Buzzers for Bedwetters: Incontinence and the Urinary Body in Britain, 1870-1970

Urine incontinence is common to the human experience. It is estimated that more than 14 million people in Britain currently experience some form of incontinence. Many with the condition do so in silence and feel unable to discuss such a socially taboo topic or obtain the necessary support and advice. And yet, the current stigmatisation of incontinence was not inevitable, and neither was stigmatisation experienced by all of those who suffered from incontinence throughout history. By tracing incontinence over a century from its initial medicalisation in the 1870s until the emergence of privatised social care in 1970, this project seeks to uncover how the incontinent body acquired its modern stigmatised status in Britain and how that stigmatisation was experienced by those with incontinence.

The project aims to analyse how the processes of medicalisation, commercialisation and stigmatisation conceived of the incontinent body as not solely a medical problem, but as a moral one too, reflecting wider anxieties about Britain's social order in this period. Accordingly, the incontinent body came to be seen as fixable through new surgical, pharmaceutical, psychological and technological interventions but simultaneously, it was newly experienced as burdensome, embarrassing and shameful.

The project will focus on four key incontinent bodies prominent in the period - the child; the reproductive (including the post-partum woman and the male masturbator); the war veteran and the elderly - in order to chronologically trace the impact of medicalisation, commercialisation and stigmatisation across the life cycle and across the social dynamics of class, gender, race and (dis)ability. Its focus on these incontinent bodies will demonstrate the centrality of incontinence to Britain's modern moralising mission, and by extension the significance of the urinary body to everyday life.

It is through this focus that the project brings together and extends the fields of the history of medicine, the body and social and cultural history; fields in which the incontinent body has been largely neglected. Alongside this in-depth historical work examined in an Open Access monograph, the project will build an international and multi-disciplinary research network with scholars in the humanities and social sciences and charities that work with those with incontinence today, in order to more broadly explore the conceptions and treatment of incontinence in the past and present, as well as considering its wider connections to urine, urination and bodily waste. These explorations will be achieved through a series of collaborative outputs, including workshops, a conference and presentations.

The project demonstrates how the contemporary stigmas and taboos towards incontinence, and urination in general, have been historically shaped and thus, the history it uncovers is essential to understanding the issues faced today. Throughout, the project will both be shaped by and feed into the work of Britain's two main incontinence charities - Bladder and Bowel UK and ERIC, The Children's Bowel & Bladder Charity - who aim to reduce the stigma surrounding this condition and to create public awareness of the distress and debilitation that stigmatisation causes. A series of workshops linking academics with the health care professionals and workers that support those with incontinence will enable the discussion of the key challenges of tackling such stigmatisation and result in educational and creative outputs for young people, health professionals and families that seek to overcome them. These outputs, including printed and digital resources, a blog and an online exhibition, will be the first steps towards drawing on history to break the social taboos around urine and urination practices, giving those with incontinence and their families a chance to lead easier and less stigmatised lives.