The Toilet

I have settled on focussing my research on the Toilet, in this post I will begin to sort through the research I already have and keep adding to it in a more categorical order, showing clearly what is primary and secondary.

History of the Toilet

ROMAN  753bc-410ad

Pretty much sums it up

• Public toilets
• Social occasion
• Used a shared sponge on a stick rather than toilet paper

 MEDIEVAL (Middle Ages) 1066-1485

From 1:00 onwards

• Open sewers ran through the streets
• People used to use pots and threw them out of the window when they were full

TUDOR 1585-1603

Watch from 2:46

• Groom of the Stool hired by the King to do his wiping
• Gong farmers/ scourers were hired to dig out human waste from the cesspits and privy's for which they earned quite a good living.  
• In 1596 John Harrington 'invented' the first water closet with a proper flush that entered the sewers. However this breakthrough was ahead of its time and was ridiculed by Harrington's contemporaries and was lost after his death until almost 200 years later.

GEORGIAN 1714-1837

• It was common for people to have a cesspit in their garden
• People emptied their bed pans into the cesspit
• Alexander Cummings invented the S Trap which stopped smells coming back through the sewage pipes from the cesspit in 1775.

VICTORIAN 1837-1901

• Multiple families shared one toilet called a 'privy'
• 'Halting stations' were put into place in public places that cost 1p to use
• The first toilet paper was introduced in 1857

Primary photographs from York Castle Museum

TODAY

• Every family has a private toilet and most public toilets are free to use
• More advanced toilets are constantly being invented that make the whole experience easier and more comfortable for the user.