When did electricity and running water become readily available in European homes?

Question

Presumably, in the early 19th century, rich households were equipped with staff members who would heat water they collected (from public wells, or perhaps private water pumps?) and provide it to their employers; it must have been incredibly annoying. "Turning on the lights" probably meant turning on a dangerous oil burning lamp.

When did it become possible for wealthy houses in Europe to have their own sinks with running water? When did it become possible for the masses to have this luxury? Did flushing toilets become available at this time as well? Where did people dispose of their waste before? When did heating develop so that someone ciuld wake up in the morning and take a hot shower? When could someone "flick on" the electric light in their Parisian hotel room? Were the Americans ahead of, or behind the Europeans in terms of technological development?

Answer 1

Water was indeed collected both from private wells and from public pumps. You didn't need to be wealthy, incidentally, to have the former - just lucky. Water began to be piped into houses during the 19th century, but initially a pump was still necessary to access it. Some cities had water supplies which linked to public pumps and, if you were lucky enough, to your own house. One such was the New River built in the 17th century to supply clean water to London. You could possibly suffer from lead poisoning though, due to the fact that the water was led in pipes made of that material. Public pumps were a source of cholera, a fact proved by a doctor in London's Soho in the 1850s.

Town gas was available from early in the 19th century to light the streets, but not in houses until the second half of the century. This could also be used to heat water, but most houses were without gas or electricity until the 20th century. My grandmother's house was still lit by gas in the late 1940s/early 1950s - I remember, as a child, my father buying and fixing new 'mantles' for her. And that was only 10 miles or so from central London and a couple of miles from Heathrow Airport which we had to pass to get to her house! It was the late 1950s before the whole of the UK was 'wired' - and remember that the areas without electricity probably had no gas either as gas was not supplied to rural areas due to the cost of laying mains.

Flushing toilets became available in mid-Victorian England. In 1858 London experienced the 'Great Stink' caused by untreated sewage in the Thames etc. Special curtains were hung over the windows of the Houses of Parliament to try and keep this smell out. With MPs affected, something had to be done and Joseph Bazalgette designed a system of sewers which were in completed by 1866. These ran all over the city into very large interceptors running along the north and south banks of the Thames (the reason the Victoria Embankment was built) to large sewage treatment works downstream. Large pumping stations were built to move this sewage around. Before this waste had poured into rivers (the old Fleet River, long since covered over) was a dreadful place even going back to Medieval times. Others used cess pits, or just tipped waste into the street. Sometimes there were men whose job was to go round collecting 'nightsoil'

Answer 2

That is the trouble with you De Cat, giving the colonists ideas well above their station. They may get running water (eventually) but what will they do with it? As for the electricity, yes, that is what we modern people call it and don't be afraid of using the expression, As soon as they get it, they invent a method (not unlike Rotter) to kill people with it. I do think that they should stick to shooting people, it is what they do best (ask any school). You mentioned plumbing, well if they want a new toilet they just go out the back and dig another hole, quite a nifty idea don't you think? Just read the answers, they use rest rooms and bathrooms as toilets, how very bizarre, cant think what Mrs. Anson who runs the doctors rest room would think of some colonial chappie walking in and urinating all over her Axminster shag pile.