50 Fun Facts About Toilet

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

The name punned on a slang word for a privy; the book's political jokes got the Queen's godson banished from court.

Harington's toilet book, The Metamorphosis of Ajax, angered which monarch, his godmother?

He was one of her 102 godchildren; she had earlier ordered him to translate all of Orlando Furioso as punishment for racy verses.

Which Scottish watchmaker invented the S-trap in 1775, still used to keep sewer gas out of bathrooms?

The bend holds a plug of water that seals the pipe; 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?

A tongue-in-cheek 1969 biography by satirist Wallace Reyburn inflated his fame; his manhole covers in Westminster Abbey are a minor tourist draw.

Which royal residence gave Thomas Crapper his first royal warrant after he supplied thirty lavatories?

The future Edward VII bought the Norfolk estate in the 1880s; Crapper's firm later got warrants from him as king and from George V.

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

He had apprenticed to his brother George, a master plumber in Chelsea, in 1853.

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

For that they got a clean seat, a towel, a comb and a shoe shine, and English gained the phrase 'spend a penny'.

Which Roman emperor is believed to have started charging citizens to use public toilets around AD 74?

French and Italian still call street urinals vespasiennes and vespasiani in his honour.

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

Upper-class houses in Lothal had private toilets flushing into a covered brick sewer held together with gypsum mortar.

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

The stone-built settlement was buried in sand and only re-exposed by a storm in 1850.

What was a garderobe in a medieval castle?

Usually a hole discharging into the moat or a cesspit; at Donegal Castle people hung cloaks there believing the ammonia kept moths away.

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

'Guzunder' because it goes under the bed; Greeks and Romans took chamber pots to their meals and drinking parties.

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

It shifted to the dressing table, then the act of dressing, then the room, and finally, first in America, the fixture itself.

Harington's Ajax got its name from an old English slang word for a privy. What was it?

'Loo' has an obscure origin, possibly from 'gardez l'eau', shouted before emptying a chamber pot into the street.

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

Such toilets are sometimes called Ultra Low Flow; older models used several gallons more.

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

The Duoset offered two flush volumes to save water in a dry country; Brisbane later mandated waterless urinals in a drought.

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

Bidet-toilets with heated seats are now in roughly three quarters of Japanese households.

Roughly what share of Japanese households have a bidet-toilet?

They caught on in South Korea too, and slowly in the US after the 1990s.

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

You straddle it like a pony; Italy and Portugal have required one in every bathroom since 1975.

Since 1975, which two European countries have legally required a bidet in every bathroom with a toilet?

Spain has drifted the other way, with new homes often skipping them.

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

By 1393 the Ming court at Nanjing was ordering 720,000 sheets a year, and the emperor's family got 15,000 perfumed ones.

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

The wider court got 720,000 ordinary sheets that year.

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

Seth Wheeler of Albany patented the roll and dispenser in 1883, and Scott Paper popularised rolls from 1890.

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

Manufacturing took decades to refine; softer two-ply arrived in Britain in 1942 as Andrex.

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

He was riffing on remarks by Wisconsin congressman Harold Froehlich; viewers rushed out and emptied the shelves.

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

Izal, disinfected with carbolic acid, was made in Sheffield until 1981.

In surveys, what share of Americans prefer the toilet roll to hang 'over' rather than 'under'?

'Like a waterfall', as most put it; the roll's inventor's own 1891 patent drawings show it over.

Which Australian toilet paper brand donated a million rolls during the 2020 pandemic panic-buying?

Shortages hit multiple countries in March 2020 as shoppers hoarded.

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

Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs plus old newspapers did the job.

Which Australian word means outhouse?

'Long-drop' is New Zealand and 'bog' is British; the crescent moon on American privies was mostly a cartoonists' invention.

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

Singapore's first ever UN resolution made it official in 2013; some 3.4 billion people still lack safely managed sanitation.

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

The Singapore-based World Toilet Organization had celebrated it unofficially since 2001.

How many people worldwide lacked safely managed sanitation in 2022, per UN figures?

Around 354 million still practised open defecation in 2022, which Sustainable Development Goal 6 aims to end by 2030.

Which disease, still affecting some 3 million a year, is largely prevented by keeping sewage out of drinking water?

It is why toilets are only one part of a sanitation system alongside transport, treatment and disposal.

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

Submitted to the Society of Independent Artists show, it vanished; sixteen replicas were later made with Duchamp's approval.

Which Dada artist has been proposed, based on the handwriting, as the real author of Duchamp's Fountain?

She was living in Philadelphia, where the urinal's plumbing-shop model was made, a city Duchamp never visited.

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

Paris also has the 1905 Lavatory Madeleine, an underground public toilet preserved as a historic monument.

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

By the 1970s there were 50,000 coin-op restrooms in the US; they were gone by 1980 and never replaced.

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

Germany had about 100,000 waterless urinals among 6 million in 2009.

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

John Michael Kohler had bought a Sheboygan iron foundry from his father-in-law for $5,000 a decade earlier.

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

A fan pulls waste into fabric bags that let gas but not liquid escape; frozen samples come home for testing.

A ship's toilet is traditionally called what?

It may flush with seawater; the name comes from its position at the bow, downwind of the crew.

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

Kumasi's houses impressed him decades before flush toilets were common in European homes.

Which washdown closet did George Jennings patent in 1852?

It remained the standard type in Britain through the century; Jennings had also popularised toilets to the middle class from Parkstone Pottery.

Which position were squat toilets said to be used by the majority of the world's population in 1976?

The trend since has been toward sitting toilets in cities, though squatting reduces straining.

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

Siphons have no washers to wear out; surveys since found 5 to 8 percent of UK toilets, mostly dual-flush drop valves, leaking.

How long does a siphonic toilet take to pull the bowl's contents down the drain?

The gurgle at the end is air breaking the siphon; if it sucks air, it is a true siphonic toilet.

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

Its target 6.2 is to end open defecation and provide access to sanitation and hygiene.

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?

Some use under a quarter of a litre per flush, and waterless urinals use none at all.