Why every home should have a Theophilus H Wright Cobweb Scavenger

We were wondering why we hadn't heard for a while from our favourite inventor of whimsy Nigel Williams from his Orlogik sculpture studio between Newbury and Hungerford…

“Well, that's because I've spent a very long time making the last piece: it's getting ridiculous!”

Attempts by Nigel to improve our domestic comfort continue unabated. So now he has released another of his inventions to lift our spirits.

Are you fed up with embarrassing trips to the hospital to commiserate with servants who have injured themselves falling off a ladder trying to satisfy your obsessions?

Not only is Nigel’s latest device another servant-saving machine, this one is also for saving your servants, he says.

It's called the Theophilus H Wright Cobweb Scavenger.

“Whilst researching the history of airships as part of the background to development for this piece, I encountered a UK aviation pioneer, almost a contemporary of the US Wright Brothers (just a few years afterwards), but with the same name: Howard T. Wright. Then I discovered his middle initial stood for Theophilus - well, I just had to have that, didn't I? Couldn't resist!
”Later in the twentieth century, there was another Howard T. (Thomas) Wright, who was involved in the Apollo 13 trip to the moon. Perhaps my next piece should be a device to help the Edwardians reach the moon before NASA? Possibly involving cheese..... ? (Cheese is my favourite food, Gromit.....).”

This new device completes the whole task controlled from the ground without risk: it requires only one person to operate, and its design uses the new-fangled airship invention to fly up around the ceiling and snatch all those annoying cobwebs using its multiple rotating collectors, with no danger to servants limbs (although it might make a mess if it falls down onto somebody's head....). Another servant-saving appliance which is a must for any ambitious Edwardian household!

“One of the most time-consuming parts of the development of this piece was the design of the internal rigging to derive the back & forth shuttle motion of the cobweb collectors on the top, from the vertical rotation of the propellor handle, within the very restricted internal dimensions of the main hull.

“It eventually involved a central cam and not one, but *two* rocker mechanisms (one horizontal, one vertical, one driving the other), in order to achieve the required 90-degree partial rotations alternately front & back (i.e. front turns left while the back turns right, and vice versa). Please see the photographs of the disassembled piece, the internal components, and the scanned drawings, to get a feel for what was required. Sadly, this mechanism will never be seen again now the piece has reached final assembly (and I'm not about to volunteer to take it all to bits again!).”

Did you see Nigel’s last piece? Take a look at https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/lifestyle/from-a-studio-between-newbury-and-hungerford-comes-the-labor-9358660/