Predictable routine

Predictable routine
The washermen's week took on a predictable routine. Mondays were usually collection and delivery days, by horse and cart, or more usually by slinging large bundles over sticks and walking to their customers. Laundry fees were also collected on Mondays. Tuesdays to Saturdays were devoted to the serious business of cleaning the town's dirty laundry, with a possible break for a mid-week afternoon delivery. Sundays were days of rest. The average washerman washed three bundles of washing a day, or about 18 bundles a week, for which he earned a monthly wage of £14. Over his four-month spell in the town, he would earn £48. But he had to balance this against his costs, which totalled £7 over the four-month period, Van Onselen says. He had to pay a Sanitary Board registration fee, a monthly licence fee, rent on a hut, site hire and a pass exemption fee. Additional under-the-counter income came in the form of the "less scrupulous washermen who stole or sold their customer's clothing", and the illegal sale of home-brewed beer. Most washermen spent two sessions working in the town, going home to KwaZulu-Natal to their families in between and taking home up to £100 every year. "Incomes of this order placed the AmaWasha in a rather exceptional socio-economic category and, not surprisingly, their children, when subsequently questioned about their father's position in rural society, deemed the washermen to be wealthy.'" From 1894, however, the authorities had to deal with a constant stream of complaints about the loss of their laundry. A raid in that year on a washing site produced 10 "missing" bundles of laundry. At one time the selling of clothing became an organised mafia operation, explains Van Onselen. In 1895 gang called the Peruvians - Russian or Polish Jews - ran a well-organised operation that sold second-hand clothing in the town. It could conceivably happen, says Van Onselen, that "a white miner who had sent his laundry for washing with the guild would end up having to repurchase his own garments from a second-hand clothing dealer in the city center

The washermen's week took on a predictable routine. Mondays were usually collection and delivery days, by horse and cart, or more usually by slinging large bundles over sticks and walking to their customers. Laundry fees were also collected on Mondays.

Tuesdays to Saturdays were devoted to the serious business of cleaning the town's dirty laundry, with a possible break for a mid-week afternoon delivery. Sundays were days of rest.

The average washerman washed three bundles of washing a day, or about 18 bundles a week, for which he earned a monthly wage of £14. Over his four-month spell in the town, he would earn £48. But he had to balance this against his costs, which totalled £7 over the four-month period, Van Onselen says.

He had to pay a Sanitary Board registration fee, a monthly licence fee, rent on a hut, site hire and a pass exemption fee. Additional under-the-counter income came in the form of the "less scrupulous washermen who stole or sold their customer's clothing", and the illegal sale of home-brewed beer.

Most washermen spent two sessions working in the town, going home to KwaZulu-Natal to their families in between and taking home up to £100 every year. "Incomes of this order placed the AmaWasha in a rather exceptional socio-economic category and, not surprisingly, their children, when subsequently questioned about their father's position in rural society, deemed the washermen to be wealthy.'"

From 1894, however, the authorities had to deal with a constant stream of complaints about the loss of their laundry. A raid in that year on a washing site produced 10 "missing" bundles of laundry.

At one time the selling of clothing became an organised mafia operation, explains Van Onselen. In 1895 gang called the Peruvians - Russian or Polish Jews - ran a well-organised operation that sold second-hand clothing in the town. It could conceivably happen, says Van Onselen, that "a white miner who had sent his laundry for washing with the guild would end up having to repurchase his own garments from a second-hand clothing dealer in the city center