A local documentary about window cleaning in Birmingham, UK in the 1950s including an interview with Dennis H Bayley, founder of Sheldon Industrial (Holdings) Limited and George Drew one of his window cleaners.
These days, Sheldon Industrial (Holdings) Limited has expanded their services to a complete service company. Sheldon’s has even provided water decontamination services in civilian and military nuclear reactors, including nuclear submarines.
"Draper Drew receiving you" says the driver. Six teams with twelve radio controlled vans once took seventy men to Glasgow for three weeks on one contract alone. Dennis Bayley talks about how he started the window cleaning firm with just a ladder & bucket. Insurance charges were so high that it wasn't worth servicing private houses.
Finally Sam, a two man operator talks about tax dodging & how to "make a pile." "Private houses don't pay," he says but he doesn't want to grow too big. A remarkable insight into window cleaning where "there is room for the little man & scope for the big one," says the smarmy interviewer.
Window Tax: The window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was a significant social, cultural, and architectural force in England, France and Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries. To avoid the tax some houses from the period can be seen to have bricked-up window-spaces (ready to be glazed at a later date), as a result of the tax.
The tax was introduced in England and Wales under the Act of Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money in 1696 under King William III and was designed to impose tax relative to the prosperity of the taxpayer, but without the controversy that then surrounded the idea of income tax. At that time, many people in Britain opposed income tax, on principle, because they believed that the disclosure of personal income represented an unacceptable governmental intrusion into private matters, and a potential threat to personal liberty. In fact the first permanent British income tax was not introduced until 1842, and the issue remained intensely controversial well into the 20th century.
When the window tax was introduced, it consisted of two parts: a flat-rate house tax of 2 shillings per house (£11.12 as of 2012), and a variable tax for the number of windows above ten windows in the house. Properties with between ten and twenty windows paid a total of four shillings (£22.25 as of 2012), and those above twenty windows paid eight shillings (£44.5 as of 2012). The number of windows that incurred tax was changed to seven in 1766 and eight in 1825. The flat-rate tax was changed to a variable rate, dependent on the property value, in 1778. People who were exempt from paying church or poor rates, for reasons of poverty, were exempt from the window tax. Window tax was relatively unintrusive and easy to assess. The bigger the house, the more windows it was likely to have, and the more tax the occupants would pay. Nevertheless, the tax was unpopular, because it was seen by some as a tax on "light and air".
Blocked-up windows in Edinburgh: In Scotland a Window Tax was imposed after 1748. A house had to have at least seven windows or a rent of at least £5 to be taxed. A similar tax existed in France from 1798 to 1926, the Doors And Windows Tax. There was a strong agitation in England in favour of the abolition of the tax during the winter of 1850–1851, and it was accordingly repealed on 24 July 1851, and a tax on inhabited houses substituted.
Daylight robbery: The term "daylight robbery" is thought to have originated from the window tax as it was described by some as a "tax on light". However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase daylight robbery was first recorded in 1949, many years after the "window tax", which places doubt upon the claim. However, the phrase originates from at least 1916, when it was mentioned in Harold Brighouse’s play Hobson's Choice. It should be remembered that the OED records only the first provable written instance of the phrase that its etymologists can find, so the phrase might have been used in everyday speech beforehand, or even in published writing.
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