Frederick Roland Emett
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
and constructor of whimsical kinetic sculpture.
Early Life
Emett was born in New SouthgateNew Southgate
New Southgate is a residential suburb in the south-east corner of the London Borough of Barnet and the south-west corner of the London Borough of Enfield in North London, England....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the son of a businessman and amateur inventor, and the grandson of Queen Victoria's engraver. He was educated at Waverley Grammar School in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, where he excelled in drawing, caricaturing his teachers and also vehicles and machinery. When he was only fourteen he took out a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
on a gramophone
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
volume control. He studied at Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
The Birmingham Institute of Art and Design is the largest British university art and design teaching and research centre outside London. It is a faculty of Birmingham City University and the largest, most successful department of the university.-History:BIAD dates back, in various incarnations, to...
and one of his landscapes, Cornish Harbour, was exhibited at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
; it is now in the Tate collection.
Later Work
An otherwise undistinguished career was interrupted by World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when he worked as a draughtsman
Technical drawing
Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....
for the Air Ministry
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...
, while perfecting his gift for drawing cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s. From 1939 through the 1940s, he published regularly in Punchmaking drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
s or watercolours of strange, bumbling trains with silly names. On 12 April 1941 he married Mary Evans, the daughter of a Birmingham silversmith. It was Mary who would manage his business interests. They adopted a daughter, Claire.
In 1947 his cartoons came to life on the stage of the Gobe Theatre, London, in Between the Lines
Between the Lines
Between the Lines is the seventh, and best known album by the then New York City-based singer-songwriter Janis Ian, released in 1975. The album went to #1 on the Billboard 200 charts, and sold over one million copies...
, a scene for Laurier Lister's revue Twopence Coloured, with Max Adrian as an eccentric signalman at Friars Fidgeting Signal Box. In 1951, at the Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
, his most famous steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
, Nellie, was made into a copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
and mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
kinetic sculpture and was one of the festival’s most popular attractions. There was an unfortunate fatality when the train came off the line. Two of his other trains were created for the Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway
Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway
The Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway was the inspiration of Roland Emett. A fictional narrow-gauge railway with a whimsical view of British rural life and embodying Emett's typical fanciful mechanics, it echoed the similar works of Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg.The railway began as...
. At this time he was living in Cornwall and working in a studio in a boat-loft at Polperro; later he would return to West Cornwall before eventually settling for the rest of his life at Ditchling, in Sussex.
Emett parted company with Punch magazine soon after Malcolm Muggeridge became editor and began systematic changes to the magazine. After a spread in Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine on 5 July 1954, his work was much in demand in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
He turned more and more to designing and supervising the building of what he called his thingsalways with silly names such as "The Featherstone-Kite Openwork Basketweave Mark Two Gentleman’s Flying Machine", two copies of which exist, one placed in a glass cage in the Merrion Centre, Leeds). In the mid-1960s he was commissioned by Honeywell
Honeywell
Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
to create a mechanical computer, which he named "The Forget-Me-Not Computer." In 1968 he designed the elaborate inventions of Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
for the film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The...
.
In 1973 his water powered
Water clock
A water clock or clepsydra is any timepiece in which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out from a vessel where the amount is then measured.Water clocks, along with sundials, are likely to be the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exceptions...
musical clock, "The Aqua Horological Tintinnabulator", was installed on the lower floor of the Victoria Centre, Nottingham
Victoria Centre, Nottingham
The Victoria Centre is a shopping centre in Nottingham, England. Its four main anchor stores are John Lewis, House of Fraser, Boots and Next. Other notable stores are The Entertainer, Topshop, Republic, Monsoon, Swarovski, GAP, Tesco Metro and HMV....
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
which can still be seen at work there. When originally commissioned, this clock played Rameau's
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
Gigue en Rondeau II from the E-minor Suite of his Pièces de Clavecin
Pièces de Clavecin
The French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote three books of Pièces de clavecin for the harpsichord. The first, Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, was published in 1706; the second, Pièces de Clavessin, in 1724; and the third, Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin, in 1726 or 1727...
, when striking the hour.
His larger works, such as Emettland, went on extended tours, ending up in prestigious venues such as the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. The Ontario Science Centre
Ontario Science Centre
Ontario Science Centre is a science museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, near the Don Valley Parkway about northeast of downtown on Don Mills Road just south of Eglinton Avenue East...
in Toronto has a collection of about ten Rowland Emett creations and every December displays the restored working pieces, usually under the title "Dream Machines".
A 30 foot square mosaic by Roland Emett, installed around 1960, can be seen on the side of the NCP car park in The Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead is a town in Hertfordshire in the East of England, to the north west of London and part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2001 Census was 81,143 ....
.
His works are fundamentally different from those of Heath Robinson in that they are actually buildable, and would work. The works of the artist Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
are a better comparison, "using assemblages of industrial detritus to burlesque effect".
When asked how he came up with his strange designs, Emett remarked:
- "It is a well known fact that all inventors get their first ideas on the back of an envelope. I take slight exception to this, I use the front so that I can incorporate the stamp and then the design is already half done."
He was fair-haired and fresh-faced, looked younger than his years, and bore a resemblance to Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
. In 1978 he was awarded an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, and died on 13 November 1990 in a Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
nursing home
Nursing home
A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...
.
Further reading
- John Murray, Early Morning Milk Train: The Cream of Emett Railway Drawings, Brattleboro: Stephen Greene Press. 1976.
External links
- Emett Clock's removal just a "rumour" BBC January 15, 2010
- Emettplus Online Photos, accessed May 7, 2006
- Roland Emett: biographical information about the British kinetic sculptor, accessed May 7, 2006
- The Gothic-Kinetic Merlin of Wild Goose Cottage
- Ontario Science Centre in Toronto
- Creative Commons-licensed content on Flickr, tagged with 'rowlandemett'