The Department of Awesome Automata seldom gets an opportunity to show off, but today they’re pulling out all the stops with this breathtaking Silver Swan automaton. Housed at the Bowes Museum in North East England, this exquisite 18th century clockwork bird was designed by designed and built by John Joseph Merlin along with London inventor James Cox.
The life-size swan automaton swims in a stream made of moving glass rods along with small silver fish. When it’s clockwork is wound up, a music box plays as the swan turns its head from side to side, preening her silver feathers, eventually spotting a fish in the water and then bending down to catch it.
In effort to preserve this extraordinary creation, the Silver Swan is only operated once each day. But we can watch it as many times as we like thanks to this video:
When you learn about the team who created this IT GETS BETTER
James Cox, jewelry-empire runner, artist, and enterpreneur, had such a career that the Silver Swan was not the most spectacular creation to come from his workshops – that honor goes to the ten-foot tall automated Peacock Clock. His role in British trade to China drove him bankrupt twice.
John Joseph Merlin, the automata engineer, studied fine mechanisms in Paris for six years before moving to London. He made a splash there with one of his inventions, roller skates:
“One of his ingenious novelties was a pair of skaites contrived to run
on wheels. Supplied with these and a violin, he mixed in the motley
group of one of Mrs Cowley’s masquerades at Carlisle House; when not
having provided the means of retarding his velocity, or commanding its
direction, he impelled himself against a mirror of more than five
hundred pounds value, dashed it to atoms, broke his instrument to pieces
and wounded himself most severely”
As you do.
After a long and strange career making clocks, inventing more oddities, and improving musical instruments Merlin opened a museum of his automata, Merlin’s Mechanical Museum. One day he was pleased to give an extended tour to a thirteen year old named Charles Babbage. This visit was part of Babbage’s inspiration to create an early computer. In Babbage’s later life he purchased two of the automata he had admired at the museum.
