A brief history of the toilet: wiping, washing – plus, who invented the flush?

In the Middle Ages, moss was the wiping material of choice for many people, and a brisk trade developed bringing moss from the countryside to towns for this purpose. Straw was also sometimes used as a (rather less comfortable) alternative. We have direct literary evidence for this: the late-12th-century Chronicle of the Abbey of St Edmunds relates how a candle left in a toilet was discovered just as it was about to set fire to the straw kept there for the monks’ convenience.

In the Tudor period, high-society ladies liked to use goose feathers to clean their delicate behinds. Also at that time, though, a far more uncomfortable alternative was to use the shells of oysters or mussels – presumably scraping rather than wiping.

By the Victorian period, and following the arrival of printed mass media, paper was far more easily available and commonly used in toilets. Generally, it was previous days’ newspapers or leaves torn from books that provided the necessary material.

Toilets through time

Member exclusive | What was it like to do your business in a Roman communal toilet? Did constipation turn Henry VIII into a tyrant? In this four-part mini-series, David Musgrove heads down the u-bend in the company of leading historical experts to see what we can learn from the most universal of all experiences: going to the loo.

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The history of communal toilets

From a modern perspective, one of the more unsettling aspects of the toilet experience in past eras is that it was rarely private – particularly for people outside the upper echelons of society.

Many Roman toilets were communal. Such latrines were large rooms around which were ranged long wooden or stone benches, with holes cut for waste to fall into a trough beneath. Many people would use a latrine at the same time, so you might sit within touching distance of the neighbouring occupant, and there were no dividing screens. However, the toilet probably wasn’t completely open to public view; a door or curtain would have shielded the entrance.

“At some communal toilets, we have evidence of doors to block off views from the outside world, suggesting that you went to the loo outside the social gaze,” observes Hannah Platts, senior lecturer in ancient history and archaeology at Royal Holloway, University of London, and one of the experts on our new podcast series about toilets.

“[Inside the latrine] you were among people but shielded from public view. That’s really interesting in telling us about what was expected and accepted in terms of daily habits, and how people perceived going to the toilet.”

Communal toilets were still in use in England during the Middle Ages. For example, a 12th-century wooden bench sporting three holes was discovered in Ludgate Hill, London in the 1980s. And at Langley Castle in Northumberland, the latrine tower features four stalls set in a row on each of the three floors, with low stone screens between them – but no obvious doors, so again it would not have been a private experience.

The question of etiquette in a communal medieval toilet was addressed by Daniel of Beccles in his Book of the Civilised Man, a ‘courtesy book’ outlining rules of manners, written during the late 12th and early 13th century. Among many other pieces of advice, Daniel urges men urinating together to maintain a chilly silence – suggesting that some were uncomfortably loquacious in such a scenario.

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Communal toilets persisted into the Tudor period in some places. The Great House of Easement in Hampton Court, for example, provided 28 seats set over two floors. There were no cubicles, so you could just go in and see who was in residence – and, contrary to the advice of Daniel of Beccles, it might have been a place where gossip was spread and affairs of court discussed.

“You would just sit there, next to each other – men and women,” says Tracy Borman, joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces. “It was seen as quite a social activity: you would have a chat and talk about the latest gossip at court and the latest events, and do your business at the same time. There wasn’t the same kind of embarrassment or need for privacy.”

By the 18th century, private toilets were becoming more common, and the middle classes embraced the flushing water closet. However, communal toilets still existed.

“Constipation was a real issue,” says Jerry White, an author and historian of London. “Hence the popularity of spa waters, which were heavy in iron and which made going to the loo easier.

One notorious place was Bagnigge Wells, near King’s Cross in north London. Here visitors would perch on a long pole, chat about what was going on and wait for the spa water to take effect. One rather amusing ditty about going to Bagnigge Wells mentions being able to ‘hear the thunder of the bum’.”

Toilets and handwashing

Public toilets today sport the ubiquitous – and wise – reminder: ‘Now wash your hands’. Interestingly, our ancient forebears might not have understood the message in quite the same way.

Though Romans may have washed their hands after going to the toilet, whether that action was related to hygiene is open to debate. One literary source describes a wealthy Roman at a banquet pausing mid-meal to urinate; he then washes his hands – and dries them on the hair of an unfortunate slave. The Romans were famously forward- thinking in terms of sewerage technology, but they did not recognise the risks of bacteria-born disease from excrement. Roman sewers were built not with health and hygiene in mind but simply to address the practical need to move waste matter away from populated areas.

• Read more | “The very sight of her hands did almost turn my stomach”: a brief history of hand-washing

In the Middle Ages, people were generally keen to maintain a high level of personal cleanliness, and receptacles holding water might have been positioned at or near toilets for handwashing.

In higher-status toilets, “usually, but not always, there was a recess set into the wall,” explains James Wright, a buildings archaeologist and author.

“We can imagine that there might be a pile of mosses in those recesses. I don’t think it’s a big stretch to imagine that there might also have been a bowl there in which to wash your hands.”

By the Tudor period, most people were careful about washing their hands, particularly before eating. They would also change their linen underwear several times each day – if they could afford it. The Victorians were even more aware of the importance of handwashing, but a piped supply of clean water was a rarity in British homes until the early 20th century, so most people might have struggled to find water to wash regularly.

Who invented the flushing toilet?

A popular misconception holds that Sir John Harington invented the flushing toilet for his godmother, Elizabeth I. He certainly helped to popularise the concept, even writing a book about ‘Ajax’ (a play on the word ‘jakes’, then a slang word for a toilet) – and we know that Elizabeth ordered a flushing toilet to be installed in Richmond Palace – but he wasn’t the first to devise such a contraption.

Court records mention a building in medieval London that boasted a system of lead pipes taking water from a rooftop cistern to flush the contents of a latrine into the street. This innovation was, unsurprisingly, not well received by the local residents, who brought a court case to protest the resulting public nuisance – hence the surviving record.

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There is also archaeological evidence for a flushing toilet at Wingfield Manor in Derbyshire, built in the 1440s for the powerful politician Ralph, Lord Cromwell, which featured a high tower topped by a cistern which gathered rainwater. The cistern itself no longer survives, but the water shaft that led down from it still runs through a chimney-like structure. There was a sluice to hold back the water, opened once a week to release a deluge that flushed out a communal latrine below, which must have been quite a dramatic event.

Clearly, this kind of technology took a good couple of centuries more to catch on – just one of many aspects of toilet technology and etiquette we take for granted today.