The Egyptians invented the toilet seat. Who invented the toilet? Was it really a guy named Thomas Crapper? Nobody knows exactly who invented the toilet, but the general consensus is that it was not Thomas Crapper. While toilets date back to ancient times, the modern toilet can be more accurately traced back to Sir John Harrington, who described a waste disposal system in the Metamorphosis of Ajax in the 16th century. Some accounts of Thomas Crapper's life indicate that he patented the flush toilet in 1861, but Adam Hart-Davis, author of Thunder, Flush and Thomas Crapper, discovered that, while Thomas Crapper filed for a total of six patents, the earliest being filed in 1881, not one of them was for a flush toilet. It's quite possible that we can thank Sir Thomas Crapper for giving us the word, "crap," but even that is questionable, as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary indicates that the term dates back to 1846, a full sixteen years before Thomas Crapper established himself as a master plumber. I wonder if we have Sir John Harrington to thank for the term, "john"? Ken