Shanks of Barrhead: John Shanks and the Modern Bathroom

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The firm's records, including patents from 1877 to 1891 and catalogues from 1907 to 1968, survive at the University of Glasgow Archives. Grace's Guide to British Industrial History and the Scottish Brick History project give detailed company chronologies. Carol Foreman's chapter in Made in Scotland (2nd edn, 2010) draws on Armitage Shanks' own history, and is useful on products and export orders.

The weak points are the company's best stories. The Buckingham Palace episode, the pawned gold watch and the fittings on the Titanic come from company tradition. Sources also disagree on John Shanks' year of birth, on when Shanks & Co. was founded, on the date of the Tubal Works, and on when the Barrhead works closed.

A Paisley plumber

shared John Shanks was born in Paisley, the son of William Shanks and Helen Gowens. Foreman says his father was a handloom weaver. Grace's Guide, as quoted by the Scottish Brick History project, gives his birth as 22 December 1825 at Stonefield, Paisley. Other accounts, including the Scottish Brick History page itself and The Scotsman, give 1826. The late-December date may explain the disagreement. This card uses 1825.

established Shanks was apprenticed as a plumber to Wallace and Connell, plumbing contractors in Glasgow, and stayed on with them as a journeyman. His first job in Barrhead, around 1850, was a sub-contract for plumbing and sheet-metal work on the Bourock Church. In 1851 he started his own plumbing and gas-fitting business in Paisley, at 32 High Street.

established In 1853 he opened a branch in Barrhead, at first in Lowndes Street and later in larger premises in Main Street. Barrhead, a textile and industrial town about seven miles south-west of Glasgow, was growing, and piped water and sewers were spreading through Scottish towns. In 1855 Shanks closed the Paisley shop and his brother, Andrew Ferrier Shanks, joined him. Foreman's account, which has him starting in Barrhead aged 30, compresses these steps.

The "Number Four"

established Around 1860 Shanks opened a brass foundry and finishing shop to make water closets. His first patent, granted in 1863 or 1864, was for a water closet with a plunger valve and a ballcock. Foreman says he called it the "Patent Flexible Valve Closet", but it was known in the works catalogue as "Number Four". In a valve closet of this kind, a valve at the foot of the pan holds water in it until the handle is pulled.

traditional The Scottish Brick History account reports that Shanks pawned his gold watch to pay the patent fees. The story appears in company tradition and has not been traced to a contemporary record.

established Further patents followed quickly. In 1865 Shanks patented a closet for use below the waterline on ships and yachts, which the firm sold as the "No. 39". In 1871 he patented a bath fitting and an overhead cistern for water closets, and in 1885 a valve closet with two discharge valves for ships. His patents of 1877, 1881 and 1882 covered sanitary ware, a spray bath tap and a mixer tap. In the 1880s and early 1890s he took out three patents for urinals. In 1892 he patented a close-coupled closet, and in 1894 a jet siphon closet, just ahead of his English competitors Thomas Twyford and George Jennings. By 1894 he held about a hundred patents.

The Tubal Works

shared In 1866 Shanks built a new brass foundry at Barrhead and named it the Tubal Foundry, later the Tubal Works, after Tubal-cain, the Old Testament forger of bronze and iron. Grace's Guide, the Scottish Brick History project and the University of Glasgow archive catalogue all give 1866. Foreman places the foundry's beginnings around 1875; this card follows the earlier date.

established In 1873 Shanks set up his own iron foundry, so that he no longer had to rely on the Glasgow founders George Smith and Co. for cast-iron parts. Over the following decades the works grew into one of the largest sanitary engineering plants in Britain. Foreman says that by the 1890s the firm occupied a seven-acre site and employed 600 men. The Scotsman says it was Barrhead's largest employer by the early 1900s, and Grace's Guide records about 1,000 employees in 1914.

Bankruptcy and partnership

shared Foreman says that in 1875 John and Andrew Shanks founded Shanks and Co., Sanitary Engineers. The records summarised by Grace's Guide tell a less tidy story. In 1875 John Shanks was declared bankrupt, and Andrew took over the firm. In 1878 John returned as an equal partner with his brother, a London agent was appointed, and a showroom opened at 46 Cannon Street. The Wikipedia history of Armitage Shanks dates the Shanks company to 1878.

Baths, basins and bidets

established Shanks did not only make closets. Foreman describes an 1877 patent for delivering water to basins through side inlets, so that only the spindle and knobs of the tap showed and the water entered through small holes in the earthenware. She says a similar design was used on the firm's Citizen washbasins and Imperial baths in the 1880s, and that some basins had a hair-washing attachment.

shared In 1884 Shanks showed the "Eureka" canopy bath at the International Health Exhibition in South Kensington. Foreman says it was enclosed in a wooden cabinet and fitted with a full range of showers, and that it was advertised as "the acme of luxurious bathing". By the mid-1880s the firm was also advertising a "Patent Pedestal Bidet" with hot and cold water and an ascending spray. Foreman notes that the bidet was little understood in Britain or America.

established Shanks fittings went into hospitals and public buildings as well as homes. Foreman says the firm designed equipment for the Western Infirmary in Glasgow and the Paisley Infirmary.

The Buckingham Palace story

traditional The best-known Shanks story concerns the royal family. Foreman tells it this way: in 1871, when the Prince of Wales was dangerously ill with typhoid, inspections found that every sanitary fitting in Buckingham Palace was defective except a Shanks "Number Four" in the servants' quarters.

established The background is real. In November 1871 the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, fell ill with typhoid after staying at Londesborough Lodge near Scarborough. Two others from the same house party died. The Times blamed the lodge's drains, describing cesspools under the house and poorly trapped connections that let sewer gas rise into it.

traditional No independent record of a Buckingham Palace inspection that singled out a Shanks closet has been found for this card. The prince was not taken ill at Buckingham Palace. The story is told in company histories and should be treated as tradition.

Death and succession

established John Shanks died on 18 December 1895. His share in the company was valued at £18,000. Foreman and the Scottish Brick History project both report that his will gave an extra day's pay to every employee who had been with the firm for six months on the day of his death.

established Shanks was active in local life. He was a Conservative until Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, and then a Liberal Unionist. He was president of the Barrhead Evangelical Union, a manager of the United Presbyterian Church and active in the temperance movement. In 1895 he was elected to the first Neilston Parish Council. He married twice, to Isabella Mills and then to Jessie Turnbull Smith.

established His son John and his nephew William carried on the business. Shanks & Co. Ltd was registered as a limited company on 2 December 1898.

The Victoria Pottery and the Bond Street showroom

shared Shanks had bought in the pottery for its baths and basins. Around the turn of the century it began to make its own, at the Victoria Pottery in Barrhead. The University of Glasgow catalogue gives 1900, Grace's Guide gives 1902, and another passage in the Scottish Brick History account gives 1904. Foreman says the pottery was set up to keep quality uniform and costs down, and that a showroom opened at 81 Bond Street, London, at about the same time.

established The firm grew by acquisition. In 1918 it bought J. and M. Craig, earthenware makers of Kilmarnock. Between 1962 and 1965 it bought Southbrook Potteries, J. and R. Howie, and George Howson and Co. of Hanley, Staffordshire.

Exports and ships

shared Shanks fittings were sold across the British Empire and beyond. Foreman gives three large orders: 8,000 cisterns for the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works in 1897, and 15,000 cisterns for Argentina in 1909 followed by 22,000 more in 1910. These figures come from the company and have not been checked against Australian or Argentine records for this card.

shared The firm had a marine business from the 1860s, built on its below-waterline closet. Foreman says Shanks fittings went into the Cunard liners Mauretania and Lusitania, and into the Titanic. The Scottish Brick History project notes that the Titanic supply is a company claim. Urban Realm says Shanks supplied sanitary ware for the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.

traditional The Scottish Brick History project reports a further story: that a Shanks toilet was installed in the Dalai Lama's palace in Tibet. It is often told and not documented here.

established By the early 1960s overseas markets were harder. A company statement in 1963 said that shipments to traditional export markets had fallen because of local manufacture, import restrictions and political instability, though a South African subsidiary had begun to make a profit.

Armitage Shanks

established In 1969 Shanks ended cast-iron bath making and merged with Armitage Ware of Armitage, Staffordshire, to form Armitage Shanks. The Armitage pottery traced its origins to 1817, when Thomas Bond began making pottery at Armitage. Bond was bankrupt by 1819, and the business passed through several owners before Armitage Ware Ltd was incorporated in 1907.

established Blue Circle Industries, the cement group, bought Armitage Shanks in 1980. In February 1999 Blue Circle sold its bathroom division to American Standard Companies for $417 million. American Standard's bath and kitchen business passed to the private equity firm Bain Capital in 2007, and Armitage Shanks became one of the brands of Ideal Standard International. In 2024 the German ceramics group Villeroy & Boch completed its purchase of Ideal Standard, including Armitage Shanks. The company still makes sanitary ware at Armitage in Staffordshire.

The end at Barrhead

shared Manufacturing at Barrhead ended in stages. The Tubal Works, which made brassware, closed in 1989. Urban Realm reports that the successor to the Victoria Pottery shut in April 1991 with the loss of 345 jobs. The University of Glasgow catalogue, Grace's Guide, The Scotsman and Foreman all give 1992 as the year the Barrhead factory closed, after which Armitage Shanks operated only in England.

established The site was used for a time as a distribution centre and was then abandoned. Clearance began around the end of 2012, and by 2015 the works had been flattened, leaving heaps of broken sanitary ware. Plans for housing on the site, under the name Shanks Park, were reported in 2017.

established The firm left a word in Scots. "Shankie" or "shunky", meaning a toilet, is an indirect tribute to John Shanks, according to The Scotsman. Irvine Welsh uses it in Trainspotting.

Not to be confused with: Alexander Shanks of Arbroath

established Another Scottish Shanks is remembered for a different invention. Alexander Shanks, an engineer in Arbroath, built an early lawnmower for W. F. Lindsay-Carnegie of Kinblethmont, to a design by a Mr Talbot. It was tested in 1841, reported in 1842 and registered as a Scottish patent. It was pulled by a horse or pony, with the operator walking behind. Alexander Shanks died in 1845 and his son James built Alexander Shanks & Son into a large engineering firm. It was a separate business with no part in the Barrhead story.

• The Tubal Works was named after Tubal-cain, a metalworker in the Book of Genesis.
• Shanks' first best-seller was known simply by its catalogue number: Number Four.
• John Shanks was declared bankrupt in 1875 and was back as a partner three years later.
• He patented a toilet for use below a ship's waterline in 1865.
• A Shanks bath of 1884 came in a wooden cabinet with a full set of showers.
• His will gave an extra day's pay to staff with six months' service.
• "Shankie" is Scots slang for a toilet.
• Alexander Shanks of Arbroath, the lawnmower maker, ran a separate firm from John Shanks of Barrhead.

• Myth: a Shanks closet was the only sound fitting in Buckingham Palace in 1871. The story comes from company histories. The Prince of Wales caught typhoid at a house near Scarborough, and no independent record of the palace inspection described has been found.
• Disputed: John Shanks' year of birth. Sources give 22 December 1825 or 1826.
• Disputed: when Shanks & Co. was founded. Foreman gives 1875; company records show John Shanks bankrupt that year and an equal partnership with his brother from 1878.
• Disputed: when the Tubal Works began. Most sources give 1866; Foreman says about 1875.
• Disputed: when the Barrhead works closed. Closure came in stages: the foundry in 1989, the pottery in 1991 and the remaining works in 1992.
• Disputed: Shanks fittings on the Titanic. This is a company claim.
• Myth: Alexander Shanks of Arbroath founded the toilet firm. He was a different man who built an early lawnmower.