Discover Top Posts Tagged with #kitty wilkinson

Responsibility for public health was now understood to be a task for government, not just for working-class women who – until then – had been the only ones concerned with the cleanliness of slum houses, the only ones asking for clean water and working drains.

One such working-class woman was Kitty Wilkinson, an Irish migrant in Liverpool who had been a cotton mill worker and a domestic servant. She opened up her laundry business to her poor neighbours for a penny a week, allowing them to use her boiler and bleach to disinfect their clothes during the 1832 cholera epidemic. She became known as the 'saint of the slums' and campaigned for public bathhouses for the poor.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

Three of Warriors

From The Long Century Tarot

Kitty Wilkinson was born in Ireland in 1786. By the time she set herself up as a laundress in Liverpool, she had lost her father, sister, and husband to drowning, as well as having spent time in both domestic service and the factories. In other words, when she, a poor, Irish immigrant, married Tom Wilkinson, a working-class Liverpudlian warehouse porter, she was very much at the bottom of the social heap. Yet, when cholera broke out in 1832, Kitty knew just what to do. She owned the only boiler in the neighbourhood as a result of her job, and she immediately allowed her neighbours to use not only it, but her house and yard to wash their clothes. She showed them the best way to wash with a chloride of lime and boiling water to slow the spread of the disease*. She charged only 1 penny a week for her services, ensuring that it would be possible for even the poorest townsfolk to afford. Her actions saved a great many working-class lives.

Like the Three of Wands, the Three of Warriors represents foresight, undertaking daring challenges (Kitty Wilkinson put herself at great risk by allowing so many potentially ill people into her home), embracing opportunities, and planning for the long term. Kitty’s actions were quickly made known to higher-ups in the community (notably William Rathbone) and this gave her the traction to push for the opening of public bathhouses where the poor could bathe. A bath opened in Liverpool in 1842, and by 1846, she was made superintendent of the enterprise (the same year she received a silver teapot from Queen Victoria for her actions). She became known as the Saint of the Slums.

*Germ theory would not gain traction until the 1850s, but it was nevertheless understood that boiling clothes could clean them better.

Thank you so much for reading along! You can check out the rest of the deck here!