First flushing toilet

The earliest known flush mechanism was designed by England’s Sir John Harington (1561–1612) – a godson of Queen Elizabeth I – in c. 1590. Harington’s invention, which he named Ajax, after “jakes”, a slang word for toilet, featured a cistern that, at the turn of a handle, sent clean water into the “stool pot”, which in turn opened a value and flushed the contents down into a cesspool. The first Ajax was built in Harington’s home in Kelston, Somerset, UK, and in 1592, he had one installed for Her Majesty’s use at Richmond Palace. Details on the workings of the Ajax were published in 1596 in Harington's political allegory, "A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax".

Prior to Queen Elizabeth I's reign, monarchs were aided in their toilet activities by a Groom of the King's Close Stool. Elizabeth, meanwhile, enjoyed the benefits of a First Lady of the Bedchamber. Despite royal approval, the flushing toilet took a long time to catch on, and a flushing mechanism wasn’t patented until 1775, when Alexander Cummings filed a design for a device similar to Harington's but with the added advantage of a feedback controller that automatically metered the amount of wash-down water added to the cistern.