Who is Thomas Crapper?

Answer

He was a plumber who founded Thomas Crapper & Co. Ltd. in London.

Despite urban legend, Crapper did not invent the flush toilet (the myth being helped by the surname). However, Crapper put in effort to popularise it and did come up with some related inventions. He was noted for the quality of his products and received several Royal Warrants. The noun "crap" was in use long before he was born, but no longer used in Victorian Britain.

The manhole covers with Crapper's company's name on them in Westminster Abbey are now a minor tourist attraction.

Thomas Crapper and his company

The story of Thomas Crapper and his achievements has been somewhat confused by Wallace Reyburn's 1969 book Flushed With Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper (ISBN 1-85702-860-0), a heavily fictionalised satirical biography in the style of scholarship [1]. Adam Hart-Davis' later writings on Crapper help set the record straight.

Crapper was born in Waterside, Yorkshire (near Thorne), in September 1836 (the exact date is unknown). His father Charles was a steamboat captain. At the age of 14, Crapper was apprenticed to a master plumber in Chelsea, London. After his apprenticeship and three years as a journeyman plumber, in 1861 he founded his own company at Robert Street, Chelsea. In 1866 he moved the business to nearby Marlborough Road (now part of Draycott Avenue).

Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet - credit is usually given to Sir John Harington in 1596, with Alexander Cummings' 1775 toilet regarded as the first of the modern line - but he did popularise it. He was a shrewd businessman, salesman and self-publicist. In a time when bathroom fixtures were barely spoken of, he heavily promoted sanitary plumbing and pioneered the concept of the bathroom fittings showroom.

In the 1880s, Prince Edward (later Edward VII) purchased his country seat of Sandringham House in Norfolk and invited Thomas Crapper & Co. to supply the plumbing, including thirty lavatories with cedarwood seats and enclosures, thus giving Crapper his first Royal Warrant. The firm received further warrants from Edward as King and from George V both as Prince of Wales and as King. Contrary to popular belief, however, Crapper never received a knighthood and was never styled Sir Thomas Crapper.

In 1904 Crapper retired, passing the firm to his nephew George and his business partner Robert Marr Wharam. Crapper lived at 12 Thornsett Road, Anerley for the last thirteen years of his life and died on January 27, 1910. He was buried in the nearby Elmers End Cemetery.

In 1966, the company was sold by then-owner Robert G. Wharam (son of Robert Marr Wharam) on his retirement, to their rivals John Bolding & Sons. Bolding then went into liquidation in 1969. The company fell out of use until 1998, when the firm 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.

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