Pearl River Community College's award winning literary magazine

Special Edition—Spring-Summer 1998

Essay Section

Evolution of The Modern Day Toilet

by David Glasenapp

The toilet, also known as a water closet, is a place we can go to be alone, until someone knocks at the door. Some people go there to think and some go to get some peace and quiet. As we are sitting on the throne, do we ever wonder what its history is or where it came from? Americans have been known to bow and hug this device after a long night of drinking. They call this the porcelain Goddess. Other names associated with this device are the can, the throne, the library, and the crapper.

Thomas Crapper, thought to have invented the toilet, actually bought the patent rights and marketed this device. Crapper^ts name became associated with the toilet during world War I. Soldiers, passing through England, brought together Crapper's name and the toilet. T. Crapper-Chelsea was printed on tanks, and soldiers coined the slang crapper meaning toilet.

The men who actually invented the toilet or water closet, as it sometimes is called, were the Bill Gateses of their time. It took them many years to perfect the toilet. The toilet history has English origins and the story begins there.

In the years 500 AD. to 1500 AD., toilets, called chamber pots, were made of metal and wood. These pots were very unsanitary and required constant emptying and cleaning. It was the servants' job, during this period, to empty and clean these pots. It was a nasty job, but someone had to do it. The job could be compared to today's Porta-Potti services. There were no advances in the toilet design until the year 1596.

Sir John Harrington, godson of Queen Elizabeth, was the first to invent the water flush toilet, in 1596. Harrington, though he and the Queen used theirs, was ridiculed by his peers for this device. He never built another one.
 

Two-hundred years passed before Alexander Cummings reinvented the strap toilet, which had a sliding valve between the bowl and tank. The valve, when opened, allowed the water from the tank to flush the bowl - It didn't take long for other inventions to appear. Samuel Prosser, in 1777, received a patent for a plunger closet, which used a plunger to force the flush. Joseph Brannah, one year later, designed a toilet used extensively on ships and boats during the era.

Thomas Twyford, in 1885, revolutionized the toilet. He developed the first trapless toilet in one piece. This design was unique because it was made of china, not metal or wood. In 1852, J.G. Jennings developed a washout closet. His design included a shallow basin bowl with a dished pan and water seal. The flush water, in Jennings design, drove the waste into the pan and then through the S-trap. Twyford later refined Jennings' design and promoted it the rest of the decade.

As settlers began their journey to America, the English inventors' designs did not travel with them. The settlers resorted back to the use of chamber pots, which were similar in design to the pots used earlier in England.

The first Americans granted patents for the toilet were James T. Harvey and William Campbell, in 1875. The toilet finally made an appearance in America. Campbell's and Harvey's designs were very unsanitary and shunned by the earliest pioneers of America. The years between the 1850's to the mid 1890's, numerous patents were granted for various designs.

As the country headed into the 1900's, the toilet design competition began. From 1900 to 1932 three-hundred-fifty new design patents were granted. Two of the first patents went to Charles Neff and Robert Frame They were the first to produce a siphonic wash down closet, in which the flush water rinses the bowl during the flush. Their design became the norm for America. To eliminate the messy and nasty overflows, Fred Adee redesigned Neff and Frame's closet. Adee is famous for giving birth to the production of the siphonic closet in America Names of other inventors who redefined the closet have been lost over the years. In the 1900's, patents were granted for the

flushometer valve, a backflow preventer, a wall-mounted closet with a blow-out arrangement, a tank that rests on the bowl, and reverse trap toilets.

Today's inventors are not plumbers or engineers; they include scientists working on motors to create the "jet-flush" toilet. Emerson Motor Company in St. Louis, Missouri, has developed a 3.3 inch motor and a .2 horsepower pump that fits in a toilet tank to add power and speed to each flush. I guess America needs a Tim Allen design, more speed and power. Emerson Motor Company is also working with the Zoeller Company and Hydromatic Pump Company to develop a plumbing system that liquefies waste.

The toilets in today's world come in all different shapes and sizes. They come in different colors, bronzed, gold, and whatever else the American consumer wants. Some toilets can flush themselves automatically when someone walks away these days. As we can see, the toilet has progressed in design over the years to a high tech piece of machinery. Yet, as we sit, we don't even think about where it came from.

The toilet is a very important commodity in our lives because without the toilet, where would we go? The next time we are sitting on the throne, we all need to appreciate the history of this device. The toilet is a silent partner in all of our lives. Sir John Harrington would be proud!