George Jennings

Who was George Jennings?

George Jennings was an English sanitary engineer and plumber who invented the first public flush toilets.

Josiah George Jennings was born on 10 November 1810 in Eling, at the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire. He was the eldest of seven children of Jonas Joseph Jennings and Mary Dimmock. He was educated at the local school run by his uncle-in-law Joshua Withers. At 14, after his father's death he was apprenticed to his grandfather's glass and lead merchandising business, before moving to his uncle John Jennings's plumbing business at Southwick, Southampton. In 1831 he became a plumber with Messrs. Lancelot Burton of Newcastle Street, London where his father had been a foreman before him.

He married twice, having four children by his first wife, Mary Ann Gill who died in 1844. He remarried Sophia Budd some 14 years later, and had 11 children with her. One of these was Mabel Jennings who married the English organist and composer, Basil Harwood. In 1838, Jennings set up his own business in Paris Street, Lambeth when he received an inheritance from his grandmother, Anne Jennings.