12 Facts About Thomas Crapper

Thomas Crapper was an English plumber and businessman.

Thomas Crapper improved the S-bend plumbing trap in 1880 by inventing the U-bend.

Thomas Crapper owned the world's first bath, toilet and sink showroom in King's Road.

Thomas Crapper was noted for the quality of his products and received several royal warrants.

Thomas Crapper was born in Thorne, West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1836; the exact date is unknown, but he was baptised on 28 September 1836.

In 1861 Thomas Crapper set himself up as a sanitary engineer with his own brass foundry and workshops in nearby Marlborough Road.

In 1904 Thomas Crapper retired, passing the firm to his nephew George and his business partner Robert Marr Wharam.

Thomas Crapper lived at 12 Thornsett Road, Anerley, for the last six years of his life and died on 27 January 1910.

Thomas Crapper was buried in the nearby Elmers End Cemetery.

Thomas Crapper fell out of use until it was acquired by Simon Kirby, a historian and collector of antique bathroom fittings, who relaunched the company in Stratford-upon-Avon, producing authentic reproductions of Crapper's original Victorian bathroom fittings.

Thomas Crapper helped refine and develop improvements to existing plumbing and sanitary fittings.

Thomas Crapper held nine patents, three of them for water closet improvements such as the floating ballcock, but none for the flush toilet itself.