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An unusual query for your attention - please copy any replies to Malcom Shifrin <[log in to unmask]> Peter >Although I am not a member of the mining history mailing list, I wonder >whether it is possible to have a question put on my behalf to your >listees. > >I have been researching the subject of Victorian Turkish baths for the >past few years and have recently started the website noted below under >my signature. > >_The Free Press_ dated 26 May 1858 reports a lecture on Turkish baths >read on David Urquhart's behalf to the members of the Swindon Mechanics >Institution who were trying to get support for such a bath to be built >in Swindon. > >The speaker began by "reading an account of a Turkish bath which had >recently been built, and is now in constant use by a body of miners in >this country". I have never managed to get any further with locating >this bath and wonder if any of your members could help. > >It may be worth mentioning that 1858 is very early for such a bath, by >which I mean the newly re-introduced hot dry air bath (ie, not steam or >sauna-like). The first in Ireland was built in 1856 and the first in >England (in Manchester) a year later, but London did not get one until >1860, so it is likely that the miners' bath was somewhere in Ireland or >the north of England, possibly near Newcastle. > >Although I am especially interested in this particular bath, I would be >most grateful to hear of any Turkish baths built by or for miners, at or > >near the pithead. I have not so far come across one, but cannot help >feeling that there must surely have been some. > >With many thanks for any help you can give, and with all best wishes, > >Malcolm [Shifrin] >http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/ ______________________________________________ Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen, Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE. Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 07831 427599 University of Exeter - Department of History School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies E-mail: [log in to unmask] Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list. See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/mining-history/ for details. Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/ _____________________________________________ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%