Ball Cock

After having to have the Ball Cock in our Water Tank re-newed I became curious as to who invented it.
Thomas Crapper’s contributions to modern hygiene and sanitation make him a significant and remarkable figure in history. Born in Yorkshire 1836, he was the founder of Thomas Crapper & Co in London. 

Crapper was the son of a steamboat captain living in Yorkshire and became an apprentice to a master plumber at the age of 14. By the age of 25 he had established his own plumbing shop in London. He was granted a total of nine patents during his lifetime for making improvements to drainage, inventing different types of water closets, making manhole covers and developing pipe joints. None of Thomas Crapper’s patents was ever rejected; all his inventions were successfully patented and certified.
After his apprenticeship, Thomas Crapper worked as a journeyman plumber for three years and then became a sanitary engineer.He owned and operated three plumbing shops in his lifetime. The most famous of these was the shop in King’s Road, London.  Thomas Crapper served as the royal sanitary engineer for many noble families included providing toilets, plumbing and supplies to Edward VII and George V but he was never actually knighted himself. However, the title of “Sir” is sometimes incorrectly attached to his name.

 His nephew George Crapper made improvements in siphonic flushing tanks. It is notable that magazines and newspapers credited him as being a great salesman, businessman and manufacturer but not as an inventor.
Even though Thomas Crapper did not invent the toilet, he did make remarkable contributions to the field of plumbing and his name is still imprinted on manhole covers in London.