From toilet makers to convicts - the Crapper family dates back to 1683. SUZANNE HUBAND reports...

Ernest Crapper was delighted to help when he received a letter out of the blue from some distant relatives in Australia trying to trace their ancestry.

He was able to find out two little boys aged 14 and 12 named Crapper had both been transported by Oxford City magistrates to Australia for committing a burglary and one of them went on to raise a family. The family was descended through him.

Mr Crapper, of Corbett Road, Carterton, said: "I think they were quite surprised."

Now aged 82, he has spent many years tracing the family tree and was fascinated to read the story in the Oxford Mail last Friday, of the Chaundy family, who can trace their roots back to 1483 in the village of Ascott- under-Wychwood.

Mr Crapper can go back as far as 1683, but thinks the family came over during the Norman conquest with some settling in Oxford and others in Sheffield. He believes the name is derived from Cropper because some local accents pronounce 'O's as 'A's.

The Crappers who settled in Oxford became traders and Freemen of Oxford - an honour Mr Crapper is proud to hold today, which was passed to him through his father. He said: "The first Crapper in Oxford was Hamelet, who died in 1685, and he was described as a translator.

"He was married to an Anne Cropper and lived in St Ebbe's. Other Crappers worked as bakers, coal merchants and one was an ink manufacturer."

The best known member of the Crapper family is inventor Thomas Crapper of the Sheffield branch. He was Sanitary Engineer to King Edward VII and invented the flushing system for modern toilets.

With three children, five grandchildren and one great grandchild there are plenty more Crappers to carry on the family tree.

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