Public loo pioneer’s bicentenary

Next Wednesday, 10 November 2010, is the bicentenary of the birth of George Jennings, a Victorian plumber who made a significant contribution to hygiene through improving public sanitation.

As a teenager, Josiah George Jennings began working in an uncle’s plumbing business in Southampton and in 1831 he joined a London plumbing firm. In 1838 he set up his own London business, specialising in designing “as perfect a sanitary closet as can be made”.

By far his most famous project was to install the world’s first public toilets at the 1851 Great Exhibition. His Monkey Closets in the Crystal Palace “retiring rooms” were used by 827,280 visitors to the exhibition. They paid a penny (hence the euphemism “to spend a penny”), which guaranteed a clean seat, a towel, a comb and a shoe-shine.

When the exhibition finished and the Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham, Jennings persuaded the organisers to keep the toilets open, and they went on to earn more than £1,000 a year.

Jennings worked tirelessly at refining the design of sanitary ware. His improvements included more efficient designs for the water traps (U-bends and S-bends) that prevent the return of sewer gases. He patented the first water-closet that always retains some water in the pan. He also improved the valves and pumps of the lavatory flush mechanism and introduced the ball-float to regulate cistern water levels.

(Incidentally, Jennings was making flush toilets while Thomas Crapper, often said to be their inventor, was still a child.)

During the Crimean war, Jennings headed a commission sent out at the request of Florence Nightingale to improve sanitary conditions in military hospitals.

Jennings died in 1882, aged 72, as the result of an accident on his way home from work. The family firm continued until 1967.