His notability with regard to toilets has often been overstated, mostly due to the publication in 1969 of a fictional biography by New Zealand satirist Wallace Reyburn.

[3][4] Thomas Crapper was born in Thorne, West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1836; the exact date is unknown, but he was baptised on 28 September 1836.

In 1904 Crapper retired, passing the firm to his nephew George and his business partner Robert Marr Wharam.

As a part of his business he maintained a foundry and metal shop, which enabled him to try out new designs and develop more efficient plumbing solutions.

[12] It has often been claimed in popular culture that the vulgar slang term for human bodily waste, crap, originated with Thomas Crapper because of his association with lavatories.

A common version of this story is that American servicemen stationed in England during World War I saw his name on cisterns and used it as Army slang, i.e., "I'm going to the crapper".

Its most likely etymological origin is a combination of two older words: the Dutch krappen (to pluck off, cut off, or separate) and the Old French crappe (siftings, waste or rejected matter, from the medieval Latin crappa).