Sir John Harington was an Elizabethan courtier probably best known for his invention of the flushing toilet. Harington came to the attention of Elizabeth I due to his outspoken manner and skill at translation and he entered Court some time in the 1580s. However, following his translation of the popular Italian epic poem Orlando Furioso, he was banished until he made a new one. This he finished in 1591, around the same time as he invented his toilet, and regained his position at Court.
The Ajax (a pun on the contemporary slang term for a toilet – ‘a jakes’), as he named it, was installed at his home at Kelston in Somerset. It was the forerunner to the modern toilet, but due to its lacking a pipe to block bad smells it did not become widely used.
In 1596, he wrote this book, A new discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax, a treatise that described the invention. However, the work was also an allegorical attack on Elizabeth’s Court, particularly the actions of her favourite Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The work angered Elizabeth and Harington was again banished from Court. He would return to the queen’s favour shortly before her death in 1603. Harington later served as the tutor to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Elizabeth’s successor James VI & I.