47 Fun Facts About Toilet

Which Elizabethan courtier described England's first flushing toilet, the 'Ajax', in a 1596 book?

Sir John Harington described his flushing 'Ajax' in the 1596 book The Metamorphosis of Ajax; its name punned on a slang word for a privy, and its satire got him banished from court.

The 1596 toilet book The Metamorphosis of Ajax angered which monarch, its author's godmother?

Elizabeth I was the author's godmother; the story goes she had earlier banished him from court until he translated the whole of Orlando Furioso after a racy canto circulated.

Which Scottish watchmaker patented the S-trap in 1775 to keep sewer gas out of bathrooms?

Alexander Cumming patented the S-trap in 1775; its bend holds a plug of water that seals the pipe. Joseph Bramah began his career installing closets built to Cumming's design.

Which Victorian plumber, contrary to legend, did NOT invent the flush toilet, though he held nine patents?

Crapper held nine patents but did not invent the flush toilet; Wallace Reyburn's tongue-in-cheek 1969 biography Flushed with Pride inflated his fame, and his firm's manhole covers at Westminster Abbey draw tourists.

Which royal residence earned a Chelsea plumber his first royal warrant for thirty water closets?

Sandringham House, the Norfolk estate bought for the future Edward VII in 1862, later had thirty water closets installed by the firm, which earned it its first royal warrant.

What did a famous Chelsea plumbing firm open on King's Road that was a world first?

A bath, toilet and sink showroom on King's Road was the firm's world first, letting customers inspect sanitary ware on open display instead of ordering it unseen.

At the 1851 Great Exhibition, 827,280 visitors each paid how much to use George Jennings' 'Monkey Closets'?

One penny bought a clean seat, a towel, a comb and a shoe shine at Jennings' closets, and the Exhibition gave English the phrase 'spend a penny'.

Which Roman emperor's tax on collected urine inspired the saying 'money has no smell'?

Vespasian taxed the urine collected from Rome's public latrines and sold to fullers; Suetonius records his retort that the coins did not smell, and French street pissoirs were later named vespasiennes after him.

Which ancient civilization, in cities like Mohenjo-Daro and Lothal, had the first known urban sanitation systems?

The Indus Valley cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Lothal had covered brick drains; at Lothal, houses had private toilets flushing into a sewer built with gypsum-based mortar.

Which Neolithic village in Orkney, occupied from about 3100 BC, had small rooms over a communal drain?

Skara Brae, a stone-built Neolithic settlement on Orkney, was buried in sand and re-exposed by a storm in 1850; some of its huts had small cells over a communal drain.

What was a garderobe in a medieval castle?

A toilet: a garderobe was usually a hole discharging into the moat or a cesspit, and cloaks were sometimes hung there in the belief that the ammonia fumes kept moths and fleas away.

Which of these was NOT a nickname for a chamber pot?

Puddle jug is invented; thunder mug, jerry and guzunder (it 'goes under' the bed) were all real nicknames for the chamber pot.

The word 'toilet' entered English from French in 1540 meaning what?

A little cloth over the shoulders, draped during hairdressing, was the 1540 sense of toilette; the word shifted to the dressing table, the act of dressing, the room and finally, first in America, the fixture.

Which 1858 London event, caused by sewage in the Thames, spurred Parliament to fund Bazalgette's sewers?

The Great Stink of summer 1858 made the sewage-laden Thames so foul that Parliament, sitting beside it, quickly funded Joseph Bazalgette's interceptor sewer system for London.

Which US law required that from 1994 new toilets use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush?

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 capped new toilets at 1.6 gallons per flush from 1994; older models used 3.5 gallons or more, and the new ones were dubbed ultra-low-flow.

The two-button dual-flush cistern was developed in 1980 by Caroma, a company from which country?

Australia's Caroma launched the Duoset dual-flush cistern in 1980, letting users choose a half or full flush to save water in a drought-prone country.

Which Japanese company launched the 'paperless' Washlet toilet-bidet in 1980?

Toto launched the Washlet in 1980, combining a seat with a warm-water spray so users could skip paper; its heated seats became standard in Japanese homes.

What does the 'Otohime' device fitted in many Japanese women's toilets do?

Plays a flushing sound to mask noise: the Otohime was introduced so users need not flush repeatedly for privacy, saving large volumes of water in public toilets.

The word 'bidet' comes from the French for what?

A small horse: bidet is an old French word for a pony, and the fixture took the name because the user straddles it like a rider.

Which European country's 1975 decree made a bidet compulsory in every home bathroom?

Italy's ministerial decree of 5 July 1975 listed a bidet among the fixtures every home bathroom must contain, which is why a bidet sits beside almost every Italian toilet.

The world's first known toilet paper, in the 6th century AD, was used in which country?

China: the scholar Yan Zhitui wrote in 589 AD that he would not use paper bearing the classics for toilet purposes, the earliest known reference to toilet paper.

How many perfumed soft toilet-paper sheets were made for the Hongwu Emperor's family in 1393?

15,000 soft, perfumed sheets went to the imperial family in 1393, while the wider court at Nanjing received 720,000 ordinary sheets that year.

Who introduced the first commercial US toilet paper in 1857, as medicated sheets watermarked with his name?

Joseph Gayetty's Medicated Paper, sold from 1857 in flat packs of aloe-treated sheets watermarked with his name, was the first commercially packaged toilet paper in the United States.

As late as the 1930s, the Northern Tissue company advertised its toilet paper as being free of what?

Splinters: Northern Tissue's 1935 campaign promised 'splinter-free' paper, a real selling point when cheap early rolls sometimes contained slivers of wood.

Which talk-show host's 1973 joke about a possible shortage triggered a real run on toilet paper in the US?

Johnny Carson's December 1973 Tonight Show monologue riffed on a press release by Wisconsin congressman Harold Froehlich about a possible paper shortage; viewers rushed out and emptied the shelves.

Which British brand introduced softer two-ply toilet roll in 1942 from a mill in Walthamstow?

Andrex, made at St Andrew's Mill in Walthamstow from 1942, brought soft two-ply tissue to Britain, where hard, glossy sheets like Izal had been the norm.

Which British king died in 1760 after collapsing on his close stool?

George II died on 25 October 1760 at Kensington Palace after collapsing on his close stool; the post-mortem found a ruptured aorta.

What did rural Americans commonly use in the outhouse before toilet paper was widely available?

Mail-order catalogs from Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, along with old newspapers, were the standard outhouse paper in rural America before soft rolls became cheap.

Which Australian word means outhouse?

Dunny, from the older British 'dunnekin', is the local word for an outhouse; long-drop is the New Zealand term and bog the British one.

Which UN-recognised day falls on 19 November each year?

World Toilet Day, 19 November, was started by the World Toilet Organization in 2001 and recognised by a UN General Assembly resolution in 2013 to draw attention to sanitation.

Which country tabled the 2013 UN resolution that made World Toilet Day official?

Singapore tabled the 'Sanitation for All' resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in July 2013, its first ever UN resolution; the Singapore-based World Toilet Organization had marked the day since 2001.

Which waterborne disease did John Snow trace to a Broad Street pump in 1854?

Cholera is spread by water contaminated with faeces; John Snow's 1854 map of deaths around the Broad Street pump in Soho helped prove it, and sewers and treatment are the main defence.

Marcel Duchamp's 1917 readymade Fountain was what everyday object, signed 'R. Mutt'?

A urinal, laid flat and signed 'R. Mutt 1917', was submitted to the Society of Independent Artists, which hid it from view; the original was lost and replicas were later authorised by Duchamp.

Which Dada artist do some scholars credit with Fountain, citing a 1917 letter by Duchamp?

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven is the candidate: in April 1917 Duchamp wrote to his sister Suzanne that a female friend, using the male pseudonym Richard Mutt, had sent in the piece.

What is the name of the automatic self-cleaning street toilet pod that first became popular in France?

Sanisette is the name of JCDecaux's coin-operated, self-cleaning toilet cabin, introduced on Paris streets in 1981 to replace the old open-air vespasiennes.

Where was the first pay toilet in the United States installed, in 1910?

Terre Haute, Indiana had the first US pay toilets in 1910; by 1970 some 50,000 coin-locked stalls existed nationwide, until a 1970s campaign got most of them banned.

Who developed the first waterless urinal in the late 19th century, using a syphon liquid he called Urinol?

Wilhelm Beetz developed the first waterless urinal in the late 19th century, using an oil-based syphon trap filled with a sealing liquid he called Urinol; modern versions use similar sealant cartridges.

Kohler, the American bathroom giant, made its first bathtub in 1883 by enamelling what?

A cast-iron horse trough doubling as a hog scalder got a coat of baked enamel and four feet in 1883; John Michael Kohler sold it as a bathtub from his Sheboygan foundry.

On the International Space Station, what directs waste into the toilet in the absence of gravity?

Airflow does the job: a fan draws urine into a hose funnel and solid waste into bags, since without gravity nothing falls; the urine is then recycled into drinking water.

A ship's toilet is traditionally called what?

The head: on sailing ships the crew's toilet sat at the bow, the 'head' of the vessel, where wind from astern carried smells away and the sea washed the beak through.

Thomas Bowdich reported indoor toilets flushed with boiling water in 1817 in the capital of which African empire?

Asante's capital Kumasi impressed Bowdich in 1817 with houses whose toilets were sluiced with boiling water, decades before flushing closets were common in European homes.

What was a 'thunderbox', in British military and colonial slang?

A portable box toilet: a thunderbox was a wooden commode or pit privy, a term popular with soldiers and immortalised by Apthorpe's prized thunder-box in Evelyn Waugh's Men at Arms.

Since 2001, which leak-proof cistern type is no longer mandatory in the UK?

Siphon cisterns, mandatory in Britain until the Water Fittings Regulations took effect in 2001, cannot leak into the bowl because there is no valve to wear; the drop valves that replaced them can.

What does the float valve, or ballcock, inside a flushing cistern control?

The refill after a flush is the float valve's job: as the cistern empties the float drops and opens the inlet, then rises with the water and shuts it off at the set level.

Which UN Sustainable Development Goal number aims to provide sanitation for everyone by 2030?

Goal 6, Clean Water and Sanitation, carries target 6.2: by 2030 achieve adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation.

Which 1922 novel's line 'How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset.' is the OED's early evidence for the word 'loo'?

Alan S. C. Ross argued the word came somehow from Napoleon's 1815 defeat, and in the 1950s 'loo' marked upper-class speech.

Why do trains, aircraft and ships favour vacuum toilets?

Less water saves weight and stops slopping: a vacuum toilet uses under half a litre per flush, so a train or aircraft carries far less water and waste, and nothing sloshes in motion.