3. BATHS FOR ANIMALS IN VICTORIAN LONDON AND MIDDLESEX

In 1860, Clement Stephenson, a twenty-five year old, newly qualified vet, built what was probably England’s first publicly available equine Turkish bath at his father's practice in Newcastle.

And, at about the same time, James Moore added one to his Upper Berkeley Street practice, probably marking the arrival in central London of Turkish baths for animals.

But, it must be emphasised, we cannot currently be absolutely certain whether it was Stephenson or Moore, or even someone else, who actually opened the first such bath in England. Research in this field has barely begun, and documentary evidence is sparse.

Little is known about Moore except that he was an advocate of homoeopathy, producing for sale a veterinary homoeopathy kit and writing Outlines of veterinary homoeopathy which went into several editions. But like Stevenson, Moore later became a distinguished vet.

Moore’s bath was probably constructed for him by Joseph Walton, with whom he later collaborated on an improved system for ventilating animal baths, utilising floor traps to ensure that dung was flushed away without producing steam. Moore’s equine Turkish bath would have been smaller than that illustrated in the patent application, although no operational bath remains to help us visualise it.

Even the Grade II Listed Building at Sir Mark Prescott’s Heath House, which housed the equine bath used by the celebrated jockey Fred Archer, was long ago converted into stables. And there are only the barest descriptions of other identified equine baths, so any suggestion that Moore’s bath was a simple single room, or, as at St Ann’s, two rooms, must be conjecture.

Barter’s country estate bath wouldn’t have needed an indoor area for washing, whereas in the city, where outdoor space is limited, a second area might also have been required for washing down after the sweating process. A single room could be considered perfectly adequate, even for an important stable.

Alexandra Stevenson relates her unexpected discovery of an equine Turkish bath at Hampton Court Palace in the early 1860s. William Joseph Goodwin, Queen Victoria’s personal vet, lived at the Palace in a large apartment conveniently located at the Royal Mews, and had become interested in the therapeutic potential of the use of Turkish baths with horses. On 21 January 1861, he sought permission to test this by constructing a bath in part of an unoccupied stable. Permission was granted provided that Goodwin paid for it, that the work would be overseen by the Surveyor of Works, and that the fittings would be removed whenever required.

Two months earlier, Goodwin had written to Bell’s Life describing how, for years, he’d washed horses immediately after their exercise instead of waiting for them to cool. Sick horses had been placed in front of a hot kitchen fire to recover, while he massaged them.

If he now had valuable horses under his care, he’d instal a simple Turkish bath for them as a therapeutic aid, writing that ‘The expense of converting a loose box into a hot-air bath is so trifling that the experiment may be made at no great cost.’

And shortly afterwards, he’d constructed just such a bath for the Queen’s horses. Goodwin wasn’t just blindly following Rous. He regularly bathed at George Witt’s house in 1858 and, as an experienced vet, saw its therapeutic possibilities for himself. Witt, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was also, like his then close friend David Urquhart, a fervent Turkish bath proselytiser.

Although a single room had sufficed for the royal stable, Barter would have been more ambitious for his first, and in the event, his only London venture. ‘The entrance on the right of the building leads to the horse baths (by no means an unimportant feature in this useful building)’, wrote the Evening Freeman.

Important—but not enough to warrant a description.

The main baths opened on the 19th of May 1862—the horse baths a month later. In May, newspapers had stressed the luxurious fittings of the men’s and women’s baths, but we’re never told what provision (luxurious or otherwise) was made for the horses.

We do know, however, that Barter soon realised that a vet’s services were necessary and, within six months, he’d appointed Joseph Major to be available for daily consultations. Barter had, in effect, added veterinary services to augment his Turkish bath; was this, perhaps, a response to vets such as Moore adding Turkish baths to their practices?

The Post Office London Directory for 1862 lists over 175 people calling themselves Veterinary Surgeons. How many of these had recognised qualifications is unknown, and no qualification was required in order to open a Turkish bath for animals—or humans.

Such a large number of practising vets at that time suggests that several might have copied Moore in opening Turkish baths. If so, their baths are well hidden. But they would have found encouragement in the press, especially in The Field, and The Veterinarian.

The Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester had installed a Turkish bath in 1860, and George Thomas Brown, their Professor of Veterinary Science, wrote recommending it as a diaphoretic enabling horses to sweat when exercise wasn’t possible.

In 1869, Sir Frederick Fitzwyngram also recommended it for the same purpose in his influential book, Horses and stables, while, necessarily, noting the lack of such baths in successive editions until 1901.

Several decades ago, manual directory searches of 1860s London yielded only one other equine Turkish bath. This unclassified and uncorroborated establishment was in Bond Street, listed under the name Dollar. More recently, digital searches found his 1880s veterinary practice at 56 New Bond Street. And Pamela Hunter’s Veterinary medicine: a guide to historical resources includes a brief history of his company, and a list of documents owned by a Mrs Jenny Dollar.

Abigail Woods, co-author with Stephen Matthews of a paper on British vets and veterinary reform, had, in 2006, interviewed an already elderly Mrs Dollar and seen some of the listed documents. I contacted Professor Woods who, most generously, sent me a copy of her interview notes which provided date, family relationship, and other important information.

Mrs Dollar was the grand-daughter-in-law of Thomas Aitken Dollar who owned the practice in New Bond Street from 1859 until he died, fifty years later. During this time he completely rebuilt the premises including a Turkish bath for horses, which had been advertised in London directories between 1879 and 1886. At the end of 1890, he brought his two sons into the business, renaming it T A Dollar & Sons. By 1919, a decade after his death, the urban use of horses had declined and his sons sold the New Bond Street lease, moving to smaller, shared premises in Baker Street.

Even a cursory glance at Hunter’s list of documents showed their importance. But Mrs Dollar died in 2011 and the documents weren’t found in any archive. After locating her son, a rather surprised, but extremely helpful, John Watt Dollar, some tin boxes were eventually discovered in his garage.

Most of the items were family papers and photos, but an afternoon’s search unearthed most of the items about the practice. Disappointingly, none specifically mentioned Turkish baths, though all added some information about them.

Two plans are extremely helpful. The first, an undated plan, currently thought to be the ground floor plan of the Bond Street premises before they were rebuilt, shows stalls and boxes on either side of a large central yard.  The 0 to 50 foot scale, on the right, shows the size of the establishment to have been far wider than is suggested by the single house number fifty-six. For it stretched behind several Bond Street shops, and largely occupied the block bounded by Brook Street, Maddox Street, and St George Street.

The second, a remarkable sketch plan made in 1942 by John Archibald Watt Dollar, ‘entirely from memory’, shows the site, he suggests, ‘about 1888’. Descriptions of the practice, however, make c.1891, after the rebuilding, more likely. Immediately after the entrance passageway from New Bond Street was a gently inclined ramp (the creep) allowing horses access to the first floor stables. Behind, and possibly also under this, was the Turkish bath, with hot and cold water for shampooing. Its smooth hard cement walls allowed frequent washing down and, when required for curative purposes, dry air, heated up to 200°F, could be provided by a Constantine Convoluted stove. Such stoves had rapidly become the industry standard for Victorian Turkish baths by virtue of their efficiency in separating the pure heated air from the toxic combustion fumes.

From another source, a rare surviving page of a customer’s account shows the range of services offered. Yet no Turkish baths are mentioned. Perhaps they were on other pages, or on other customers’ accounts. Otherwise, why would such an experienced vet as Dollar have chosen, for the rebuilding of his whole premises, Robert Walker, one of the few architects to have designed a London Turkish bath. Indeed, his 1884 building for the Northumberland Avenue headquarters of the Nevill's chain of Turkish baths (and housing Nevill's Charing Cross baths) is his only well-known work. And although these Turkish baths closed in 1948, the building's façade remains.

So it is of interest to find even a short note from the architect to his clients, in this case addressed to John Archibald Watt Dollar, mentioning the builder Mowlem’s accounts, and accompanying 'the formal approval of your plans, which was signed by Mr. Peebles, the late City Architect,’ a document which he advises Dollar to keep safely ‘among the papers relating to the property’.

When Thomas Aitken Dollar died, the company boasted nine branches and serial appointments to royalty. Although the largest veterinary establishment in London, it still wouldn’t have met the special needs of very large companies transporting goods or people.

We tend to forget, when referring to the 19th century as the railway era, how important horses still were. It’s been estimated, for example, that in 1893 there were about three hundred thousand working horses in London.

In 1919, Pickfords alone had over fifteen hundred, drawing nearly nineteen hundred vans. And although by 1933 they already had over six hundred motor vehicles, they still used five hundred and nine horses. Animal care facilities needed space and were located outside the expensive city centre.

Pickfords’ infirmary was in Finchley where, in 1872, they built a Turkish bath for their carthorses. The air, heated to 150°F by a Constantine Convoluted Stove, entered the hottest of the three rooms through a floor grating. Most of the horses were given a Turkish bath before leaving the hospital ‘as a means of thoroughly cleansing and invigorating them’.

After three years, Constantine enquired if his stove was still performing well and a Mr Hayward replied,

We use it regularly three days per week, and sometimes oftener. Never less than twenty horses per week are put into it, undergoing sweating, washing, and drying again in an out‑room...

Constantine wrote again, nine years later, and was assured that the bath was still 'useful and beneficial to the horses'.

In 1884, the Great Northern Railway opened a hospital for horses, next to its station in Totteridge. Its three-room Turkish bath was also heated by a Constantine Stove. A contemporary plan shows three interconnected rooms. The horse first entered a large wash-, or grooming-room, slightly heated, with hot and cold water supply. Next came the first hot room, kept between 140 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit, followed by the second hot room at 160 to 170 degrees. Finally, without having to turn round, it returned to the grooming-room.

In 1900, sixteen years after the baths opened, up to a thousand heavy horses at a time would be working at King’s Cross, while another three hundred would be resting in stables under the goods platform.

We don’t know when either of these two transport company baths closed. But they probably remained open until horses were finally phased out. Each horse cost about £60, worked twelve hours a day, four or five days per week, and had a working life of about four years, so time and money spent keeping them fit was considered well worthwhile.

Victorian carriages, buses, and trams, also relied on living horse power. In 1893, the London General Omnibus Company, for example, had about 10,000 horses drawing a thousand buses. We don’t know whether their infirmary had a Turkish bath. Not all vets accepted them, just as many physicians labelled their human usage quackery.

Perhaps it depended on where a vet was educated.

Between 1860 and 1881, the veterinary hospital at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester (noted above) encouraged the public to bring their horses, cattle, sheep, and dogs for treatment to its Turkish bath.

But not until the late 1880s was there any mention of a bath at the Royal Veterinary College in Camden. This was a small square room with stone walls, a brick floor, a furnace at the rear, and a shower and foot bath. But, although bathing animals in a Turkish bath may have been taught there, little evidence exists to indicate that it played any meaningful part in a student’s education.

It is, of course, totally impossible to determine when animals stopped being given Turkish baths, but baths were still being built at the end of the 19th century. The architect, Robert Owen Allsop, contributed a series of articles on the subject to Building News, later published (in 1890) as a book The Turkish bath: its design and construction.

And although Allsop called his last chapter, ‘Turkish baths for horses’, he did acknowledge their wider use, writing:

Animals of many kinds, including horses, dogs, cows, sheep, and pigs, have been experimented upon with regard to the bath, and with much success. But for practical purposes all we need here consider is the design of the bath for horses since a bath for a horse will evidently be suitable for a cow and might not be wholly beneath the dignity of a pig.