Robot Collection

Amazing Stories scifi magazine cover, The Mad Robot
THE MAD ROBOT by William P McGivern. A brave man fires a ray-gun at an advancing metal robot with large claws and a brain encassed in a glass-domed head Date: 1944

Amazing Stories scifi magazine cover, Robot and lion
Testing a robot for a space mission by having it fight a lion - a scene from J Schlassels To the Moon by proxy Date: 1928

Mad Metal Robot
THE MAD ROBOT by William P McGivern. A brave man fires a ray-gun at an advancing metal robot with large claws and a brain encassed in a glass-domed head Date: 1944

A robot to open an exhibition: the new mechanical man
Photograph and sketches of an aluminium man, the first British robot invented by Captain Richards and Mr. A.H. Refell. The machine could rise, bow and make a speech

Automaton at the Schoolboys Own Exhibition, 1929
A physiological robot at the Schoolboys Own Exhibition in London, 1929. Designed to show how organs of the body work, here three young visitors take great interest in its insides. Date: 1929

Play / Capek / R. u. R
Programme for the first English production of the play, also known as R.U.R. and written by Karel Capek, when it was performed at St. Martins Theatre in London

Robot Aesop Simak 1947
Aesop (Clifford D. Simak) A rather sad-looking robot

Heartless Robot
MISSING INGREDIENT (Alejandro) The robot is missing a heart

I Robot, Amazing Stories Scifi Magazine Cover
I, Robot - The robot Adam Link is attacked

Maskelyne & Cooks automaton, Psycho
Maskelyne & Cooks thought-reading, whist playing automaton, Psycho, as demonstrated at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London

Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot - Clear See-through Body
Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot with Clear See-through body and digital-style display panel

Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot - Blue-Grey Metallic Body
Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot with grey blue body and colourful buttons and digital-style display panel

Camouflage v Camouflage During Invasion Practice
William Heath Robinson has come up with a solution to save on man-power in the East Coast of England. Revolving helmets being paraded around on a primitive pulley system with the locals clapping

Alpha robot 1932
Nickel-plated armour Alpha, an electronic robot, designed by H. May, that could read and answer simple questions, being shown at the Olympia Exhibition. 1932

Robot, 1928 - A Mechanical Man who may do work of tomorrow
Mr. R. J. Wensley of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company operating a mechanical man or robot who, in response to spoken signals and notes blown on a pitch pipe

Cartoon, The Automatic Policeman -- Put a penny in the slot and he stops the traffic. 1889

Robot Godfrey at Health of the People exhibition 1948
Front cover of the Illustrated London News, 15th May 1948 showing Godfrey, the mechanical man at the Health of the People exhibition at Marble Arch in 1948

Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot - Grey Body (1 / 2)
Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot with grey body, big red eyes and red feet

Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot - Yellow Body (1 / 3)
Retro Toy Walking Plastic Robot with yellow body, big red eyes, orange arms and blue feet

Maskelyne & Cooks automata performing in London Maskelyne & Cooks automata
Maskelyne & Cooks automata perform at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London. Date: 1878

Concert Mecanique, invented by M Richard
A Concert Mecanique invented by Monsieur Richard and demonstrated in the Royal Library. It consists of three automata, playing keyboard, violin and cello

Kempelins Automaton Chess Player
Wolfgang von Kempelins Automaton Chess Player. It was created in Germany, was widely exhibited, and eventually reappeared in New York in 1845. Date: 1769

Corinne Griffith impersonates speed -The Lilies of the Field
Corinne Griffith (1894-1979), dancer and actress known as the orchid lady of the screen pictured in a scene from the Alexander Korda film, The Lilies of the Field

Robot character from a play by Karel Capek
One of the cast from Karel Capeks science fiction play of 1921, R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robots). Capek was a Czech writer who made the word robot popular

La Rubia alien abduction, Paciencia, Brazil
At Paciencia (near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), bus driver Antonio La Rubia is abducted by robot-like entities on board a UFO

Bruce Lacey, performance artist
Bruce Lacey (b.1927), eccentric performance artist, out shopping with one of his mechanical constructs, together with a toddler. Date: 1962

Wonder Stories Scifi Magazine Cover, Robot Aliens
THE ROBOT ALIENS - The Earth is invaded by Martian robots who hope to succeed where H G Wells Martians failed... Date: 193

Robot Saves Humanity, Amazing Stories Scifi Magazine Cover
World without Women - the robot who saves humanity from extinction

Vehicle dealing with suspect car, Templemore Avenue, East Be
Photograph of the vehicle dealing with a suspect car in Templemore Avenue, East Belfast, 1977. From a group of four photographs of the remotely-controlled ?Wheelbarrow

Fantastic Adventures - The Robot Men of Bubble City by Peter Worth. A spaceship shaped like an angry face blasts off from an unknown planet

Fantastic Adventures - The Floating Robot
Cover of Fantastic Adventures, January 1941, featuring the story The Floating Robot by David Wright O brien. Beautiful woman in white dress looks terrified at a floating robot with an old microphone

Robot arrested at a theatre in Pavia, Italy
A robot is arrested at a theatre in Pavia, Italy, on suspicion of being a fake ! Date: 1935

Robot chorus girls in New York
When a New York impresario replaces his chorus girls with electrically powered robots, his ingenuity is not well received by the audience. Date: 1928

Robot shocks a group of men
A robot strides across a room, shocking a group of men. They were hideous things, without brains, without feelings, without souls

Rockets and flying bombs by G. H. Davis
Rockets and flying bombs as seaborne weapons of future navies. How wireless-controlled robot projectiles may be carried and operated by capital ships. 1945

German flying bomb by G. H. Davis
The flying bomb: Germanys latest weapon used against England during the Second World War. Explanatory drawings of the flying robot launched across the Channel to southern England. Date: 1944

A Robot to Teach Physiology by G. H. Davis
One of the novel exhibits on display at the Schoolboys Exhibition at the New Horticultural Hall, London in the Winter of 1928-9; a metal robot which explained the workings of the heart, lungs

Robot guns for British aircraft by G. H. Davis
Robot guns for British aircraft: remotely-controlled turrets. Enabling one gunner to direct fire from numerous different positions

Who Said Robots? by George Studdy
A humorous illustration of Bonzo faced with robot versions of himself. The illustration mocked the craze for Bonzo merchandise that was popular at the time

Maillardets automaton: an drawing and a verse produced by the doll. Date: 18th century

Automaton from Dresden
Interior of an early 19th century robot from Dresden, constructed in 1810 by an engineer called Kaufman. This mechancial trumpeter can blow the Saxon tattoo, and at the time of this photograph(1929)

THE RADIUM MASTER (Jim Vanny) Earth explorers on Urania are prisoners of a robot controlled by the masked Emperor Date: 1930

An automaton playing a keyboard instrument (a tympanon) constructed in the 18th century by Hintzen & Kintzen. Date: 18th century

Robots as the farm workers of the future
Robots depicted as the farm workers of the future. Date: 1896

THE LOST MACHINE (John B Harris) A Martian robot, marooned on Earth, has problems adapting to the terrestrial lifestyle Date: 1932

Introduction robot / W H Robinson
Post War Britain - Social amenities. The penny-in-the-slot introduction machine for introducing strangers to one another in the park

Futuristic Space Robots
CATs EYE by Harl Vincent. A many-limbed robot approaches three other metallic robots (or possibly humans in space suits?) below the decks of a futuristic craft

The new mechanical man
The first British robot, invented by Captain Richards and Mr. A. H. Reffell, whose first duty was to open a Model Engineering Exhibition at the Royal Horticultural Hall in London in 1928

All Professionally Made to Order for Quick Shipping