THE SHOW-ROOM.

Thomas Crapper effectively invented the concept of the modern bathroom show-room. Bathroom fittings and especially Water Closets were hardly discussed in society due to the crushing prudery of the time. Crapper & Co. promoted sanitaryware to a largely dirty and sceptical public, many of whom thought it unhygienic to have a W.C. indoors!

INVENTOR OF THE W.C.?

Thomas Crapper was an innovator and inventor and held nine patents, but he did not 'invent' the Water Closet; it evolved over many hundreds of years. Stone-built privies survive around the world, built by ancient civilizations from Scotland to Turkey, but none really qualifies as a 'water closet' as we understand the term. The more advanced versions were simply multi-occupant stone latrines which were sluiced at intervals by diverting a nearby stream.

Arguably, the first W.C. was invented in 1592 by Sir John Harington, of the town of Bath in Somerset. His device had a seat, a bowl and behind it a cistern of water for washing away the contents. He called it the 'Ajax' and built one for himself and one for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I. The invention was then comprehensively ignored for over a hundred years!

The next mechanical flushing loos were introduced in the 1730s and from 1775 new patents came regularly. The loo gradually developed until pioneers like Mr. Crapper and his contemporaries, such as George Jennings, Thomas Twyford, Edward Johns and Henry Doulton began producing W.C.s much as we know them today.

THAT WORD:

'Crap' was an ancient word for rubbish or chaff which had fallen out of use in Britain by the end of the 16th century, therefore in Victorian times there was nothing amusing about the surname 'Crapper'. However early English settlers to America took the word with them and so in the U.S.A. it has been used continuously, although always considered a rather vulgar word.

In 1917, American servicemen stationed in London during WW1 were hugely amused to see the name emblazoned on cisterns and W.C. bowls (although their English friends could not see the joke) and so they began to call the whole W.C. apparatus "the Crapper". This phrase caught on in America on their return, presumably because it made sense to those who were aware of the vulgarism 'crap'.

Due to American cultural influences upon Great Britain and Europe the word 'crap' is now widely used and the humour inherent in the surname is universally appreciated.

Thomas Crapper retired in 1904 and passed his newly-incorporated firm to his partner, Robert Marr Wharam and Thomas's nephew, George. Mr. Crapper was a member of the Royal Horticultural Society and he tended his plants in his greenhouses (which still exist) at his last home, 12, Thornsett Road, Anerley, on the border of Kent and London.

He died on the 27th January 1910 and was buried on the 31st at Elmer's End Cemetery nearby. Today the cemetery is known as Beckenham Crematorium and Mr. Crapper's plot is 4165, V4. He was interred with his wife, Maria, who died in 1902. The grave is near those of W.G. Grace, England's greatest cricketer and Frederick Wolseley, producer of the first British motor-car and inventor of the sheep-shearing machine. Mr. & Mrs. Crapper had only one son, who died in infancy.