The Chinese Laundry between the Two World Wars-
Recollections of Gwenllian Sou Kang Chan Lee†
This is a transcript of an oral statement by Sue Lee (Gwenllian Sou Kang Chan Lee). In 2012, I asked my mother to write down what she could recall of the functioning of her father’s Chinese laundries. I’d written elsewhere of my grandfather’s experiences and of the representation of Chinese laundrymen by dominant white society (Chinas Unlimited: Making the Imaginaries of China and Chineseness, Honololu: Hawai’i University Press), but what I asked her to do was to record as best she could remember, and while she could still remember, the day-to-day mechanics of the laundry business. Sue Lee died in March 2023 aged 98.
There were two laundries, one he owned, and in which he employed “workmen”, in Liverpool, and a second that he managed for a friend who’d bought a laundry after a big gambling win. My grandfather had recently lost a court case against Liverpool City Corporation. The council had condemned and possessed his properties on Great George Street without compensation. Penniless, he was obliged to accept his friend’s offer of managing a laundry in Rhyl, North Wales. Unfortunately, the income the laundry generated had been wildly exaggerated by those who had sold it, and my grandfather and family were obliged to bear the brunt of the labour. Towards the latter part of World War Two my grandfather moved back to Liverpool to run a large café for a clientele of Chinese seamen. In 1946-47, the seamen were repatriated en masse by the government in unison with Holt shipping company’s Blue Funnel Line. And thus ended the seamen’s café venture. But that is another story. What follows is the record of what she said.
Laundry 1.
45 Great George Street, Liverpool 1
(circa 1928-1932)
I was about four years old when we took over the laundry. I can vaguely remember my granny complaining that the partition to make the little receiving office to deliver and collect the laundry nearly came down on her; she said the Chinese workmen were useless at joinery, that they must have used a needle and thread to keep it up.
Obviously now thinking back the previous laundryman was on his own – as many were at the time in the late 1920s. With having a family, the layout downstairs meant we had to come into the shop to dine. I will explain later why the man on his own could eat anywhere, but from the very beginning my father always insisted on the family all sitting at the dining table. And if workmen were present they’d join us too, but at one end so they could have their own serving dishes – otherwise with four hungry children they would not have stood a chance of getting a bite to eat.
In the laundry, we had a full cooked rice meal at lunch time because of the workmen and an evening full dinner of rice etc at approximately 8.00pm every day except Sunday, when my mother could have a roast dinner of her choice.
When the clothes were deposited by the customer, s/he would be given a numbered ticket. The counterfoil was attached to the bundle of laundry. A list of articles would be written on the counterfoil. Each article would then be marked with an individual number. But for regular customers whose articles of clothing were already numbered, you could keep the original number; numbers were written onto the clothes in indelible marking ink.
Tickets were made from various coloured papers. Each week would be started with a different colour. This system helped identify clothing when tickets were lost, it helped to establish when the clothes were brought in. The paper was cut into ticket size and numbered from 1 upwards and each ticket had the number written on twice. One side given to the customer, the other side was kept for the laundry. On this laundry counterfoil would be written the list of the articles in Chinese (tablecloth, shirt etc) and the number accorded to each article. Each article was also priced and the total sum calculated.
The clothes would be piled into coloured or white washing. Out in the back yard was a rough shed with a boiler and usually two large wooden tubs. One tub was for rinsing the clothes the other was for scrubbing the dirty washing with the help of a wash-board with hard scrubbing brush and soap. The soap, long blocks of soda washing soap of about approximately 18” long, was bought in bulk, supplied by Lever Brothers Port Sunlight.
Layout in shop area :
Long table running the width of the shop, used as ironing table.
Top shelf at back of table used for collars, one of the main stays of the laundry business.
Ironing: An iron press used for stiff collars was covered with a blanket and a white linen cover which were changed and washed every week.
Under counter were all the finished parcels of laundry.
Coming back to the lay out: a small receiving office, dirty laundry stored under ironing tables cum benches.
Inside at the back of the shop there was a kitchen cum drying room.
The drying room was wired along the ceiling with wires to hang clothes on. The drying room was equipped with specialist stove, a round stove fuelled with coke which had to be carefully filled up to keep down the dirty dust to a minimum, so as not to soil the cleaned clothes.
Around the stove were ledges to hold the irons. The irons weighed roughly 15lbs upwards. The stove when drying would be almost white hot – therefore to cool irons down to a suitable temperature to work with, there were two very large buckets of water just outside the shop ironing area. The hot irons would be manipulated with a bent wire and then lowered into the buckets of water, care being taken to ensure the hot steam air did not scald hands and arms.
Meanwhile, when the clothes were dry they all had to be damped down and rolled up ready for ironing and put into large baskets. There were many of these baskets to take away dirty clothes, to bring in the dry ones to be damped etc.
I have cut short the washing procedure. The whites went into large boilers with washing soda and finally were bleached then rinsed. After the whites were washed, the hot water from the boilers was used to wash the coloured articles in the large wooden washing tubs.
After rinsing, clothes had to be sorted out into those to be starched or not. Stiff collars for evening dress required a very stiff starch. Softer starch was used for soft collars, the fronts of all shirts, table cloths and white overalls for shop assistants. Butchers, hairdressers and barbers usually used slightly starched whites.
From late 1920s to late 1930s, white stiff collars were the fashion for men, especially if they were bachelors, also full dinner and evening dress with winged stiff collars was part of the social tradition- part of every day. It was not until after the Second World War that the standard changed to be more informal.
The stiff white collars were put into stiff starch and my job as a little girl would be to smooth out the starch of the collars on a board. The collars would be stacked up and then put on a large contraption that was home-made: a large piece of long wood, wired hooks either end to hang up in the drying room. Lengths of wire were bent over the long horizontal piece of wood and stuck out so that the contraption resembled big fish skeleton.
Recollections of Gwenllian Sou Kang Chan Lee†
This is a transcript of an oral statement by Sue Lee (Gwenllian Sou Kang Chan Lee). In 2012, I asked my mother to write down what she could recall of the functioning of her father’s Chinese laundries. I’d written elsewhere of my grandfather’s experiences and of the representation of Chinese laundrymen by dominant white society (Chinas Unlimited: Making the Imaginaries of China and Chineseness, Honololu: Hawai’i University Press), but what I asked her to do was to record as best she could remember, and while she could still remember, the day-to-day mechanics of the laundry business. Sue Lee died in March 2023 aged 98.
There were two laundries, one he owned, and in which he employed “workmen”, in Liverpool, and a second that he managed for a friend who’d bought a laundry after a big gambling win. My grandfather had recently lost a court case against Liverpool City Corporation. The council had condemned and possessed his properties on Great George Street without compensation. Penniless, he was obliged to accept his friend’s offer of managing a laundry in Rhyl, North Wales. Unfortunately, the income the laundry generated had been wildly exaggerated by those who had sold it, and my grandfather and family were obliged to bear the brunt of the labour. Towards the latter part of World War Two my grandfather moved back to Liverpool to run a large café for a clientele of Chinese seamen. In 1946-47, the seamen were repatriated en masse by the government in unison with Holt shipping company’s Blue Funnel Line. And thus ended the seamen’s café venture. But that is another story. What follows is the record of what she said.
Laundry 1.
45 Great George Street, Liverpool 1
(circa 1928-1932)
I was about four years old when we took over the laundry. I can vaguely remember my granny complaining that the partition to make the little receiving office to deliver and collect the laundry nearly came down on her; she said the Chinese workmen were useless at joinery, that they must have used a needle and thread to keep it up.
Obviously now thinking back the previous laundryman was on his own – as many were at the time in the late 1920s. With having a family, the layout downstairs meant we had to come into the shop to dine. I will explain later why the man on his own could eat anywhere, but from the very beginning my father always insisted on the family all sitting at the dining table. And if workmen were present they’d join us too, but at one end so they could have their own serving dishes – otherwise with four hungry children they would not have stood a chance of getting a bite to eat.
In the laundry, we had a full cooked rice meal at lunch time because of the workmen and an evening full dinner of rice etc at approximately 8.00pm every day except Sunday, when my mother could have a roast dinner of her choice.
When the clothes were deposited by the customer, s/he would be given a numbered ticket. The counterfoil was attached to the bundle of laundry. A list of articles would be written on the counterfoil. Each article would then be marked with an individual number. But for regular customers whose articles of clothing were already numbered, you could keep the original number; numbers were written onto the clothes in indelible marking ink.
Tickets were made from various coloured papers. Each week would be started with a different colour. This system helped identify clothing when tickets were lost, it helped to establish when the clothes were brought in. The paper was cut into ticket size and numbered from 1 upwards and each ticket had the number written on twice. One side given to the customer, the other side was kept for the laundry. On this laundry counterfoil would be written the list of the articles in Chinese (tablecloth, shirt etc) and the number accorded to each article. Each article was also priced and the total sum calculated.
The clothes would be piled into coloured or white washing. Out in the back yard was a rough shed with a boiler and usually two large wooden tubs. One tub was for rinsing the clothes the other was for scrubbing the dirty washing with the help of a wash-board with hard scrubbing brush and soap. The soap, long blocks of soda washing soap of about approximately 18” long, was bought in bulk, supplied by Lever Brothers Port Sunlight.
Layout in shop area :
Long table running the width of the shop, used as ironing table.
Top shelf at back of table used for collars, one of the main stays of the laundry business.
Ironing: An iron press used for stiff collars was covered with a blanket and a white linen cover which were changed and washed every week.
Under counter were all the finished parcels of laundry.
Coming back to the lay out: a small receiving office, dirty laundry stored under ironing tables cum benches.
Inside at the back of the shop there was a kitchen cum drying room.
The drying room was wired along the ceiling with wires to hang clothes on. The drying room was equipped with specialist stove, a round stove fuelled with coke which had to be carefully filled up to keep down the dirty dust to a minimum, so as not to soil the cleaned clothes.
Around the stove were ledges to hold the irons. The irons weighed roughly 15lbs upwards. The stove when drying would be almost white hot – therefore to cool irons down to a suitable temperature to work with, there were two very large buckets of water just outside the shop ironing area. The hot irons would be manipulated with a bent wire and then lowered into the buckets of water, care being taken to ensure the hot steam air did not scald hands and arms.
Meanwhile, when the clothes were dry they all had to be damped down and rolled up ready for ironing and put into large baskets. There were many of these baskets to take away dirty clothes, to bring in the dry ones to be damped etc.
I have cut short the washing procedure. The whites went into large boilers with washing soda and finally were bleached then rinsed. After the whites were washed, the hot water from the boilers was used to wash the coloured articles in the large wooden washing tubs.
After rinsing, clothes had to be sorted out into those to be starched or not. Stiff collars for evening dress required a very stiff starch. Softer starch was used for soft collars, the fronts of all shirts, table cloths and white overalls for shop assistants. Butchers, hairdressers and barbers usually used slightly starched whites.
From late 1920s to late 1930s, white stiff collars were the fashion for men, especially if they were bachelors, also full dinner and evening dress with winged stiff collars was part of the social tradition- part of every day. It was not until after the Second World War that the standard changed to be more informal.
The stiff white collars were put into stiff starch and my job as a little girl would be to smooth out the starch of the collars on a board. The collars would be stacked up and then put on a large contraption that was home-made: a large piece of long wood, wired hooks either end to hang up in the drying room. Lengths of wire were bent over the long horizontal piece of wood and stuck out so that the contraption resembled big fish skeleton.
And on the wire the collars were hung by the stud hole because they had to dry individually. Being very stiff, when dry they had to be damped down, laid on a flat, damp cloth-covered board. Layers of collars were separated by more damp cloths and on top of the stack was another board which was weighted down with irons.
For the very stiff collars there was a gas-heated roller-style pressing machine. It was a very strenuous job since the hand-turned wheel was stiff and hard to turn. The handle of the pressing machine was huge, but the result after the damped collars had been pressed was a white glossy collar stiff as a board. But that was not the end. Each collar had to be folded in two and then curled or turned into neck shape. As to the winged collars, the wings had to be dampened and turned with a hot iron and the collars curled ready to go around the neck.
This laborious process was necessary to what was the main stay of the laundry business. But the starching of collars would fizzle out when fashion changed after the Second World War.
After all the clothes had been damped down for ironing, they were put into baskets, then they were ironed. When the articles of washing had been washed and ironed they were laid on the top of the ironing tables and sorted out into piles according to the laundry marks described above. After this, all the laundry had to be packed into brown paper-wrapped parcels.
For collars, shirts and shop assistants' overalls the paper was cut to size.
When the customer came back to collect laundry, the client's ticket was matched to the other half on the parcelled-up laundry.
The shirts and collars were stacked in the same place each week, the stiff collars were put on a long shelf along the length of the wall against which the ironing tables were aligned.
The heavier parcels were placed under the ironing tables on shelves.
Laundry 2.
35 Sussex Street, Rhyl
(c. 1932-1942)
Things were different. We had a kitchen-cum dining room separate from the front of the shop front and the drying room. The shop and drying room and washhouse were down a small flight of stairs.
The washing procedures were the same except for the very “modern” addition of an industrial electric washing machine for the coloured articles and an electric motor-powered calendar with a long iron gas heated press for pressing all linens, table cloths, pillow cases and sheets.
The bottom half of the shop window was painted out. On the top half was painted my father's name C.C. Lee.
© Gregory B. Lee 2023
For the very stiff collars there was a gas-heated roller-style pressing machine. It was a very strenuous job since the hand-turned wheel was stiff and hard to turn. The handle of the pressing machine was huge, but the result after the damped collars had been pressed was a white glossy collar stiff as a board. But that was not the end. Each collar had to be folded in two and then curled or turned into neck shape. As to the winged collars, the wings had to be dampened and turned with a hot iron and the collars curled ready to go around the neck.
This laborious process was necessary to what was the main stay of the laundry business. But the starching of collars would fizzle out when fashion changed after the Second World War.
After all the clothes had been damped down for ironing, they were put into baskets, then they were ironed. When the articles of washing had been washed and ironed they were laid on the top of the ironing tables and sorted out into piles according to the laundry marks described above. After this, all the laundry had to be packed into brown paper-wrapped parcels.
For collars, shirts and shop assistants' overalls the paper was cut to size.
When the customer came back to collect laundry, the client's ticket was matched to the other half on the parcelled-up laundry.
The shirts and collars were stacked in the same place each week, the stiff collars were put on a long shelf along the length of the wall against which the ironing tables were aligned.
The heavier parcels were placed under the ironing tables on shelves.
Laundry 2.
35 Sussex Street, Rhyl
(c. 1932-1942)
Things were different. We had a kitchen-cum dining room separate from the front of the shop front and the drying room. The shop and drying room and washhouse were down a small flight of stairs.
The washing procedures were the same except for the very “modern” addition of an industrial electric washing machine for the coloured articles and an electric motor-powered calendar with a long iron gas heated press for pressing all linens, table cloths, pillow cases and sheets.
The bottom half of the shop window was painted out. On the top half was painted my father's name C.C. Lee.
© Gregory B. Lee 2023