: that they responded
to those that took an interest in them. He believed that everyone had a right to
participate, not in something as pointless (in his view) as voting, but in
actively arguing for what they believed in, whatever the result.
He
gave them a sense of purpose and of pride in themselves, inspiring them with a
vision of what they could achieve, and then gave them the skills to
enable them to start taking advantage of their inherent ability.
He
ran workshops on subjects apparently divorced from the needs of everyday life;
in fact he gave them skills which they, almost unknowingly, did use in everyday
life.
He
found that his working men were also practical people with manual and technical
abilities, that they were interested in the progress of the bath-building, and
that one after the other showed an interest in building and using them, in
offering their use to their colleagues, and considering in groups how best to
share the fuel costs. Finally, he encouraged them to run Turkish baths as a
means of financial support.
And
after the few active years of the committees, the men had skills of lasting
value which few would probably otherwise have had.
While
the committees saw the value of using the bath premises as a meeting-place,
providing an alcohol-free environment where the men, and on separate occasions
their wives, could meet in the equivalent of the leisured man’s club.
The
Urquhart Bequest at Balliol College includes many letters asking his advice on
locations, temperatures, costs and many other aspects of providing Turkish
baths. Some committees asked Urquhart to visit them to help them decide whether
to go ahead with building one.
Each
committee reported to the others what the he said, and which bath they relaxed
in afterwards.
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Now,
in bringing Urquhart and his workingmen’s Turkish Bath Movement to your
attention, I am not, of course, arguing that it was more important or effective
than clean water supplies, sewers, slipper baths, wash-houses, or even swimming
pools.
But
the provision of Turkish baths as part of publicly funded swimming facilities
should have built on the committees’ success. As it was, those who needed
personal cleansing facilities most were, for too long, denied them. And the
refusal of local authorities to provide them, reinforced the suggestion that
Turkish baths were a luxury suitable only for the upper classes.
There
were plenty who held such views.
There
were those who claimed it led to indolence and would destroy the manliness which
created the British Empire, just as it had destroyed the Roman Empire, and just
as it was then destroying the Ottoman Empire.
And
there were doctors aplenty who were totally opposed to the bath, seeing it as
yet another quack medicine to supplant their own not yet wholly professionalised
profession.
And,
of course, there were those who just thought it was not suitable for 'the
lower orders.'
Although
the Turkish Bath Movement was initiated by Urquhart, the movement was not what
Sheard would call a ‘working-class response to middle-class sanitarianism’.
Rather,
in the words of working-class John Johnson, writing to an overseas enquirer,
…
I beg to remark that the men who took up the Bath and established it in England
were men possessed of no medical knowledge or skill. They were working men who
got a knowledge of the benefits and delights of the Bath from Mr Urquhart, and
acting on this, immediately set about turning it to advantage...
