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Millbay Laundry

Help keep your relationship on track by outsourcing your laundry!

Advert 1960

From the collection of:

Logo for South West Film and Television Archive

Overview

This is an advert for Plymouth-based Millbay Laundry, Cleaning and Dyeing Co Ltd who ran laundry services in many locations in the South West of England. It stereotypes the woman and her pile of ironing but offers the perfect solution: Hooray for Millbay they will launder leaving you with more free time to hug. This is from the 1960s when the company had two hundred and fifty high street branches and vans and agents.

The Millbay Laundry factory started out small in 1885 and in 1896 a factory was built on Millbay Road. It grew into quite a business with large public contracts but with the boom did not last. With a rise in people’s standard of living, the growth of new domestic appliances along with easier fabrics and efficient detergents, the need for laundry services declined. Kneels of Exeter took over the Millbay Laundry business in 1972.