THE POOR PROFESSOR OF THE BRUSH AND COMB
CHRISTCHURCH’S TURKISH BATH CULTURE, PART 1
“We shall… be well content to see a good swimming bath established, with some warm baths attached, for the benefit of people arriving from the country, or from the unwatered town and the perspiration hills of Lyttelton. The question, however, next arises, ‘Who is to do it ?’”
The Press, October 1863
When Professor Ayers, proprietor of the City Baths in Colombo Street, advertised for tenders to build his Turkish Baths in 1877, the public was already well informed about this new bathing fashion’s health benefits.
Turkish Baths were a proven cure for insanity, for the cravings of the drunkard, for consumption. From athletes to racehorses to childbirth, the benefits of a regular Turkish Bath had escalated into a Victorian-era political campaign called ‘The Turkish Bath Movement’.
Entrepreneurial Ayers opened his City Baths in late 1863, creating Christchurch’s first hot and cold bathing establishment. It consisted of ‘two separate and roomy bathrooms, in which there is a comfortable bath ... six feet in length, and hot or cold water ... ad libitum.’
Within a year, Ayers introduced Turkish Baths, remodelling his High street-facing premises, the former site of one of Christchurch’s first hairdressers. He raised the necessary capital by selling subscriptions to ‘100 interested gentlemen at £2 2s per annum’.
Visitors entered through the hairdressing saloon and lobby. The reception room preceded a disrobing apartment divided into chambers furnished in ‘Oriental appearance’. Visitors then moved into the 120-degree ‘Tepidarium’ to lounge on armchairs beside an ‘artistically designed fountain’ supplying ‘moisture to perfect the temperature required’. Then followed the 160-degree ‘Calidarium’ and the Shampooing room. A bath fitted with jets completed the experience before the bather moved into the cooling saloon to enjoy coffee and cigars.
Separate facilities were provided for ladies, and the Turkish Baths suite was exclusively theirs on set days.
By 1884, the popularity of Turkish baths in Canterbury reached a peak. Portable Turkish Baths were for sale for use in ‘your own room’.
Sykes, an Auckland inventor, arrived in Christchurch with his bath mounted on casters, ‘resembling a cabinet, with a sort of chimney rising from the top’ that could be shifted from room to room. They were sold at his ‘modest establishment’ at 108 Colombo Street, with intentions ‘to be the nucleus of a hydropathic institution’. But he didn’t stay long. Seeing the international potential, Sykes sent his brother in the U.S. ‘a bath beautifully constructed of mottled kauri’ and patented his invention locally and in the States.
After twenty years as a hairdresser and tobacconist and proprietor of Christchurch’s first Turkish Baths, Professor Ayers stood for the mayoralty and served two terms. He also changed careers and became an auctioneer under the banner Ayers & Co.
The handsome two-storied building in High Street occupied by his baths was put up for auction in 1881. Located on ‘the best part of High Street’ opposite the City Hotel and near the BNZ, the premises became Williams & Holderness Hairdressers. What happened to the Turkish Baths is unknown.