A brief history of Britain’s obsession with the hot water bottle

Final winter, UK retailers reported file gross sales of water bottles as customers look to chop their heating prices as the common family power payments soared.

Boiling a kettle to fill a scorching water bottle makes use of much less power than an electrical blanket or turning on the heating and so is the most cost effective choice to preserve you heat, in response to client insights publication Which?.

This 12 months, bottles have been noticed on the London runway as even luxurious manufacturers are cashing in on their reputation.

Feeling the coolness ourselves, we’ve got dug into the historical past of the new water bottle as half of a big analysis undertaking on the worldwide historical past of Boots The Chemists.

The primary scorching water bottles

Sizzling water bottles have been round in numerous types for hundreds of years. Early variations had been comprised of supplies corresponding to steel, ceramic, and glass. These bottles may lose warmth shortly and had been disagreeable, icy mattress companions as soon as cooled.

Refinement of the vulcanisation course of within the mid-Nineteenth century was a revolution for the common-or-garden “hottie”. Commercials for rubber bottles began showing in UK newspapers by the late 1860s. In November 1867, for instance, Thornton and Co. promoted their “India Rubber” scorching water bottle within the Glasgow Herald, with claims that its product was a “nice consolation to invalids”.

Rubber bottles had been comfortable, versatile, and retained warmth for longer. Whereas the fundamental design has modified little or no, the acquainted flask form is broadly attributed to Croatian inventor Eduard Penkala. Newspapers trumpeted the significance of checking a bottle correctly earlier than use to keep away from debilitating burns and scalds. Seasonal articles, very similar to at present, inspired folks to spend money on a brand new bottle each few years.

Sizzling water bottles at Boots

Though we can’t be sure when Boots stocked its first rubber scorching water bottle, it was pushing them exhausting by the Nineteen Twenties. On this decade, new manufacturing methods widened rubber’s software and ease of manufacturing for a bunch of family items, clothes, and footwear. The fabric’s waterproof, wipe-down qualities and its excessive malleability remodeled approaches to residence hygiene.

Rubber gloves, child teats, residence enema tubes, rubberised plasters and elasticated girdles are all examples of merchandise invented or improved between the primary and second world wars and had a big impact on on a regular basis well being, consolation, and comfort. Latex condoms additionally date from this era, though given their Methodist origins, Boots refused to promote them. However they did inventory a bewilderingly giant vary of rubber scorching water bottles, fastidiously tiered by high quality and worth.

On the top-of-the-range was the “Regaid Tremendous Pink”, however clients may additionally purchase the mid-priced mannequin “Cumfy” (additionally in purple), the lower-priced “Perfection” in gray, and a funds stage “Primus”, marketed as a useful, if “drab” choice for the funds aware.

Whereas various in worth, all Boots’ scorching water bottles had been touted to alleviate ache in addition to present warmth. A miniature model of the “Cumfy”, as an example, was bought as a handwarmer, a conveyable warmth supply for child’s pram and as a reduction for neuralgia (a taking pictures, stabbing nerve ache) or earache.

Housewives got strict directions on find out how to preserve their bottle clear and to cease the rubber from deteriorating. As a result of highly regarded water may crack the rubber, Boots suggested its clients to pour a cup of chilly water into the bottle first. Then, after it was emptied, it needs to be hung the other way up, with the stopper eliminated, in a “cool, darkish place”.

An uncomfortable historical past?

Rubber remodeled on a regular basis consolation in Britain, however the trade has a fancy historical past marked by financial exploitation, racial discrimination, and environmental abuses pushed by European colonialism. Rubber plantation staff in Southeast Asia, for instance, typically endured harsh circumstances to domesticate, faucet, and course of uncooked rubber sheets. On arrival to the producer abroad, the rubber was poured over cotton – one other product of the British empire – to make the new water bottle pliable, comfortable and powerful.

Within the Nineteen Twenties, Boots employees journal, The Bee, featured a number of articles explaining the place rubber got here from and the way scorching water bottles had been made. Like many company communications of the time, these instructed a sanitised story of producing success. When Boots celebrated the “perfect circumstances” that helped British manufacturing unit women take “justifiable pleasure” within the bottles they made, it marginalised the exploitative circumstances wanted to supply low cost cotton and rubber. Paradoxically, scorching water bottles had been typically shipped again to rubber-producing nations to assist colonial ex-pats take care of the local weather.

Immediately, the number of scorching water bottle fashions and worth factors appear countless. This beloved traditional exhibits no indicators of dropping its attraction for British customers. As a cheap and acquainted staple, we are going to doubtless proceed to tuck ourselves up in mattress with one for a lot of extra winters to return.

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