[Haddock, Marsden] | Mr. Haddock's Androides

[Haddock, Marsden]

Androides; Or, Animated Mechanism. [London]: np, [ca. 1790s]

Letterpress handbill (220 x 135 mm). Printed in black on blue paper; wear to edges, some finger-soiling at margins. Tipped on to a sheet of paper.

Mr. Haddock was, by the end of the eighteenth century, "one of the best-known exhibitors of automata in England" (EE). In addition to the headlining automaton, The Volunteer, the playbill here features four of his most acclaimed attractions: The Writing and Drawing Automaton, the Highland Oracle, the Liquor Merchant, and the Highland Oracle. The first "was a mechanical boy about the size of a five-year-old who would draw pictures of a lion, tiger, elephant, camel, bear, horse or stag, and 'write any word, words, or figures in a round legible hand'"; the Oracle was "an automaton mind-reader in Scottish Highland dress who would strike his shield with his sword to calculate time or various arithmetical problems"; and The Liquor Merchant "would stand by a cask and deliver any of sixteen requested beverages" (EE).

"When his successor Thomas Weeks died, more than thirty-five years later, the Androides were put on the auction block with this explanation:

'This exhibition, the invention of the late Mr. Haddock, was exhibited with the greatest success some years back, in Norfolk Street, Strand, to very crowded audiences. It consists of a number of small figures, and others the size of life, which go through a series of amusing performances; the whole of which is moved by an invisible agent'" (EE).

REFERENCE:

EE, p. 58