During the revolutionary era of the noble queen Elizabeth I the first water closet was invented for the queen. This was a bench mark in the plumbing history as the royals were provided with the first of the modern plumbing mechanisms. Following the first stone in revolutionary line of plumbing systems, second step had to wait for about two hundred years more to follow but it was also a revolutionary step as it embarked the invention of S-trap. It was the first of its kind. S trap was the trend setter for the invention lines of plumbing lines because soon after that plunger closet was introduced which also introduced Bramah’s closet. These both systems gained extensive importance during the era of exploration and the golden tie of cruise, as ships needed a channel to dispose of the human waste. Thomas Twyford revolutionized the water closet business in 1885 when he built the first trapless toilet in a one-piece, all china design. A preeminent potter, Twyford competed against other notable companies in the pottery plumbing business including Wedgwood and Doulton.
The work of the English inventors was the forefathers who invented the modern mechanisms but didn’t get to travel with settlers to the new world. The only item to make the journey was a chamber pot, so American inventors were on their own. From the late 1850s to the mid-1890s the number of patents granted for water closet designs grew with a large intestinally as more and more inventors realized the potential market for an improved model. By the turn of the century water closet innovations were occurring on a nearly daily basis. The U.S. Patent Office received applications for 350 new water closet designs between 1900 and 1932. Two of the first granted in the new decade were to Charles Neff and Robert Frame. These New Englanders were the first to produce a siphonic wash-down closet that would become the norm in this country in later years.
Problems were always there with the bowl but were fixed 10 years later by the process of redesigning the bowl, eliminating the messy overflows that sometimes occurred, and in doing so gave birth to production of the siphonic closet in America. This isn’t to say there aren’t inventors alive and working today who will be added to this list of who’s who in the years to come. However, some of the modern day water closet wonders aren’t plumbers or even plumbing engineers. They’re scientists working on motors to create the “jet flush” toilet. Motors are impacting plumbing in other ways too. Emerson partnered with pump manufacturers Zoeller Company and Hydromatic Pump Company to develop a plumbing system that liquefies waste. A pump is positioned in waste water pipes below the toilet and allows fixture manufacturers to meet existing water consumption requirements by chopping waste into a liquid consistency. As waste moves through the system, a 5.5-inch, high-torque motor drives a sharp-tooth pump (much like that on a garbage disposer) that chops waste and toilet paper and pushes the resulting slush through the waste water system.