Flushed with pride

Have you ever sat down on a chesterfield or written a letter at a davenport? Have you gone out in bad weather wearing wellingtons, or eaten a sandwich? If you have, did you realise that you were paying tribute to man's inventiveness - Lord Chesterfield, the Earl of Davenport, the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Sandwich. But no one, it seems, wishes to pay the same compliment to Thomas Crapper. No one ever asks "Would you like to use the crapper?" Could this be due to snobbery? Thomas was not a member of the aristocracy. But neither were John McAdam, Charles MacIntosh, William Ewert Gladstone or Amelia Bloomer. And there are many others born in this land of ours who have verbal tributes paid to them. Not only fellow countrymen, either. Consider those of foreign descent, such as Rudolf Diesel, Giuseppe Garibaldi, William H. Hoover, Candido Jacuzzi, Jules Léotard and Etienne de Silhouette, to name but a few. All these names have passed into the English language, having lost the initial capitalisation in the process, to join words like fahrenheit and celsius, ohms and volts, biro and boycott. Recognition, it seems, for the pioneers, both British and foreign. But not for poor Thomas Crapper, without whose pioneering invention life would be less tolerable than it is today.

Thomas was born in the Yorkshire town of Thorne in 1837 - the very start of the Victorian era. His father was a seafaring man who did not earn a great deal of money. In fact, in 1825 the family was in arrears with the rates to the tune of 1s. 10½d. a sum which by 1833, had grown to £1 0s. 2d. Yet Charles and Sarah Crapper managed to bring up five sons, all of whom worked in the ship-building yards at Thorne Quay. But work was not easy to come by, and Thomas decided to seek his fortune elsewhere. So, in 1848, when he was just eleven years old, he left his job in the shipyard and walked the 165 miles to London. I know this seems a young age, but you must remember that it wasn't until the 1833 Factory Act that the employment of children under 9 was banned. In 1874 the minimum age was raised to 10, and it wasn't until 1901 that it was raised to 12, not being increased to 14 until 1920.

Once in London, young Thomas managed to find a job as a plumber's apprentice at a wage of four shillings per week. And there were 64 working hours in a week - so his rate of pay was just three farthings an hour. But he learned his trade well, and in thirteen years he set up in business for himself as a sanitary engineer. That year, 1861, was the start of a boom period for plumbers. London had just got its first two main sewers, and, in the next four years, over 80 miles of intercepting sewers were built. All this kept all the plumbers inundated with work, and the Crapper Manufacturing Works was kept busy making cisterns. In those days the water for a flushing toilet was supplied by a cistern in which there was a valve at the outlet to the flush pipe. Pulling the chain lifted up that valve and the water was released. In other words, pulling the chain pulled the plug out. Some people, either too lazy to pull the chain every time or so fastidious that they wanted an immaculate bowl, tied the chain down so that water flowed ceaselessly. This worried the Board of Trade, which was responsible for the water supply at the time. If too many people did this the reservoirs might dry up, and drought and pestilence would strike. Calamity. But even in those cases where the chain was not tied down the valves were of such poor design that they soon wore out and failed to stop the flow of water after the chain was released. Thousands of trickles was the same as a torrent, and such waste of water could not be tolerated. So the call went out for someone to design a 'Water Waste Preventer'.

Quite a few plumbers took up the challenge, but it was Thomas who came up with a winner. He didn't invent it. He took other peoples ideas, and eventually produced 'Crapper's Valveless Waste Preventer. One Movable Part Only. Certain Flush with Easy Pull.' The system was so simple that one wonders why no one thought of it before. It was so simple that although it has been improved by the use of modern materials it is still in use today. Tying the chain down did not give rise to a continual flush. Once the cistern was empty water stopped flowing, and could not be restarted until the cistern refilled, and the chain released and pulled again. And with a float valve to control the inrush of water into the cistern and stop the flow when the cistern was full, the whole system was automatic. Water was used as and when required and there was no waste.

So, where would we be today without Thomas Crapper? (Don't answer that.) But it is a pity that he is not generally remembered for designing something that we rely on throughout our lives.

Bill Hutchings