W. Heath Robinson

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William Heath Robinson (May 31, 1872–September 13, 1944) was an English cartoonist and illustrator, who signed himself W. Heath Robinson.

Born into a family of artists in Islington, London, his early career was as a book illustrator, for example in Hans Christian Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales and Legends (1897); The Arabian Nights, (1899); Tales From Shakespeare (1902), and Twelfth Night (1908), Andersen's Fairy Tales (1913), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1914), Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1915), and Walter de la Mare's Peacock Pie (1916).

In the course of this however, he also wrote and illustrated two children's books, The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902), and Bill the Minder (1912); these are regarded as the start of his career in the depiction of unlikely machines. During World War I he drew large numbers of cartoons, collected as Some "Frightful" War Pictures (1915), Hunlikely! (1916), and Flypapers (1919), depicting ever-more-unlikely secret weapons being used by the combatants.

Besides these, he produced a steady stream of humorous drawings, for magazines and advertisements. In 1934, he published a collection of his favourites as Absurdities, such as

"The Wart Chair. A simple apparatus for removing a wart from the top of the head"
"Resuscitating stale railway scones for redistribution at the station buffets"
"The multimovement Tabby Silencer", which automatically threw water at serenading cats

Most of his cartoons have since been reprinted many times in multiple collections.

The machines he drew were usually kept running by balding, bespectacled men in overalls. The machines were frequently powered by steam boilers or kettles, heated by candles or a spirit lamp; often there would be complex pulley arrangements, threaded by lengths of knotted string. Robinson's cartoons were so popular, that even to this day in Britain, the name "Heath Robinson" is used as shorthand for an improbable, rickety machine barely kept going by incessant tinkering. (The corresponding term in the U.S. is Rube Goldberg, after an American cartoonist with an equal devotion to odd machinery.)

One of the automatic analysis machines built for Bletchley Park during World War II to assist in the decryption of German message traffic was named "Heath Robinson" in his honour. It was a direct predecessor to the Colossus, the world's first programmable digital electronic computer.

Heath Robinson moved to Pinner in 1908. His house in Moss Lane is commemorated by a Blue Plaque. There is currently a project (2006) to restore West House, in Memorial Park, Pinner, to house a Heath Robinson Collection. More information is available at The West House & Heath Robinson Museum Trust

[edit] Publications

W.Heath Robinson, Railway Ribaldry ,originally published 1935, Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd , England, ISBN 0-7156-0823-1

Heath Robinson, William , My Line of Life , 1938, Blackie & Sons
Lewis, John , Heath Robinson Artist and Comic Genius, 1973, Barnes and Noble
De Freitas, Leo John, The Fantastic Paintings of Charles and William Heath Robinson , 1976, Peacock/Bantam
Beare,Geoffrey , W. Heath Robinson , 1987, Chris Beetles
Hamilton, James, William Heath Robinson , 1992, Pavilion
Beare, Geoffrey , The Brothers Robinson , 1992, Chris Beetles
Beare, Geoffrey, The Art of William Heath Robinson, 2003, Dulwich Picture Gallery