Family asks for help tracking down historic toilet pans lost at Hove Engineerium

A family is asking for help in its quest to find decorative toilet pans designed by their ancestor which were last seen at Hove Engineerium.

Daniel Thomas Bostel patented the Excelsior WC in about 1877, a forerunner of modern WCs, and some years ago his descendant Richard Bostel loaned some to the Hove Engineerium.

Since then Richard Bostel, who ran Bostel Brothers, the company Daniel Bostel founded, has passed away.

And the new owner of the Engineerium, Luke Johnson, says that since he bought the building in 2022, he has not seen them.

Now, the Bostels are trying to find out what happened to them.

Pat Francis, Bostel’s great-granddaughter, said: “I suspect that when the Engineerium was sold some of the contents were sold off and some maybe dumped. The current owner has no knowledge of them.

“It would be a shame if these objects were lost as they really should be in a museum.

“Sadly the company closed not long after Richard Bostel’s death otherwise it might have been possible to retrieve them.”

Mr Johnson said: “The first I heard about this was a few days ago, when an estate agent forwarded me an email from someone who says they’re a distant relative of the family and that some toilets were loaned to the Engineerium.

“I assume all this took place a long time before I was involved. I’ve seen no detail of any of this – dates, what the toilets actually look like, documentation about the loan, who exactly borrowed and loaned them etc.

“If the toilets are in the Engineerium they’re welcome to them. I don’t believe there are any such toilets there – I certainly haven’t seen them.”

Daniel Thomas Bostel was born in 1837 in London, but set up his business in Brighton, where he and his wife Elizabeth had five children. He died in 1916 in Balcombe.

Bostel House in West Street, an office block currently home to Ladbrokes, was named after him.