The problem of how to carry water from its source to where it was needed and how to dispose of human waste taxed the brains of the ancients for millennia. There are examples of ancient toilets in Minoan palaces and Egyptian temples dating back over 4000 years. A latrine was discovered in the tomb of a Chinese emperor of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD) to help him ease himself in the afterlife.
The Romans are known for their advanced engineering schemes and use of hot water for bathing purposes. Public baths were a focus for Roman social life, camaraderie and gossip. The Romans built impressive aqueducts that supplied water for fountains and bathing facilities from sources many miles away. Furnaces, heating hollow bricks would heat thermae baths. The first Roman underground sewers were built around 800 B.C. One of the largest sewers of this era, the Cloaca Maxima, is still in use. By 400 A.D. Rome was able to boast 11 public baths, 1352 public fountains and cisterns and 856 private baths. The term “plumbing” is derived from the Latin term “plumbus” meaning lead. Early piping was made of this material, although terracotta and wood were also used.
As populations grew and congregated into communities, the need for engineered sewer and water solutions became more acute. Although the role of animal and human waste in causing disease was not fully understood, the need to dispose of dung away from camps and populated areas was known even in ancient times.
There are many examples of medieval monasteries equipped with what was technically called a reredorter and commonly known by the monks as a necessarium. These facilities comprised an outbuilding with a bench seat in which holes were cut, over which the monks would sit. Water from a nearby stream was diverted under the building to remove the waste.
Castles were frequently surrounded by moats. These bodies of water fulfilled a dual function, as cesspits and obstacles to would-be attackers. The masses used the street, while the more genteel classes used commodes or chamber pots. The usual means of disposal of human waste was into a ditch, a gutter or an open cesspit.
The water closet was invented by John Harrington in 1596. An account of his invention was contained in his satirical Metamorphosis of Ajax, a pun on the then common name for a water closet “Jakes”. A water closet on Harrington’s model was built for Queen Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace. It is not recorded how the W.C. worked, but like many a plumber after him, Harrington died a pauper. It should be noted that Queen Elizabeth was considered mighty strange for bathing as many as four times a year. The population of the time commonly bathed only once per year, whether they needed to or not.
By the early 18th century water closets of the sluice type were popular in large houses. It is recorded that Queen Anne had at Windsor Castle, a “little place with a seat of easement of marble with sluices of water to wash it all down.” In the meantime, the satirical pamphleteer, William Hogarth was drawing London scenes with the contents of chamber pots being flung out of upstairs windows and gutters full of effluvia running down the centre of cobbled streets. The common cry when emptying a chamber pot into the street was “garde l’eau” (pronounced gardey loo). The English term “Loo”, meaning toilet, is said to come from this expression.
With the Industrial revolution in Britain and the mass movement of people into cities, the need to provide better sanitation became an imperative. The S-bend, “stink trap” was invented in 1775 by Alexander Cummings and improved on in 1778 by Joseph Bramah. Many other improvements followed with city sewerage systems being built in the late 1800’s to remove and treat effluent.
The legendary Thomas Crapper held numerous patents for improvements to drains, manhole covers and water closets. American G.I.s in the first World War are credited with coining the slang “crapper”, having seen the name T. Crapper embossed on countless toilet tanks in the United Kingdom. It is interesting to note that many of these G.I.s would have been “dough boys” from the farm who may have never seen a water closet before arriving in Europe.
With improved sanitation and municipal sewage treatment, diseases caused by the poor handling of human waste and polluted water supplies have virtually disappeared in the Western world. Diseases such as cholera, typhoid and intestinal parasites are thankfully complaints of the past.
There once was an old maid from Hyde,
Fell into the privy and died,
Her sister, poor soul, fell in the same hole,
So they were interred side by side.
For More Information
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The Roman Baths at Bath, England
The Reredorter
(Used with permission of David Nash Ford)
William Hogarth’s London - 1733
A Victorian Water Closet Bowl
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