It was a golden age when Newcastle was flush with public loos.
A century ago, the city had more than 80 toilets a century ago. But the inconvenient truth is that today, there are none.
Now an exhibition which explores how this came to pass, titled The Rise and Decline of Newcastle’s Public Toilets, will open at the City Library on June 21 and run until August 14. It is based on research by Newcastle University architecture graduate Maud Webster and Dr Shane McCorristine, a reader in cultural history from the university’s school of history, classics and archaeology.
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Ms Webster said: “It’s been fascinating to track the rise and fall of public toilet provision in the city. Using the toilet is an essential daily experience for everyone, so it feels very relevant to be researching the history of Newcastle’s public toilet provision, especially as there are now no council-run public facilities available in the city today.”
The exhibition is funded by an Engagement and Place Award from Newcastle University, which has allowed the exploration of the hidden history of the development of public privies and urinals, as well as the reasons for their dwindling supply and eventual disappearance in the past 20 years.
The researchers used archival photographs of old conveniences, detailed architectural plans, and Ordnance Survey maps of Newcastle city centre’s toilet locations.
With provision having shifted to locations like shops, cafes and pubs, the project was prompted by the difficulties people faced in finding public toilets during Newcastle’s Covid lockdowns, as well as the repurposing of former Victorian toilets in locations such as Bigg Market and High Bridge into bars.
A 1964 a city council report noted how “the council’s responsibility for the provision of conveniences may be slightly eased in the future by an increase in the number of privately managed establishments providing facilities including transport terminals, car parks, large shops and filling stations.”
The research looked at how Newcastle’s cholera epidemic of 1853 killed at least 1,500 people out of a population of 90,000, and a damning inquiry the following year heard evidence that out of 9,453 houses, only 1,421 had water closets. In these conditions it is no surprise that transmissible diseases like cholera and typhus frequently ravaged the town.
It was clear to public health officials that in the absence of private flushing toilets connected to sewers, decent public conveniences could address some of the causes of epidemics. The project shows that the cholera disaster forced the Town Council to take action to address the lack of public toilets.
One key figure in the research is Thomas Bryson, who was Newcastle’s town surveyor between 1854 and his unfortunate death in a Town Moor explosion of 1867. Alongside public health officers, he urged the council to provide more public conveniences in the city. By the 1890s, Ordnance Survey maps indicate that Newcastle had over 40 toilets, ranging from male-only urinals by the quayside to gender-separated privies in retail districts.
By the mid-20th century Newcastle City Council provided an impressive infrastructure of public toilets.
Dr McCorristine said: “Poorer people generally lived in more insanitary conditions than others and landlords were rarely prosecuted for breaking bye-laws relating to sewerage. The provision of adequate and clean public conveniences, therefore, was key to improving public health and the lives of the majority of Newcastle’s inhabitants.”
By the mid-20th century private flushing toilets in the home had replaced the old shared privies, and with this came a decline in the dependence for most people on public toilets. The responsibility for providing toilet facilities shifted away from local authorities to private providers, like Eldon Square shopping centre, which opened in 1976, but usage was intended for paying customers. By contrast, councils had to wrestle with government budget cuts and there were concerns about vandalism and anti-social behaviour.
The research also connects with calls by the Unite and Unison unions for more public toilets for workers and how a lack restricts the ability of disabled people to use the city. The housing union ACORN Newcastle is currently running a campaign for accessible, clean and safe public toilets for all.
Ms Webste said: “ We hope to move the project forwards through a collection of information through an oral history project. People clearly have memories of the more abundant public toilet provision just a few decades ago.”
A city council spokesperson said: “Like many local authorities the city council was forced to shut public toilets as we could no longer afford to maintain them. We have encouraged people in the city centre to use public toilets in shopping centres such as Eldon Square and retain publicly accessible toilets in our own public buildings such as Grainger Market and City Library although their availability is limited to opening hours.
“We appreciate that the provision of toilets is an important issue especially for those who have medical conditions and so continue to push Government to make more money available. We are always alert to new opportunities to fund public toilets and were successful in securing £60,000 of Government funding to open new fully accessible toilets with hoists in the Civic Centre and at Northern Stage which we hope will be open to the public in about three months.
“We continue to be vigilant for funding for new public toilets where maintenance costs are affordable.”
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