This advert was in an Oldham guide produced in the 1950s. The town was well endowed with swimming baths. The laundry facilities came much later, the first not opening until 1915 at Robin Hill.

Public baths stemmed from the 1846 Baths and Wash-houses Act, which gave local authorities the power to raise money on security of the rates for their provision.

Central Baths was one of the very first opened under these provisions and were inaugurated by the Mayor James Lees on 25th September 1854. This was the culmination of a fund-raising campaign to commemorate the death of Sir Robert Peel in 1850. It didn’t raise enough to build the baths, a task then taken by the Corporation, but the proceeds were used in part to commission a bust which was placed in the lobby of Central Baths. It now stands in the newer facility on Lord Street.