The Lily Laundry Lady

The campaign

One of our recent visitors to site was Dorothy. Dorothy visited Hopetown Darlington in October and admitted that when she glanced upon an item in our collection, a Lily Laundry box, it brought a tear to her eye. That single box, just one item in our vast 30,000 heritage collection, brought back so many memories from her younger days.

In the laundry box, once deep violet in colour which in time has turned blue, would have been a delivery of freshly laundered and pressed items of clothing.

Dorothy shared a very brief history of her time at the laundry with staff in the shop, but no details were exchanged and Dorothy went about her day with her family. It was in passing that the marketing team heard about a customer who spoke about the laundry box bringing back memories that started a Facebook campaign to find the customer and ask about her story. 

Thank you to the amazing people of Darlington, the campaign was picked up by the cousin of Dorothy's daughter, Wendy. After an exchange of emails, we invited Dorothy back as we were so intrigued at her reaction to the box. This is Dorothy's story of Lily Laundry...

Meet the Lily Laundry Lady

Dorothy was born in Darlington in 1932 and joined Lily Laundry in 1946 at age 14. "I finished school on the Friday and on Monday morning I walked straight into a job" she exclaimed. Her father also worked there as a mechanic on the fleet of electric and diesel vans. Yes, even back then they had electric vehicles.

"My role was to iron the laundered clothing and linen before it was folded and packed ready to be returned to the customer". A role which she was meticulous in for four years.

Dorothy would start the day bright and early and head to work from her home at 6am every morning. After communal prayer, which wasn't compulsory but was encouraged, she would head to her work station to begin ironing.

Dorothy told us how the laundry boxes belonged to higher classes who lived in manors, where as the working and middle class used to send in their laundry in brown paper bags. There is also a surviving brown box which Dorothy believes belonged to businesses.

"Each case has its own individual number. This was the customers number and the case belonged solely to them".

In 1950 at the age of 18, Dorothy waved goodbye to Lily Laundry to join the WRENS (Women's Royal Navy Service). It was during this time she met her beloved Bob and together they moved back to Darlington. Bob joined the North Riding Police Force whilst Dorothy went to work at Patons and Baldwins Knitting Factory in Lingfield point, which was the largest wool factory in the world. Patons and Baldwins had its own railway sidings linking to the railway line that formed part of the original Stockton & Darlington Railway. This enabled them to ferry the wool from Darlington to Teesside where it was then shipped across the world.

Dorothy went on to raise a family and moved between Darlington and Teesside. Her daughter Wendy found out through her cousin that we were looking to find Dorothy's story and got in touch so we could bring you her story.

What about the Lily Laundry itself we hear you ask?

The laundry, nestled in the white buildings on the right in what was Russell Street, off Northgate, was founded in 1912 by Ronald Hodgkin, a grandson of Henry Pease who was still a committed Quaker.

The laundry quickly grew to become one of the largest employers in Darlington.

The working day would start with non-compulsory morning worship, and the largely female workforce was banned from wearing make-up. The company also frowned upon them attending cinemas or going out dancing, and if they got married before the age of 23, it didn't give them the usual gift of a taffeta bedspread or chiming clock.

And if anyone was late for work – well, Mr Hodgkin once burned some pound notes in front of the face of one late-comer to show them that time was money.

The laundry's first motto was "seek ye first the kingdom of God", but over the course of the 20th Century, it changed to “whiter than white”.

The business thrived. It had horses and carts, then motor vans and then electric vans, running out to Redcar, Swaledale, Wensleydale and Barnard Castle, collecting dirty washing and delivering clean laundry.

There were teams of scrubbers doing the cleaning, and there were rooms full of ironers, just like Dorothy, – a skilled operation as those were the days of matrons’ fiddly hats and choirboys’ complicated ruffs. The Lily also supplied most of the hotels and hospitals in the district.

The laundry grew and expanded into a disused brewery and then into Skerne House, a former cotton mill. In 1947, it grew further by opening a dry cleaning operation and a carpet beating department, and it took over its competitors: the Darlington Laundry Company, of Barton Street, and the Aycliffe Laundry Company.

The laundry closed in 1982, and there was much debate about whether its buildings should be preserved as Skerne House was 350-years-old. In the end, they were demolished in 1984 to allow the new ring road to sweep through, and now only laundry boxes and old photographs remain to tell its story.

With the advent of technology, the need for the laundry diminished in latter years. The laundry closed in 1982, and the surviving buildings demolished in 1984 to allow the new ring road to sweep through. Now only laundry boxes and old photographs remain to tell its story.