Chamber Pots

Often times history is romanticized as we try to imagine our ancestors’ life as simpler than our own or we imagine past leaders as larger than life. But people of the past still had to deal with many of the same day-to-day problems as humans today. This would of course include having to use the restroom. 

Thousands of years ago when people lived in smaller communities they would have needed a place to relieve themselves. In the past people might have gone to a nearby forest or field. But what if it was raining outside or it was nighttime? In many sparsely populated regions like central Asia and Africa, they generally would have kept going out to the field. But in other places that began to become more densely populated, many cultures created toilets. Much of these toilets consisted of a hole in the floor, which people could squat over. It is believed that the style of a sit-down toilet may have been popularized later due to the change in clothing styles. Some forms of leggings and trousers would have made it easier to use a sit down toilet when wearing them. Archeology has shown that people in the Indus Valley around 2500 BC had latrines that were hand flushed and would empty into street drains. On the island of Crete some latrines would have wooden seats. Romans built great sewer systems, which kept latrine areas relatively clean by ancient standards. In medieval Europe, the toilets in castles were called a garderobe and were simply a vertical shaft that led outside with a stone seat at the top. In 1598, Sir John Harrison invented the flushing lavatory yet his ideas were mostly forgotten until the 1800s.

With all these changes in toilet design, another mode of using the restroom emerged, chamber pots. The chamber pot had been around since ancient times but became popularized in the 17^th century. This invention was very beneficial as it was a lot easier to use than going outside all the time, especially if it was raining or snowing. If you needed to go, you would just pull the chamber pot out and use it. Later on, the contents could be dumped out easily enough. Early chamber pots were made of clay or metal and would be placed under a piece of furniture like a bench, stool or bed. Often the shape was simply a round container, but some would be oval or rectangular. In France, they were called bourdaloue after the 17^th century catholic priest Louis Bourdaloue. He was known to give long sermons causing ladies to bring chamber pots under their dresses so that they could use them discreetly without getting up. Other nicknames include a jerry, a Jordan, a gazunder, a potty or a piss pot. The word chamber pot may have come from the French term “pot de chambre,” with “chambre” meaning bedroom, which is where it was often found.

During Victorian times most houses would have chamber pots to use. Some would have outhouses, but if it were the dead of winter most people would prefer the chamber pot. Some houses had a close stool, a special chair invented to ease the use of a chamber pot. It would look like an ordinary chair but if someone lifted the seat it would reveal a hole where a chamber pot could be placed. The emptying of the chamber pot would be the responsibility of many different people. In more elite houses, often servants or slaves would empty the pot into the nearest pit, water source, or field. Sometimes the job would fall onto the youngest member of the family. In cities, many would toss the contents out the nearest window. In Edinburgh, Scotland residents would shout “Gardy-loo” which meant, “mind the water” before tossing it. Others would just shout out the window so people down below would know. By 1724, New York City residents were ordered to walk to the nearest water source to dispose of the chamber pot’s contents. Sometimes the build up of excrement would create cesspools in the streets and under houses. In certain cities like London, it would be the job of the night soil man to have to clean out the cesspools and dispose of the contents in the river. This would make for a very gross job with some night soil men extracting nitrate from the pits to use for gunpowder. This build up of excrement would get so bad that it led to disease epidemics, like the spread of cholera.

In an attempt to ignore the gross interior, many Victorians would buy decorated chamber pots to make them look nicer in the house. Often though they weren’t meant to be seen unless needed. In old English records it was often noted that getting injured or dying due to a chamber pot wasn’t an uncommon thing. Multiple reports during the Victorian era told of people falling or slipping on their chamber pot causing them to get a life threatening injury. In many Victorian cases of domestic abuse or a robbery, a chamber pot would be used as a weapon.

Residents who lived in the Farm House most likely had chamber pots since the outhouse was in the backyard and the Farm House didn’t get indoor plumbing until the 1940’s. The Farm House Museum itself has five chamber pots, all located upstairs under the beds. Most are white except for one, which is pink. They all have different floral designs on them, which were put there to distract from the contents inside. All of the pots also have lids, which was meant to hide what was inside as well. Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse, even noted, “The use of any chamber utensil without a lid should be utterly abolished, whether among sick or well.” She was concerned about bad air causing disease, but the bad smell wouldn’t have been good either. Chamber pots may represent the grosser side of history, but it is something that peoples of the past had to deal with every day, and this is shown in the Farm House Museum.