Rejoice, It's Crapper Day

Today is the anniversary of Thomas Crapper who died January 27, 1910. Although many believe Crapper invented the flush toilet, that is not true. He was a plumber and invented many bathroom fixtures. He held 9 patents, 3 of them for water closet improvement. One of the most interesting was the ballcock, i.e. balltrap or fill valve. It is a mechanism for filling water tanks, such as those found in flush toilets, while avoiding overflow.






Mr. Crapper began his plumbing apprenticeship at the age of 14 and after serving 3 years as a journeyman he opened his own company in 1861 in Chelsae, London. He was a wonderful businessman, salesman and self-promoter. In a time when most homes had no bathrooms and sanitary was not on the lips of the average person, he was a force in sanitation promotion. Not just for business but also because of the reduction of disease sanitation provided.

In the 1880'a Prince Edward, later King Edward VII asked Crapper to supply all the plumbing in his newly purchased Sandringham House in Norfolk. This was the first of his many royal warrants.






Crapper retired in 1904 and died 13 years later in 1927. He is buried, with his wife, in Elmer's End cemetery which is close to his original business.






Although he left his business to to his nephew George and his business partner Robert Marr Wharam, it was sold in 1966 to their rivals John Bolding & Sons who subsequently liquidated the business in 1969. The company fell out of use until it was acquired by Simon Kirby, a historian and collector of antique bathroom fittings, who relaunched the company in Stratford-upon-Avon, producing authentic reproductions of Crapper's original Victorian bathroom fittings.

So, the next time your waiting to go and doing the OMG dance






Thank Thomas Crapper for his inventions that led to the creation of flush toilets and amazing sanitation. By the way, the term crapper was in use long before Thomas Crapper had anything to do with plumbing.

Per Wickipedia:

It is incorrectly claimed that the verb "To crap" comes from Crapper, but the verb first came into use before Crapper was born. It is believed that this could be an example of nominative determinism, in which people are more likely to do a job connected with their name.