Genealogy Chat

see below:

Hi, I thought this a little strange - I haven't come accross it before. I pressume it is what it appears - 58 year old widdow purchases a mangle and makes a business for herself squeezing the water out of all her neighbours' washing !! She certainly had a good business head on her shoulders! Dea.

ThAT'S A GOOD ONE! I notice it doesn't say she squeezes the clothes - perhaps she just charges other people to squeeze their own. Good wheeze. If it was me, I'd charge for tea and biscuits as a sideline! nell

Just found this by googling By the late 1800s Austerlands was a thriving community with its own cobbler, its own tailor and its own public mangle. on a site about Austerlands Mill, near Saddleworth in Yorkshire. nell

Hi Dea, I read about this somewhere. I think it was in a book about life in Manchester in the 1800s. Nell is right in that once you'd purchased or inherited a mange it was money for old rope! So the local women would bring their washing round to your ancestors house and pay to use her mangle, all she had to do was sit back and take their coins. Louise

Do you reckon she ended up with arms like Desperate Dan or would she have employed little kids to do it for her? Many a time I caught my fingers in my mum's mangle in our back garden in the late 50's