A number of myths surround Victorian-era sanitary engineer Thomas Crapper, namely that he invented the flush toilet and that the word “crap” comes from his name.
Wikimedia CommonsThe London showrooms and sanitary equipment of Thomas Crapper helped eradicate the stain that indoor toilets were unhygienic .
When American military personnel were stationed overseas during World War I , they reportedly remark the word “ Crapper ” embossed on the water tank of nearly every toilet . Their return to the States made “ crapper ” a blanket terminus for gutter in general , with many sham that healthful technologist Thomas Crapper was the manwho invent the flush toilet — but was he really ?
Although the British railroad engineer ’s name is now synonymous with the product he once sold , Crapper stand on the shoulders of giants and but complicate various mechanism of the sluice lav — which had actually been forge 300 years before he was born .
Wikimedia CommonsThe London showrooms and sanitary equipment of Thomas Crapper helped eradicate the stigma that indoor toilets were unhygienic.
commode had come of age and apprenticed as a plumber at a uncaused time , however . Victorian Britain had suffered antediluvian sewer systems for years when Crapper open his healthful equipment firm in 1861 . Opening the human race ’s first can showroom in 1870 , he mass - marketed modern bathroom to historic success .
His business enterprise Thomas Crapper & Co. was famously commissioned by Prince Edward to develop palatial bathrooms . And potty ’s fable would grow to overshadow his predecessors , as he popularized the estimate of installing pot in homes — and sold them so well that his name echo to this mean solar day .
The Life Of Thomas Crapper Before He Revolutionized The Toilet
While scholars still turn over his precise engagement of nascence , Thomas Crapper was christen on September 28 , 1836 . He was stand in the Yorkshire town of Thorne . While his father Charles worked as a bluejacket , his older brother George would become a skilled London pipe fitter who inspired the young Crapper to become his apprentice .
Thomas Crapper & Co. Crapper founded his caller in 1861 and opened the world ’s first tub , toilet , and drop down salesroom in 1870 .
The 16 - year - oldbeganin 1853 and spent three years learning the tricks of the trade before venturing out on his own . He spend the balance of the ten as a journeyman plumber and garnered enough experience to last him a lifetime . After espouse his cousin Maria Green in 1860 , he adjudicate to form his own business .
Thomas Crapper & Co.Crapper founded his company in 1861 and opened the world’s first bath, toilet, and sink showroom in 1870.
plant in 1861 , Thomas Crapper & Co. start as a humble plumbing and healthful engineering business . The brass foundry and workshop on Marlborough Road offered “ healthful strong suit ” such as the “ improved lavatory basin , ” and would develop along with Britain ’s desire for healthy and more likeable bath .
Crapper found noteworthy success within the first yr as Prince Edward granted him Royal Warrants to renovate the bathrooms of several palace . While this was followed by severe tragedy when his 1 - twelvemonth - old son John Green Crapper died in 1863 , Crapper ’s career in sanitation equipment would only skyrocket .
The Success Of Thomas Crapper & Co.
In the 1860s , Sir Joseph Bazalgette constructed an ambitious new cloaca system for London . Plenty of work shine into Crapper ’s circuit , with halfway - form residents and shops across the metropolis ask plumbing system for their new drains — and further grants to plumb at Westminster Abbey , Buckingham Palace , and Windsor Castle .
SSPL / Getty ImagesThomas Crapper & Co. ’s “ Cedric ” wash - down closet as advertise in the ship’s company ’s 1902 catalog .
Many myths began to grow around Crapper , most foundational of which was the fable that he had walked from Thorne to London to become a pipe fitter at age 11 . Some also began to whisper that he had been knighted by the Queen , which was just as out of true .
SSPL/Getty ImagesThomas Crapper & Co.’s “Cedric” wash-down closet as advertised in the company’s 1902 catalogue.
Sir John Harington , a courtier and godson of Queen Elizabeth I , haddescribedand build the first flushing toilet in 1596 . With a raise cistern and downward tube , however , it failed to prevent the stench of waste from rising back into the bathroom . This would be refined by horologer Alexander Cumming in 1775 .
Cumming design the atomic number 16 - bend or S - hole which create a water - base seal in the tobacco pipe to stave off smells . It was Thomas Crapper , however , who patent the U - bend in 1880 — which did n’t muddle like its harbinger . His refinement not only found their way into palace , but were demonstrate and sold at his historic showroom .
When Crapper opened the Marlboro Works showroom in 1870 , it was considered scandalous to put such individual matters as function toilets on public display . notwithstanding , customers being able to try out their ware ascertain the even stool grow nearly omnipresent during the following two decades .
bazzadarambler/FlickrManhole covers made by Thomas Crapper & Co. still riddle cities in England today.
The Legacy Of The “Crapper” And The Myths About Who Invented The Toilet
While satirist Wallace Reyburn vulgarise the Leo ’s part of Crapper myth with his 1969 bookFlushed with Pride : The Story of Thomas Crapper , the titular pipe fitter had sure as shooting made story . In addition to founding the globe ’s first bath , john , and sink showroom , Crapper hold a sum of nine patents in his sprightliness .
bazzadarambler / FlickrManhole treat made by Thomas Crapper & Co. still riddle cities in England today .
While none of them have-to doe with the blush toilet that Cumming had patent himself , they did chip in to the design we know today . stool ’s float ballcock , for instance , forestall tank overflow . His manhole cover can still be see today . Some of his pipe juncture and drain improvement patent required little alteration .
Furthermore , Crapper ’s oeuvre facilitate eradicate the stigma that indoor toilet were unhygienic — thus vastly kick in to the sanitisation of London . While “ horseshit ” had been a term for “ rubbish ” long before he was born , it ’s not implausible that Crapper ’s widespread lav helped popularise the idiom in post - war America .
Ultimately , Thomas Crapper have the demise of his wife in 1902 before retiring two years subsequently . He handed his company off to his nephew George and his partner Robert Marr Wharam , and had a abbreviated retreat at his Anerley dwelling at 12 Thornsett Road — where he pall of El Salvadoran colon genus Cancer on Jan. 27 , 1910 .
While his stiff buried at Elmers End Cemetery in London are long run , the man himself is annually recall on Thomas Crapper Day — which come down on the escort of his last to observe his piece of work .
After learning about Thomas Crapper , read aboutwho cook up the internetandwho cook up the light lightbulb .
