What are you celebrating on Thomas Crapper Day?”
Celebrating Thomas Crapper Day, January 27, with the Latest in Toilets from Milwaukee/NARI Submitted By Dave Amoroso Posted: Jan. 27, 2010 8:51 a.m. Thomas Crapper went down in history as the prime developer of the flush toilet mechanism, perfecting this most-used fixture of the bathroom. For that reason, he’s celebrated every year on January 27, Thomas Crapper Day, which serves this year as the 100th anniversary of his death. In honor of the commode, members of the Milwaukee/NARI Home Improvement Council, Inc., the area’s leading home improvement and remodeling industry resource for more than 48 years, offered what’s new and what’s functional in toilets from their recent gold-award-winning projects. The Milwaukee/NARI Wisconsin Remodelers Awards (WRA) were given during a banquet on Friday, January 22. The following are part of an elite group of projects to win the gold award in their respective categories. In the remodeling category of bathrooms under $15,000, Milwaukee’s Brillo Home
Crapper did not invent the toilet. He did, however, do much to increase the popularity of the toilet, and did develop some important related inventions, such as the ballcock. He was noted for the quality of his products and received several Royal Warrants. Crapper held nine patents, three of them for water closet improvements such as the floating ballcock, but none were for the flush toilet itself. Thomas Crapper’s advertisements implied the siphonic flush was his invention ; one having the text “Crapper’s Valveless Water Waste Preventer (Patent #4,990) One movable part only”; but patent 4990 (for a minor improvement to the water waste preventer) was not his, but that of Albert Giblin in 1898. His nephew, George Crapper, did improve the siphon mechanism by which the water flow is started. A patent for this development was awarded in 1898.
