[MKSixer]

Keeping in the spirit of the original post...

On the Toilet:

by David Emery
Updated January 29, 2018
It is a common misconception that the modern flush toilet was invented by a 19th-century British plumber named Sir Thomas Crapper. Crapper (1836–1910) most certainly did exist, and he was a plumber. He also improved the functionality of the early flush toilet (or "privy," or "water closet," as it was then called). But he did not, contrary to popular lore, invent the pseudo-eponymous bathroom appliance from scratch.


Why We Call It the “John”
Credit for inventing the toilet goes to 16th-century courtier Sir John Harington, who not only came up with the idea but also installed an early working prototype in the palace of Queen Elizabeth I, his godmother. Harington, a noted wit, entitled his description of the device "A New Discourse of a Stale Subject."

It consisted of a large pan ("stools pot") with a seat, the contents of which could be flushed out down a pipe and into a cesspool below with water from a cistern or holding tank above. Except for the turning of a handle to initiate the flush, gravity did all the work.

"If water be plenty, the oftener it is used and opened, the sweeter," Harington wrote of his contraption. But if water was scarce, he continued, "once a day is enough, for a need, though twenty persons should use it...And this being well done, and orderly kept, your worst privy may be as sweet as your best chamber."