If you are going to write about the history of Armitage potbank how can you resist looking up the origins of the word ‘loo’? The word itself first appeared in print in the 1922 book, Ulysses, by James Joyce so it was obviously already in popular use by that time.
There’s all sorts of claims and a common one is that it is from the French expression ‘guardez l’eau’ – watch out for the water – which was shouted before emptying chamber pots out of the bedroom window in medieval times. Given that the word ‘loo’ seems to have been used by troops coming back from the Great War this seems to make sense until you realise that the French expression had been obsolete for centuries by that time. There’s a similar problem with the idea that it comes from sailors using the leeward (looward) side of ships when they needed to go. Other origins I have seen include a derivation from the term bordalou or coach chamber pot from the 17th C but again the word didn’t catch on until many years later. Another idea is that it comes from one of the brand names for an iron cistern – Waterloo – in the early 20th C but the brand name was not dominant so it could hardly have become common.
From the potbank archives though, comes a more believable story in the guise of a letter from The Hon Sir Steven Runciman to The Earl of Lichfield, dated 11th June 1973. In it he states that the story was told him by The Duke of Buccleuch’s aunt, Lady Constance Cairns, and he was relaying it because it featured the Earl’s relations.
In 1867 when the 1st Duke of Abercorn was Viceroy of Ireland there was a large houseparty at Viceregal Lodge, and amongst the guests there was the Lord Lieutenant of County Roscommon, Mr. Edward King Tennison, and his wife Lady Louisa, daughter of the Earl of Lichfield.
Lady Louisa was, it seems, not very lovable, and the two younger Abercorn sons, Lord Frederick and Lord Ernest, took her nameboard from her bedroom door and placed it on the door of the only W.C. in the guest wing. So in those select ducal circles everyone became more familiar – Jimmy Abercorn told me that when he was a boy one went to the Lady Lou (though he had never been told who her Ladyship was).
It seems entirely plausible that a slang term could cross society’s strata over thirty years or so never mind the fact that there was a massive mixing of all the social classes in the trenches when slang was exchanged readily. I have read that this idea for its origin has been pooh-poohed (sorry, couldn’t resist that term here) but it seems perfectly believable to me.