by Carl E. Frahme, Ph.D.

In about 1970 I read a review of a biography about Thomas A. Crapper. The biography was entitled Flushed With Pride by Wallace Reyburn and told how Mr. Crapper's invention of the modern syphonic flush toilet during a drought in London resulted in his being knighted by the Queen of England. I told this story countless times in the various courses I taught, and of course it was always greeted with laughter.

Recently I did a little research on the Web trying to locate the book. It appears to be out of print, but I did come across an on-line Science and Technology Web article headed by the comment "Thomas Crapper: A Busted Flush?" by Adam Hart-Davis. So to provide you with a light note, I thought I would share the information with all of you, especially those in the sanitaryware industry. At the very least, it should point out how much information is available on the Web!

Thomas Crapper was a well known plumber in England in the late 1800's- he was born in 1837 and died in 1910. His name is on large numbers of manhole covers in the UK, including one in Westminster Abbey. Queen Victoria was impressed enough by Thomas Crapper's reputation as a plumber that he did a great deal of plumbing installation work on the refurbishing of Sandringham House in Norfolk in the 1880's.

Did Thomas Crapper invent the modern flush toilet as is proposed in Reyburn's biography? Probably not! Thomas did advertise his "Valveless Waste Water Preventer, Patent # 4,990", but there is no patent in his name by that number. This patent number was issued to Mr. A. Giblin in 1898 for a minor improvement to waste water preventers. Mr. Crapper did have six patents, from 1881 to 1893, but none were for a syphonic toilet flushing system. His nephew, George, took out a patent in 1897 for an improvement in syphon flushing tanks.

So, it seems that Thomas Crapper is not the hero I thought he was. It is interesting to note that the word "crapper" in the United States, but not in England, means a john or toilet. Perhaps the meaning here derives from Thomas Crapper's last name and was brought to this country after World War I. But Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines the term "to crap" as "to defecate" and the term in this connotation is so defined as far back as 1846, when Thomas Crapper was only nine. Alas, the mystery deepens!

For those so inclined, you can find this interesting information in its entirety at: http://www2.exnet.com/1995/11/01/science/science.htm. There are even more follow-up Web links you could tap into if you felt so inclined. Ain't the Web incredible???