ABSTRACT
Until the late Victorian period most of the hot water supplied for bathing and washing would have been heated by fire. At its simplest this would involve suspending a pot or a kettle over flames. Up until the mid 1800s the normal way of taking a bath, even for relatively wealthy people, would be in a portable tin bath placed in front of the fire. An alternative to this would have been to take the fire to the water and, for instance, light a fire under the large internal cold water storage cistern. A more sophisticated approach to heating water included the ranges that were
introduced in the Georgian period, and have since evolved into multi purpose elements (the present day ‘Aga’ for example). Ranges, and later ‘Kitcheners’, were designed around an open fire which, as well as heating the room, also provided a means of cooking and heating water. Towards the beginning of the 20th century the use of back boilers became more widespread and these were often situated behind the kitchen fire feeding a galvanised steel tank situated in the room above. They were not very efficient and certainly would not be capable of providing the large quantities of hot water required by a modern family.
