Alexander Cumming

Who was Alexander Cumming?

Alexander Cumming was a Scottish watchmaker who was the first to patent a design of the flush toilet. This S-shaped plumbing design, survives in today's plumbing modified as a U- or J-shaped pipe trap located below or within a plumbing fixture. The S-shaped trap was invented by Alexander Cumming in 1775 to prevent sewer gases from entering buildings. His premises were in Bond Street, London.

Born in Edinburgh in 1733, Cumming was a mathematician and mechanic as well as a watchmaker. He wrote books about watch and clock work, about the effect on roads of carriage wheels with rims of various shapes, and on the influence of gravity. He became a magistrate in 1779 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783.