THE MOVEABLE AND INODOROUS CONVENIENCES
Year: 1819

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, LOUIS
FAUCHE BOREL, of the Hay Market, in the Parish of Saint Martin-in-the-
Fields, County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS His late most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Eighteenth day of
November, in the sixtieth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Louis Fauche Borel, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His special
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Louis Fauche
Borel, my executors, administrators, and assigns, during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in
His said Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, a certain Invention,
communicated to me, the said Louis Fauche Borel, by certain Foreigners
residing abroad, and called "THE MOVEABLE AND INODOROUS CONVENIENCES;"
in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said
Louis Fauche Borel, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to
cause a particular description of the nature of the said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, to be enrolled in the High Court of
Chancery within four calendar months next and immediately after the date of

page_text: the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto
had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Louis Fauche Borel, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly
ascertained in the following description, and in the Figures, or Plans, or
Sections, or. Drawings hereunto attached (that is to say):-
The said Moveable and Inodorous Conveniences, composed of an upper
receiver and a lower receiver, both placed lower than the seat of the privy, and
so adapted to the place (or the place to them) that they may be removed from
time to time when full, and replaced by others, without any discharge of
mephitic or offensive vapours, now so much complained of when neightmen are
employed in emptying such places. The said upper receiver (which is placed
over the lower receiver) receives all the matters, whether liquid or more solid,
transmitted through the aperture in the seat in the privy, but retains only the
more solid, allowing the urine and watery matters to pass off through strainers,
which convey the liquid to the lower receiver. By the liquid matters being
thus constantly separated from the more solid excrement, much of that fermen-
tation, or action and reaction by which mephitic vapours are generated, is
prevented; and, in addition hereto, means (which will hereafter be described)
are also provided to prevent any unnecessary diffusion of the effluvia natural
to such animal excretions.
Having thus given a general view of the nature of the said Invention, I
shall now describe the parts more in detail. Figure 1 presents a front view,
and Figure 2 a side view, of a Moveable Inodorous Convenience, and the same
letters of reference point out the same parts in both. A, the upper receiver,
which retains the more solid excrements, the aqueous parts and urine being
separated by means of two, three, or more strainers (a, a,) within the said
receiver (shewn in dotted limes). These strainers are tubes made of metal
(zink and lead have been found to answer well for this purpose), and are
perforated all over with small holes, through the sides of which the aqueous
matters percolate, descending through the said tubes (which are open at their
upper and lower extremities, and fitted into corresponding holes in the top and
bottom of the receiver A, and thence fall into a funnel below. This upper
receiver A rests on the top (d) of the stand I. B, the lower receiver, into
which the urine and aqueous matters are received when strained off from the
upper receiver A, by means of the said strainers (a, a). The lower receiver
rests on the lower part (b) of the stand I, and is kept in its place, and raised
or lowered a little as may be required, by means of wedge J, J.. C, the funnel

page_text: into which the urine and other aqueous matters fall after passing through the
strainers (a, a,) in the upper receiver A, and which conveys the said aqueous
matters into the lower receiver B. In passing into the said lower receiver, the
said aqueous matters, after passing through the funnel C, descend through a
tube (c) (shewn in dotted lines) attached to the nosle or pipe of the said
funnel by hooks or any suitable mechanical contrivance. The parts just
described are placed under the seat in the privy, in any vault or cellar, or old
sink or cesspool, when found large enough; and the receivers are removed
from time to time when full, and are replaced by others, without disturbing
any of the arrangements in the privy. When the place in which the said
receivers are posited is under ground, then an opening K must be made in
the ceiling of sufficient dimensions to allow them, by pullies or other suitable
means, to be put in or taken out thereby, and the said opening is covered with
a trap door L. When the place is on a level with the exterior ground, then
the receivers are removed with perfect ease through a side door. The piece
marked M is an edge view of a frame or slide similar to those employed by
brewers' draymen in London for lowering their butts from their carts to the
street, or from the street into the cellar, and is here applied to the same
purpose, namely, to facilitate the letting down of the upper receiver A from
the top (a) of the stand I. The upper receiver A is brought into connection
with the opening in the seat of the privy by the following simple means:-
Below the said opening in the said seat is fixed the soil pipe G, made of
earthenware or of metal, and secured in its place by means of iron hoops or
rings H, H, made fast to the wall. To the lower end of the said soil pipe G
is attached, by means of a leather strap (or any other convenient ligature)
D, the shifting pipe E, made of waterproof cloth or leather, and furnished at its
lower end with a circular rim or mouthpiece F, made to fit accurately into a
corresponding aperture in the top of the upper receiver A. The shifting pipe
is so called because of its peculiar use when the receivers are in the act of
being changed, for then its flexible sides are pressed close together between
two flat bars, made to approximate each other by clasps, screws, or wedges, or
any of the well known mechanical means which may be employed for such a
purpose, so that, without interrupting for a moment the use of the privy, the
workmen may proceed to change the receivers without the risque of anything
descending on them while employed in the operation. The receivers A and B,
that have been described, are wooden tubs or barrels bound with iron hoops,
but they may be made rectangular, of boards well framed and joined together,
in the same manner as brewers' baches are manufactured; or, instead of being
made of wood, they may be made of iron, in cylindrical or rectangular or

page_text: other forms; and whether made of wood or of metal, it is convenient that they
should be furnished with rings or handles, securely fastened to them, to
facilitate their being moved. Where it may be more convenient or better
suited to the soil of the place in which the receivers are deposited, the lower
receiver may be placed on its head instead of its side. From the foregoing
description, the nature of the said Invention cannot possibly be misunderstood;
but the apparatus admits of modifications and additions where the call for the
privy is less frequent, and, where circumstances will allow it, the shifting
pipe E may be entirely dispensed with.
Some of these modifications and additions shall now be noticed. The shifting
pipe, instead of being made of a flexible material, as waterproof cloth or leather,
may be made of metal. In this case, the lower end of the soil pipe should be
somewhat cylindrical (that it may descend some inches into the shifting pipe),
having two pins opposite to each other about an inch above it's lower orifice;
and answering to these pins there must be two rectangular notches in the
upper edge or mouth of the shifting pipe, that is, first descending vertically
for about half an inch or three quarters of inch, and then turning off
horizontally for about three quarters of an inch. The shifting pipe, being
raised vertically over the lower orifice of the said pipe till the said pins have
reach the rectangles of the said notches, is then to be turned off to the
right or to the left (according to the direction of the horizontal part) till the
said pins are at the other end of the horizontal cut (see Figure 3). This
furnishes a very simple fixture for the shifting pipe, which being in its place,
tallow or grease, or any kind of soft luting which will not make a hard joint,
but will yet serve to close the joint against the escape of effluvia, is to be
applied all round the joining. The lower joint is still more simple, for the
mouthpiece is first in it's place in the upper receiver A before the joining
already described is effected, and receives a sufficient length of the left in it
when the upper joining is effected, after which the lower joining is also covered
with such a luting as has been described, and for the same purpose. When
this kind of shifting pipe is employed instead of a flexible one, it is, at the
time the receivers are to be changed, taken off from the soil pipe G, and a
pan of the same diameter, having such rectangular notches as have been
described in the two opposite sides of its mouth, is substituted for the shifting
pipe till the workmen have removed the full receivers and replaced them by
others. The changing the shifting pipe for the pan, and vice versa, is the
work of only two or three minutes. In many instances, especially where the
privy is for more private use, the shifting pipe E is not employed, but only the
soil pipe or the soil pan directly under the seat, which soil pan, in this case, has

page_text: a few inches of the rim of its lower orifice made cylindrical, with a sliding
piece fitted to the outside of the said rim, of such a depth, that when slid down
to its slowest position, the lower orifice of the said rim may enter a little way
into the mouthpiece F of the upper receiver. When the receivers are to be
changed, then the said sliding piece is to be slid up high enough to raise it's
lower orifice above the mouthpiece F; and when the change has been effected,
the said sliding piece is again to be lowered till the said lower orifice is within
the said mantlepiece. The said cylindrical rim of the said pan must be
furnished with opposite pins, and the sliding piece with corresponding notches,
or other suitable means must be provided for keeping the sliding piece in its
place. As the urine accumulates much faster than the solid matter, it would
be sometimes inconvenient to be obliged to remove the lower receiver B as
often as it gets full. To prevent this necessity, the lower receiver is furnished
with a cock; to allow the contents to be drawn off from time to time and
carried away; and sometimes, when room admits of it, one or more auxiliary
lower receivers are connected with the first by means of a pipe or pipes to
receive its overflowings, and these are taken away from time to time, and their
places supplied by others. One of the principal objects aimed at by the using
of the said Invention being to prevent the diffusion of stench and of mephitic
vapours, of course due precautions are taken to join the soil pan or soil
pipe, or by whatever name it may be called, so closely and perfectly to the seat
in the privy, and in other respects to make the seat and the floor so sound
and close in all their joints that there may be no escape of vapours or effluvia
of any kind into the privy; and with a view to the same end there is fitted to
the opening in the seat, as accurately as possible, a cover, which must always
be restored to its place after the seat has been used; or (which is preferable) to
the orifice of the seat, and a little lower than the surface of the seat, is attached
all round a groove, which is filled from time to time with water; and to the
cover is attached a descending rim, which, when the cover is in its place, goes
some little way into the water in the said groove, thus forming what is well
known by the name of a water luting, which effectually prevents all passage of
effluvia. When the water luting is employed, then the cover is attached to
by an hinge behind, that there may be no dropping of water on the seat, as
would be the case were it taken off from time to time by hand. These
precautions are mentioned as necessary, but not as new. The water luting
cover may also be connected with a pedal placed under a footboard, by means
obvious to every competent machinician, in such a manner, that when a person
places his foot on the footboard, the said footboard sinking about an inch, shall
lift up the cover and keep it up while his foot continues on the footboard. The

page_text: working levers or other apparatus applied to effect this should be placed at
one end of the seat, and outside the boxing, that no opening may be made to
allow the escape of the effluvia, but they may be covered with wood boxing to
hide them from sight and protect them from injury.
I am not aware that making the rising and lowering of the cover in some
manner self-acting has hitherto been used in Great Britain for this purpose;
but as it may have been so, without my knowing it, it is not here claimed as
part of the said Invention, though a very convenient appendage thereto. I
need bardly add, that though I have described but one set of upper and lower
moveable receivers, where there is occasion any number may be arranged
together, as for garrisons, hospitals, and the like; nor need I add, that where it
is desirable that the same set should be made to answer for two privies, it is
only necessary that another opening should be made in the upper receiver for
the soil pipe and other apparatus of the additional privy. The apertures of
the upper receivers have covers adapted to them, which are made secure in
their place by means of bolts and screws, or other suitable and well-known
mechanical contrivances, for the purpose of effectual closure when they are in
the act of being removed from time to time, and the appertures (common
bungholes, in the lower receivers are furnished with proper bungs for the same
purpose.
In the foregoing description it has been no part of my purpose or intention
to claim any discovery in the manufacture of casks or backs; whether made
of wood or of iron, or in the manufacture of any of the other parts taken
separately that have been mentioned, but only and exclusively the purpose to
which they are applied, and to which they mutually contribute when made to
co-operate in the said Invention, namely, employing them for and through
their means obtaining moveable and inodorous conveniences, which are
proposed to be substituted for the common privies with sinks, pitts, or cesspools,
or connected with offensive drains, now in very general use, and very incon-
venient and unhealthy, from the noxious aeriform fluids emanating from many
of thein, to the great annoyance not only of the premises on which they are
situated, but of the whole neighbourhood. I have not given any scale along
with the Drawings, because the receivers are made greater or less according
to circumstances.
In witness whereof, I, the said Louis Fauche Borel, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, the Seventeenth day of March, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty.
LOUIS FAUCHIE BOREL. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Seventeenth day of
March, in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Louis Fauche Borel came
before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written.
And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of
the Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the same Seventeenth day of March, in the year above written.