Everyone used to know of the Fuller Brush Man... and when I was growing up, we had some family friends whose last name was Fuller. At some point I realized that Fuller must be one of those last names that was an occupation, like Miller or Smith, so I looked it up.
I remember finding out that fulling was part of the process to create wool fabrics, after they were woven. The new fabric would be washed in the fullery to eliminate the lanolin, which would tighten and shrink it, making a heavier, more solid cloth. Urine was used in the earliest times, then fuller's earth (a type of clay). There's more to it, which you can see on the Wikipedia page.
I was reminded of this recently when I saw a photo of a Roman fullery in Vienna on Twitter:
What I didn't know was that in Roman times, fulleries also did laundry more generally, as well as finishing fabric. Servants (or enslaved people) would walk upon the clothes in baths of water and additives to agitate and beat the clothes, and then the items would be rinsed and squeezed before drying and bleaching, using various techniques.
Though it was an essential business, that article about Roman fulleries says their owners were looked down upon because of their interest in acquiring urine for cleaning — despite their financial success and the obvious necessity of the work.
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As I was finishing this post, it occurred to me that the somewhat archaic word "scullery" is similar to "fullery," except that the two start with different letters and don't rhyme. Since they're both places where someone of lower station cleans things for other people, it seemed as though they could be related.
Checking their etymologies, though, it's clear they have no common roots.
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