Rev. Henry Moule, vicar of Fordington from 1829-80 and champion of social reform on behalf of his slum dwelling parishioners. He wrote many books and pamphlets on religious and educational topics plus volumes of poetry which included Scraps of Sacred Verse (1846) and Supplemental Hymns of Adoration and Praise (1865). His youngest son, Handley, who was Bishop of Durham for 20 years, wrote of ‘Scraps’: ‘They contain many pieces which are beautiful as well as true.’ He was the father of Horace Moule friend and mentor to Thomas Hardy.

Rev Henry Moule and the Earth Closet
An earth-closet is a lavatory in which dry earth is used to cover excreta. Until a hundred years ago, the traditional ``place of easement'' for people living in the country was either a privy with a cess-pit, or an earth-closet. Queen Victoria used an earth-closet at Windsor Castle, although many types of water-closet were available. For many years, the earth- and water-closets were rival systems with champions and detractors on both sides.

Henry Moule, champion of the earth-closet, was born in Melksham, Wiltshire, on 27 January 1801, the sixth son of a solicitor. He went to Cambridge, and in 1829 became vicar of Fordington in Dorset, where he remained for the rest of his life. For some years he was chaplain to the troops in Dorchester Barracks, and from the royalties of his 1845 book ``Barrack Sermons'' he built a church at West Fordington. In 1849, six years after the discovery of the cause of Cholera, the epidemic appeared again in Fordington, England, just outside the walls of the ancient city of Dorchester. Fearing the disease posed a threat to his family and knowing of the recent discovery of the cause of cholera he decided to do something about this problem. Around the summer of 1859 it is thought he decided his cess-pool was intolerable, and a nuisance to his neighbour; so he filled it in, and instructed all his family to use buckets. At first he buried the sewage in trenches in the yard, one foot deep, but he discovered by accident that in three or four weeks ``not a trace of this matter could be discovered.'' So he put up a shed, sifted the dry earth beneath it, and mixed the contents of the bucket with this dry earth every morning. ``The whole operation does not take a boy more than a quarter of an hour. And within ten minutes after its completion neither the eye nor nose can perceive anything offensive.''

He then discovered that he could recycle the earth, and use the same batch several times, and he began to grow lyrical. ``Water is only a vehicle for removing it out of sight and off the premises. It neither absorbs nor effectively deodorises.... The great ... agent ... is dried surface earth, both for absorption and for deodorising offensive matters.'' And, he said, he no longer threw away valuable manure, but obtained a ``luxuriant growth of vegetables in my garden.''

In 1861 he produced a 20-page pamphlet entitled National health and wealth, instead of the disease, nuisance, expense, and waste, caused by cess-pools and water-drainage. ``The cess-pool and privy vault are simply an unnatural abomination,'' he thundered, ``the water-closet ... has only increased those evils.'' And he went on to describe his own amazing discovery.

The Moule Earth Closet

In 1859, the Reverend Henry Moule invented the first composting toilet. He decided that his family’s cesspit had become intolerable. He filled it in and installed his earth closet. Moule discovered that dry earth mixed with human waste produced clean compost in just a few weeks. He used the compost to grow vegetables. As a vicar, Reverend Henry Moule did not approve of the Water Closet. He felt it caused the pollution of God’s rivers and seas. Most of all it was a waste of God’s nutrients contained in excrement, that should be returned to the soil. His Earth Closet allowed human manure to be saved for return to the soil, without the owner having to endure the stink of the average privy or cess-pit. How the Moule Earth Closet works: When the handle is pulled, a little dry earth or peat is spread on top of the human waste to reduce the smell and help it to decay. When the bucket is full the contents are dug into the garden and continue to decay.

He backed up this last point with a scientific experiment, persuading a farmer to fertilise one half of a field with earth used five times in his closet, and another with an equal weight of superphosphate. Swedes were planted in both halves, and those nurtured with earth manure grew one third bigger than those given only superphosphate.

Moule quoted a biblical precedent for his efforts, from a set of instructions about cleanliness: ``And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee.'' (Deut. 23:13) The New English Bible is even clearer: ``With your equipment you will have a trowel, and when you squat outside, you shall scrape a hole with it and then turn and cover your excrement.''

According to Moule, doctors said that if his scheme could be generally adopted, ``much more would be effected by it for the prevention and check of disease and sickness, and for the improvement of health, than Jenner has effected by the discovery of vaccination.''

In 1860 Henry Moule produced a sort of commode with a bucket below seat, and a hopper behind it containing fine dry earth or ashes. When you had finished you pulled a lever to release a measured amount of earth into the bucket and cover the contents.

In partnership with James Bannehr, agent, Moule took out a patent in 1860 (No 1316)---and others in 1869 and 1873. He set up the Moule Patent Earth-Closet Company (Limited), which manufactured and sold an earth-closet for every occasion, the expensive models in mahogany and oak. ``They are made to act either by a handle ... or self-acting, on rising from the seat. The Earth Reservoir is calculated to hold enough for about 25 times, and where earth is scarce, or the manure required of extraordinary strength, the product may be dried as many as seven times and without losing any of its deodorising properties.''

The closet was often inside a shed or privy, which provided some privacy and protection from inclement weather.

Henry Moule died in 1880, but even in his seventies he was still trying to persuade the British government that the earth-closet was the system of the future, and he nearly succeeded.