Idea Collection (page 3)

Fancy dress for winter Carnival 1929
A selection of fancy dress costumes to wear for the winter Carnival from Dickins and Jones. Suggestions include a basket of fruit, bird cage, cherry girl and a flapper woman. Date: 1929

Cartoon, French soldier and girlfriend, WW1
Cartoon, a French soldier and his girlfriend in a grassy field. He boasts that he will make the Empress (perhaps he means the wife of Kaiser Wilhelm) buy him a beer when he helps to win the war

Ovaltine advert, 1927 focusing on the idea of creating energy an nervous vitality Date: 1927

American barb trousers, WW1 cartoon, Heath Robinson
American barb trousers. For enabling troops to extricate themselves from wire entanglements. Another ingenious idea from the imagination of William Heath Robinson Date: 1918

War-Time Economies Doing without Braces, WW1 Heath Robinson
War-Time Economies - A Sensible Way of Doing Without Braces. Another ingenious idea from William Heath Robinson, who suggests a strong magnet as an alternative to braces in order to keep ones

Rice-paper butterfly, Idea idea.. Handcolored copperplate zoological engraving from George Shaw and Frederick Nodders The Naturalists Miscellany, 1792

Cottage at entrance to Haddon Hall, Derbyshire
Little changed to this day, this buildinghas stood at the bottom of the slope leading to Haddon Hall for centuries. The chimney smoke gives an idea of the exposure time

WWI Poster, Germany over All
WWI Parliamentary Recruiting Committee Poster, Germanys Battle Cry is " Germany over All". Britain is fighting not only for the Freedom of Europe but to defend your mothers

Our Billet - Somewhere in France
Our Billet. Somewhere in France. On verso - Monday, May 8th 1916. Dearest Ciss, This is a sketch of our Billet where we are resting at present and will give you a good idea how pretty the place is

Cartoon, A Hot Idea - Officer and Sentry, WW1
Cartoon, A Hot Idea - Officer: (going his rounds) And what would you do in case of fire? Sentry: Ave a bloomin good warm sir!. By Charles Crombie

WW2 poster, To all the hands in this factory, you ve got the right idea at your finger tips -- thanks! Increased Production. Design by Victor Hicks. Date: 1940s

Forcing the Murphies by Heath Robinson
Endeavouring to open the eyes of seed potatoes before sowing - a silly horticultural idea by William Heath Robinson. Date: 1918

Aerial minefields by G. H. Davis
Aerial minefields to baffle raiders: a new form of barrage. Major Muirs idea for a minefield of small bombs supported by free balloons. Date: 1939

The Cow and Plate Polecat Trapper
Another ingenious idea from the inventive mind of William Heath Robinson, the gadget king, for a cow and plate pole-cat trapper on the Catskill Mountains

The Water Crawl Widgeon by Heath Robinson
The " Water Crawl" Widgeon - bluffing device on the Norfolk jungle. Another mind-boggling idea from the inventive mind of William Heath Robinson

The Chipmunk Bagger by Heath Robinson
Ingenious contraption for use in the wilds of Brazil, a chipmunk bagger, part of a series by William Heath Robinson in the Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News called Very Patent Aides to Sport

ALICE CARY American poet, author of Poems of Faith, Hope and Love which gives you some idea of her subject-matter. with her autograph Date: 1820 - 1870

Peters Court
Court life at Moscow reflects Peters unsophisticated tastes; a marriage of dwarfs is his idea of entertainment. Date: circa 1700

Prodigal son sees a return home as dangerous to his health
The prodigal son (likely a cad and bounder who has run up a large debt on the family account back home in Blighty) seeing a return home as the poor option !

Sketch for The Natural History Museum, London
An rough architectural plan drawn by Richard Owen in 1859 entitled Idea of a Museum of Natural History. The plan was referred to by Alfred Waterhouse in the creation of the Natural History Museum

Christmas Gifts
Brown, Davis and Co. London E2, Christmas and New Year gifts, 1878 Date: 1878

On the seventeenth - the Irishmans idea of Atlas. Illustration shows an old Irish man as Atlas holding aloft a globe that shows Ireland as comprising an entire hemisphere

An idea. Illustration shows an actress and her manager sitting in an office. Date 1902 March 19

Labors idea of elevating itself. Illustration shows a man labeled Labor sitting on a huge firecracker labeled Capital which he is igniting with a torch labeled Strikes giving off fumes labeled

A Crystal Set-to by William Heath Robinson
A somewhat startling wireless development witnessed on Hampstead Heath during the broadcasting of an interesting dance programme

Bob Manchesters The Cracker Jacks a 20th century idea. Date c1900

Royal Lilliputians a new and original idea in comedy : the seasons only novelty. Date c1900

A Seaside Snap Shot by William Heath Robinson
Ingenious method of overcoming the difficulty of taking ones own photograph by bathing devised by the gadget king, and master of silly ideas, William Heath Robinson. Date: 1927

A Philosopher in Ecstasy. Date: ca. 1870

Chicago Bathing Beach
Not seaside but lakeside - Chicago may not be your idea of a holiday resort, but the Wilson Avenue bathing beach (North Shore) is a pleasant enough spot. Date: 1916

Flowers & Feathers
Baskets of flowers with feathers, to take the place of ferns or other greenery, are the latest idea in home decoration. Date: 1930s

Stylish Table Setting
An idea for setting out your table ready for your bridge or card party. The candle may be left lit for the use of smokers. Date: 1930s

Projecting advertisements from a moving train
Illuminated advertisements, projected from a moving train for the benefit of the passengers. A very innovative concept indeed

Arrows against Storms
The Gauls fire arrows into stormclouds to drive them away - an idea which is not quite so ridiculous as it sounds. Date: 1st century

Politics / Pacifism
Britains idea of disarmament is to burn some obsolete vessel while building up her modern fleet Date: 1907

Statue below the Juche Tower, Pyongyang, North Korea
A statue depicting three members of the proletariat, one with a hammer, one with a sickle and one with a writing brush (an idealised worker, a peasant and a " working intellectual" )

Shooting birds from floating cycle
A sporting gentleman in top hat hunts ducks out in the middle of a lake thanks to his remarkable floating aquatic cycle - useability possibly determinate on the level of swell

Remarkable Life-saving Body Suit
A rather remarkable and very unusual life-saving body suit, comprising of flexible leg and domed upper section, complete with breathing tube and flotation ring

Experimental Diplock Pedrail Tractor (Landship or Infantry Carrier idea) during World War I

A Brine Wave
The birth of the switch back and water chute idea - A man watches as his wife falls off a cliff into the sea on her deckchair

Pity the poor strap hanger
An image illustrating the introduction of hand straps on underground trains. When straps were added to underground railway carriages in the early 1900s, there was an outcry among travellers

Bluffing the Periscope
Taking cover from U-boats. Hints for bathers unnecessarily nervous about submarines off shore. Another ridiculous idea from Heath Robinson

Cutting a channel through the ice, Arctic, c. 1849
Engraving of an imaginary scene showing a British Arctic expedition in the Arctic, c.1849. The engraving shows a group of men cutting a channel through the ice so that their ship

Breaking up of the ice, Arctic, c. 1849
Engraving of an imaginary scene showing a British Arctic expedition in the Arctic, c.1849. The engraving shows a group of men standing on the rapidly breaking up ice pack

Icebergs and the Aurora Borealis, Arctic, c. 1849
Engraving of an imaginary scene showing a British Arctic expedition in the Arctic, c.1849. The engraving shows two ships in the background, with icebergs, walruses

Winter Quarters, Arctic Explorers, c. 1849
Engraving of an imaginary scene showing a British Arctic expedition in the Arctic, c.1849. The engraving shows a group of men building an ice house in the foreground

Captain Jerninghams Anchor-Firing Mortar, 1846
Engraving of an experiment to test Captain Jerninghams idea to assist the launching of lifeboats. The launching of lifeboats from a beach into heavy breaking surf was often dangerous

Unidentified Station
Railway station, refreshment rooms and hotel - seemingly in the midst of nowhere. Regrettably, we have no idea where this elaborate establishment is located

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