Plumbing Through The Ages

Plumbing is an ancient art. Evidence of early plumbers' work can be found in the ruins of bath houses, grand palaces and rudimentary sewers as well as the vast aqueducts of long-buried empires.

While the world's first flushing toilets were enjoyed by royalty in the palace latrines of ancient Greece, modern Western plumbing owes its greatest debt to the plumbing engineers of the Old Roman Empire. Indeed, the word "plumber" derives from the latin "plumbarius", meaning "lead worker". Roman artisans worked lead into early examples of pipes, baths and storage cisterns to be used in the distribution of water to and from buildings. They soldered, installed and repaired, working on roofs and gutters and in sewers and drains in much the same way as the 20th century plumber.

It was the engineering skill of the Romans that enabled them to erect their famous bath houses and recreation centres, with water supplied via aqueducts from sources far away. Hot and cold water systems had already been invented by the Greeks. But the private, macho Spartans had no interest in indulging in hot baths, meaning hot water systems were not developed as extensively in the more functional Grecian bath houses.

By contrast, Roman bath houses appealed to the communal spirit of the age, becoming popular centres of group enjoyment. The hot water and steam systems contributed to the prolongation of pleasure and relaxation, evolving to service colossal structures. The water supply was provided by aqueducts, with the first recorded example built in 312BC. Channeling often covered hundreds of miles and, at the peak of their development, these aqueducts carried 300 gallons of water for every Roman citizen.

The ancient Romans were also responsible for developing the first workable waste disposal system. The original sewers of Rome were constructed in the 8th century BC with one large example, the 'Cloaca Maxima', still in use today, having been designed to carry off surface water and otherwise provide drainage for the entire city. Every Roman street emptied their latrines into a channel of the sewer, and a few privileged noblemen even had outlets to their houses.

However, these rudimentary sewers did not address the "odour problem" associated with refuse disposal which remained unsolved in Medieval England, when the rivers Thames, Fleet and Walbrook served as open sewers, producing abominable smells that were representative of a dead-end sanitary system in which drains were built helter-skelter with no understanding of purpose.

The Roman method of refuse disposal remained the best available solution until the late 18th century, when inventors Alexander Cumming and Joseph Bramah built on the much derided work of Sir John Harrington two centuries earlier, patenting forerunners of the modern toilet with sliding valves to hold the water.

The Public Heath Act of 1848 accelerated further development in this field. This law eventually became a model plumbing code for the world to follow, making some form of sanitary arrangement compulsory in every home. £5 million was released for sanitary research and engineering, and a sound sewer system began to take shape.

Thomas Twyford and John Shanks were key figures in the development of modern toilet mechanisms, with the former pioneering the one-piece, trapless toilet. George Jennings popularized public lavatories in the mid 1800s, contributing to the growing acceptance of water closets at this time. The rise of better made and properly connected toilets led to a sharp fall in disease which in turn resulted in increased production. The then Prince of Wales paid tribute to the work of the 19th-century sanitary engineer, claiming "if I could not be a prince, I should rather be a plumber".