Twin Tub Washing Machine

Supertwin twin tub washing machine made by Servis Domestic Appliances Ltd, 1962, with 6 associated brochures and manuals.

Household washing machines were uncommon in Britain until after the Second World War and most people would have washed their clothes by hand: soaking them, stirring them, scrubbing them, and squeezing water out of the wet clothes with a mangle. It was long and tiring work, mostly done by women, for whom washday was a weekly task.

From the 1950s twin tub washing machines became a popular appliance Britain, promising to make doing the laundry quicker and easier. One tub was for washing clothes, the other was for spin drying. Although it made washing easier, the user still had to move the wet clothes from the washing tub to the spinning tub by hand. On some models they even had to fill and empty the water too.

This particular twin tub was manufactured around 1962 by Servis, a company based in Darlaston, and was priced at around 79 guineas in the early 1960s, though many people would have rented them or bought by instalment. After their initial success, twin tubs were overtaken in popularity by “fully automatic” washing machines with one tub, which filled the water, washed, spun, and drained automatically.