In this video we look at the life and times of Mr. Thomas Crapper, the Chelsea plumber who became a true pioneer in the world of Victorian sanitary engineering.
Born in 1836, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he came to London in his early teens and became an apprentice with his brother, George Crapper, who himself was a Master Plumber.
In 1861, Thomas ventured out on his own and set up a plumbing business in Robert Street, Chelsea.
Very soon he had moved to a larger premises at 50 - 54, Marlborough Street, Chelsea, where he established his "Marlboro' Works."
In 1871, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII0 contracted typhoid, which he had caught from the bad drains under a house at which he had attended a house party.
The Prince recovered, but there was national indignation at the near loss of the heir to the throne, and the call went out for engineers and inventors to do something to improve the drainage and ordure disposal across the nation.
Thomas Crapper came to the rescue with a series of inventions that revolutionised drainage and sanitation.
But, he also became a true pioneer in the marketing of products, and, in a crowded market, he had soon come to the fore, and even supplied the toilets for Sandringham House.
Eventually his name became synonymous with the act of visiting the W.C., and the rest, as they say, is history.