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Visit to the Heath Robinson Museum in Pinner, London.

27 Dec, 2024 46
Heath Robinson Museum

One of the benefits of our new website is to be able to blog about our visits to museums, galleries, bookshops and other places of interest, along with the inevitable associated lunches and tea, coffee & cake breaks!

So, two days after Christmas, on a rather cold and misty day, we had the pleasure of visiting the Heath Robinson Museum in Pinner, on the outskirts of London.

The museum occupies West House, the former home of the grandson of Admiral Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, and is still standing in its own grounds, now the Pinner Memorial Park. The house overlooks an ornamental lake which was full of ducks. The location is beautiful although I'm sure it's even better in the summer when I wouldn't have to have my coat zipped up to my chin!

Our first stop was Daisy’s in the Park cafe as it was lunchtime when we got there and I very much enjoyed their take on a BLT which was a bagel with all the ingredients you'd expect but with added avocado - yum! They even had Jasmine tea, which seems to be a rariety.

The Heath Robinson exhibition is in one room in the museum and features original artwork, reproduction images, original books, and plenty of information about Heath Robinson himself.

William Heath Robinson was born in Hornsey Rise, London, on 31 May 1872 into a family of artists. His grandfather Thomas, his father Thomas Robinson (1838-1902) and brothers Thomas Heath Robinson (1869-1954) and Charles Robinson (1870-1937) all worked as illustrators. His uncle Charles was an illustrator for The Illustrated London News.  Given his family background, William only ever wanted to be an artist.  He dreamt of being a landscape painter but to earn a living, he began working as a book and magazine illustrator and soon became established as one of the leading illustrators of his time.

He focused on humorous subjects, particularly on people who had an inflated view of their own importance. In time he started creating cartoons featuring crazy contraptions or gadgets, normally assembled from everyday objects, that were used to solve simple household tasks.  Today we might describe such a contraption as a bit 'Wallace and Gromit' but there's no doubt that Wallace's inventions were based on those of Heath Robinson.

An image from Bill the Minder by William Heath Robinson

My favourite things in the museum were undoubtedly the original books, how I wished I could've gotten hold of them and run my fingers through the pages (before scanning them of course!).  Unfortunately for me, they were in glass cases so you could only see the pages they were opened to.  Beautiful though, I love seeing illustrated books as they were originally published. The books they had included Bill the Minder which Heath Robinson both wrote and illustrated (the image, above, is from Bill the Minder).

The trip out was well worth it, a fascinating insight into the life and work of both Heath Robinson himself and the extended Robinson family. And the gift shop was so tempting, although I managed to resist on this occasion.

As a footnote, there was a temporary exhibition in the museum featuring Sidney Sime (1865-1941), who I hadn't previously heard of, but I'll certainly look into his work more for future inclusion in the website.

If you want to read more, take a look at our William Heath Robinson artist page which also features downloads of numerous publications.