William Heath Robinson was a popular English cartoonist and illustrator who is most renowned for his drawings of very complicated, absurd machines which were intended to achieve simple objectives. Robinson was born in North London into a family of artists as his father and his brothers, Thomas Heath Robinson and Charles Robinson, were illustrators of various books and children’s stories. William Heath Robinson studied at Islington Art School for three years, before moving on to study art at the Royal Academy. He wanted to become a landscape painter, but had little commercial success so followed his father and brothers into illustration.
During his early career, Robinson illustrated a number of children’s books, including The Arabian Nights (1899), Twelfth Night (1908), Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1913), Midsummer Night’s Dream (1914), Charles Kingsley’s Water Babies (1915), and Charles Perrault’s Old Time Stories (1921). He also wrote and illustrated three children’s books, called The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902), Bill the Minder (1912), and Peter Quip in Search of a Friend (1922). Robinson was a prolific illustrator and it is thought that during the early 1900s, he produced around 250 illustrations.
During his later career, Robinson began drawing humorous cartoons for various advertisements and for magazines. In 1934, he published Absurdities which was a collection of his favourite drawings. This included some of his inventions, such as ‘The Wart Chair’ which was a basic machine for removing warts on the top of the head, and ‘The Multi-movement Tabby Silencer’ which automatically threw water at any serenading cats. Robinson also drew many cartoons depicting unlikely secret weapons being used by the soldiers during World War One. His machines were often rickety and unstable and were powered by candles or by steam from boilers or kettles. They were kept running by comical, balding, bespectacled men. There were complex pulleys, levers, strings and knots that held these machines together and powered them along. His mechanical, comedic drawings earned him the nickname ‘The Gadget King’. Many of Robinson’s most popular drawings recognised the stupidity and ridiculousness of war.
(source: https://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/william-heath-robinson-biography/)