Alexander Cummings

Alexander Cumming
Born	1731/2 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	8 March 1814 (aged 82) Pentonville, England
Known for	Watchmaker Clockmaker Design of the flush toilet (S-trap) Church organ designer Inventor of the first accurate Barograph Inventor of the Microtome

Alexhander Cumming (sometimes referred to as Alexander Cummings) FRSE (1733 –8 March 1814) was a Scottish watchmaker and instrument inventor, who was the first to patent a design of the flush toilet, that had been invented by Sir John Harrington. The S-trap (or bend) was invented by Cumming in 1775 to retain water permanently within the bowl, thus preventing sewer gases from entering buildings. It survives in today's plumbing modified as a U- or J-shaped pipe trap located below or within a plumbing fixture.

Cumming was a mathematician and mechanic as well as a watchmaker. Little is known of his early life. He was born in Edinburgh in 1733, the son of James Cumming of Duthil. He is recorded as having been apprenticed to an Edinburgh watchmaker.

In the 1750s he was employed by Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll at Inverary as an organ builder as well as a clockmaker. After his move to England he continued to work in both fields. The Earl of Bute and his family commissioned a series of elaborate barrel organs with which Cumming was involved.

By 1763 he had premises in Bond Street, London, and "had acquired a sufficient reputation to be appointed a member of the commission set up in that year to adjudicate on John Harrison's ‘timekeeper for discovering the longitude at sea’". He made a barometrical clock for King George III, who paid him an annual retainer for its maintenance. Other barometrical clocks created by him are at the Science Museum and on the Isle of Bute. 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.

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