The History Of The Water Closet

By Author: Ted Smialek
Total Articles: 4762
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No matter who gets the credit - as often happens, a number of different people, in different ages, all contributed to the same, evolving solution - the importance of the toilet to mankind is almost incalculable. Modern indoor plumbing is among the most important public health advances in all of human history, a true tribute to human ingenuity that is often taken for granted, but has done as much to improve the health of humankind as any vaccine ever developed.

Modern toilets are constructed of ceramic, sometimes metal, and consist of a bowl fitted with a hinged seat. It is connected to a waste pipe where the waste is flushed. Besides water closet, other terms for toilet include privy, latrine, lavatory, loo or head (from boating terminology). People continue to argue about who "invented" the flush toilet, but only those under the influence of urban myths still claim that it was Thomas Crapper. In fact, Crapper made modifications to the flush mechanism, for which he was awarded nine patents during his life, but did not first conceive of the device.

The following timeline will make the history/evolution of the water ...
... closet easy to understand and simple to visualize. Not every related invention is included (for example, electric toilet paper dispensers) but, following your perusal of this article, you will be as much of an expert as any "amateur toiletologist" can be.

History/timeline of the water closet

* King Minos was a mythical character, but the actual buildings unearthed on Crete, and dating to 1700 years or more BC, had the earliest recorded bathtubs and water closets. Some historians term them "flushing toilets" but they are more accurately called "water rinsing" ones.
* A toilet with a water tank was discovered in the tomb of a Chinese king. Identified as being from the Western Han Dynasty, the item dates to around 200 BC.
* The Romans had an impressive system of aqueducts, tanks, plumbing and sewers that lasted into the 5th century AD. Their first outhouses were simple structures built directly above running waters -sewers - that were directed into pits, manmade bogs, caverns and, unfortunately, the Tiber River itself.
* During the Middle Ages, lasting into the Renaissance, chamber pots were the European "porta-potties." People would use the metal or ceramic bowls and subsequently dispose of the contents in a hole in the ground, in a body of water or by throwing them right out the window.
* Queen Elizabeth I's godson, Sir John Harrington, installed a flush toilet for the English monarch in 1596. He had invented it during his exile from Court (for telling dirty jokes, also called "toilet jokes," coincidentally) from 1584-1591. Another historical coincidence: The city Harrington was exiled to was Bath.
* The first English patent for a flushing toilet was awarded in 1775 to Alexander Cummings. He improved on previous designs by adding a water trap. Since water remained in the bowl after a flush, sewer gases could not escape into the house interior and create a quite unsavory odor.
* It was during the 1800s that people began to understand the connection between poor sanitary conditions and disease. Indoor plumbing, flush toilets and municipal sewer systems could manage human waste disposal and improve the public health. This concern grew quickly to become a priority among lawmakers, doctors and inventors, as well as the general public.
* In 1829, Boston's Tremont Hotel was the first one in America to install then-modern indoor plumbing, with eight water closets built by Isaiah Rogers. Until the 1840s and 1850s, and the rise of less costly manufacturing, water closets were only found in the homes of the wealthy and the very best hotels.
* Around 1910-1915, toilet designs began to dispense with elevated water tanks. The modern toilet, with a tank in back and covered bowl, was soon standardized. The first "low-flow" toilets were made in the 1970s, but were greatly improved over the following decades. Toilets are now lower, lighter and use less water - although some people continue to complain that a single flush "won't do" every time.
* Gayetty's Medicated Paper was the first packaged toilet paper sold in America, invented by Joseph Gayetty in the late 1850s. Around 1880, the British Perforated Paper Company began selling boxes of small, pre-cut, paper squares for using "after toileting."
* The Scott Paper Company sold the first rolls of toilet paper in 1879, although it was not commonplace until the first decade of the 1900s. St. Andrew's Paper Mill of Great Britain invented two-ply toilet paper in 1942.

Recent toilet news

The French bidet apparatus, originally built into a separate device from a toilet and used for washing one's privates, is now built into some models of modern toilets. These have not yet caught on well in the U.S., but the combo "toilet-bidet" is doing well in other parts of the world.

At the inaugural conference of the World Toilet Association in November 2008, WTA chairman Samuel Koo, also Korea's ambassador for cultural cooperation, called for a "new mindset" and a "sanitary reformation" to get past the "great distaste" many people have when talking about issues surrounding toilets. The WTA considers toilets as important to developing countries as a clean water supply, although it seems the proliferation of the former may impact the amount of the latter, but this is just the sort of issue that the WTA was formed to confront. Stay tuned!
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