A Rococo masterpiece depicting the nude goddess, Venus, and her entourage of adoring cupids may define one kind of toilette, but, alas, I speak of yet another. “To go the bathroom” hardly implies a viewing of wallpaper or the inspection of towels, and yet we all say it and know exactly what we mean. Even toilet water is referred to as “eau de toilette” by the makers of expensive perfume, who assume no one can translate from the French. The chamber pot, privy, head, latrine, commode, loo, privy, john, earth closet and/or water closet (as opposed to cooler) have all developed from the “necessary” of Victorian England and the “sanitary ware” of nineteenth century America.
By 2500 B.C. the ancient Egyptians were adept at drainage construction, accentuated by the significance that water played in their priestly rituals. Harbored in the latrine of The Minoan Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete was found the world’s first flushing “water closet” or toilet, with a wooden seat and a small reservoir of water. The device, however, was lost for thousands of years amid the rubble of flood and decay. Not until the 16th Century in England would the water closet be reinvented and not until the 18th would it be patented.
During the Dark and Middle Ages, the rivers of Europe were open sewers, the Thames in London being the most foul of all. Chamber pots were the main way to go (forgive the pun) until the 16th century in England. Those made for the working class were usually constructed of copper, while those deemed for use by the rich and those of royal lineage were often made of solid silver. King Edward VI had a padded chamber pot, and it is said, that the “seat” of Henry VIII was padded in black velvet, trimmed with ribbons, fringes and quilting, all tacked on with 2,000 gilded nails.
A royal flush occurred in 1596. Here, I do not refer to the most coveted poker hand, but rather to Sir John Harrington, a godson of Queen Elizabeth I, who re-invented the flushing toilet. (She was immortalized as the queen who took a bath once a month, whether she needed it or not.) It was called an “Ajax water closet” even more euphemistically classified as a necessary room. The toilet was installed for her use in Richmond Palace. Although the Queen did use it, the toilet and Harrington were subject to ridicule and derision. He never made another and it would take the passing of two hundred years before the idea took hold again.
The first patent for a “modern toilet” belongs to Alexander Cumming, who invented the “S” trap in 1775. It had a sliding valve underneath to hold the water. In 1848, England passed the National Public Health Act, which became a model plumbing code for the world to follow. It mandated some kind of sanitary arrangement in every house, whether it be a flushing toilet, privy or ash pit (or loo, or john or commode etc etc).
Across the Atlantic, New World settlers would copy the native Indians’ casual discharge of waste and refuse into running water, open fields, shrubs or forests. Like their European counterparts, the colonists also tossed garbage and excrement out the front door and windows onto the street below. (Pity the poor passersby!) The country’s first garbage disposers were hogs and scavengers. Early Americans found their own ways to deal with necessities. It is actually documented that they used corncobs in lieu of toilet paper (which hadn’t been invented yet.) Later, because they were creative as well as rebellious, they switched to old newspapers, catalogues and almanacs. (Poor Richard and his ilk now take on a new and different meaning.)
How to bring a workable water closet into the house without mess or odor was as yet an uninvented challenge. Thomas Jefferson, the great statesman, architect and inventor, devised an indoor privy at his Monticello home by rigging up a system of pulleys. Servants used the device to haul away chamber pots in his “earth closet” (a wooden box enclosing a pan of wood ashes below and a seat with a hole cut out at the top). He also built two octagonal outhouses at his retreat at Polar Forest in Virginia. The first Americans awarded a patent for a water closet are James T. Henry and William Campbell. In 1875, their plunger closet resembled some of the English twin basin water closets developed earlier in the century, but until the invention of a one-piece toilet with no metal parts, the closet remained a source of contamination and a health hazard. For the most part, American water closets paralleled the experience of England.
No historical study of either the toilet or La Toilette could ever be complete without some mention (honorable or otherwise) of Sir Thomas Crapper. For an individual who had little or nothing to do with inventing the water closet he has become a modern age folk hero. The phantom plumber with the significant surname did actually live and was born in September of 1836 according to baptismal records He did have a successful career in the English plumbing industry from 1861-1904. His biography, Flushed With Pride ,deals with his contribution to England’s plumbing history which includes nine patents for improvements to drains, three for water closets, one for manhole covers and one for pipe joints.
And so the beat goes on, not only for Sonny and Cher, but for the rest of humanity as well. The whole truth about the invention of the toilet may forever lurk in the shadows, but one can only imagine what life would be without one. Speaking of you know what, I would love to stay and chat a bit more, but I have to…well, check on something. Before I resume writing I may visit the necessary, but I assure you it’s only to inspect the wallpaper.
Any thoughts about this necessary item?