Student discovers toilet role in history
Alison Breese is known as the ‘‘Loo Lady’’ for delving deep into the mysterious and forgotten world of subterranean toilets.
Breese, who is studying towards a masters in history, is focusing on the demise of Dunedin city’s underground public toilets, and her research has unearthed nuggets including a 1919 report from a city engineer.
He noted that at the nearby bars’ closing time, the underground facilities attracted ‘‘alcoholic pandemonium of vulgarity, obscenity, and blasphemy to the loathing and disgust of the officer in charge’’.
‘‘The paralysis of the gastric nerves, due to the bar treatment, causes some to empty their stomachs about the place, but the mess is immediately cleaned up and no complaint comes from the surface.’’
And Dunedin is the place to study the public toilet – it’s believed to be home to the first one in New Zealand.
Breese said her interest in the subject began after inquiries from the public in her role as a Dunedin City Council archivist, and she soon found these facilities revealed a great deal about New Zealand society.
Those toilets combined Victorian modesty – entrances hidden behind shrubs – with state of the art facilities.
However, the last of Dunedin’s subterranean loos – the Octagon – was shut in 1989, and has largely been flushed from the public’s consciousness.
Dunedin’s first public toilet opened in the 1860s and over the next 50 years men-only would be dotted around and ‘‘they were horrible’’.
‘‘So the push for the undergrounds was the first big step in expanding the public conveniences,’’ Breese, who is also known as the ‘‘Loo Lady’’ said.
City leaders were becoming increasingly concerned with poor hygiene and sanitation, while groups of women began campaigning for toilets, as they were largely expected to use only the toilets in their homes. However, the city’s department stores offered plush facilities – wall to wall white tiles, ornamental flourishes and penny slots.
Women and men were charged a penny for the privilege of using the underground ‘‘water closets’’, and the the council found it was on to a money spinner – the conveniences returned £28 in just a four-week period. Men could use the urinals for free, and their opening hours were longer.
The underground toilets were followed by more than a dozen brick above-ground facilities across the city, and that includes the 1912 toilet block in Manor Pl – believed to be the oldest surviving of its type in New Zealand.
Over the years attendants were eventually replaced by cleaning contractors, and issues over the accessibility of underground toilets meant they were out of favour by the 1960s.
Vandalism was also rampant, and toilet paper was stolen. Breese’s research revealed teenage girls were the culprits.
And it got so bad that female constables were used to collar the culprits. facilities the city
Women and men were charged a penny for the privilege of using the underground ‘water closets’.