Tea-making machines, part 3

This is the final post in a short series on tea-making machines in The Secret Life of Home exhibit at the Science Museum London.  We are so intrigued by the lampshade in the Goblin 'Teasmade' model D26 c1945!  (The 1932 prototype for the 1938 model is shown on the left.)

The Goblin automatic tea-maker was invented by W H Brenner Thornton and William Hermann who first patented it in 1934. The British Vacuum Cleaner and Engineering Company Ltd of London later bought the patent rights and subsequently sold it under the Goblin Teasmade name. The teasmade incorporates an alarm clock. Just before the alarm sounds, boiling water is forced down the metal pipe into the waiting teapot. (From Science & Society Picture Library)

Tea-making machines, part 2

From the tea-making case in The Secret Life of Home exhibit at the Science Museum London, a still of a Hotpoint Tea Infuser c1930 and a Samovar c1890. 

The latter is "the traditional Russian device for providing a constant supply of hot tea.  It has a tube up the middle which is heated by a charcoal burner underneath." 

Tea leaves "are placed inside a metal cage" in the Hotpoint tea infuser which is suspended by a chain.  When the tea is steeped, the chain is lifted to remove the cage from the water.

Tea-making machines, part 1

A still from the tea-making case in The Secret Life of Home exhibit at the Science Museum London.

The device in the lower-right hand corner of the above photograph is an automatic tea-making machine, "comprising wooden base which holds the alarm clock, kettle tilter and methylated spirit stove, with flat oval-shaped copper kettle, patented by Frank Clarke of Birmingham, in 1902 (pat.15,170), made by the Automatic Water Boiler Co., Birmingham, 1902-1910." More on the device:

The original design of this machine was built by Albert E Richardson, a clockmaker from Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. The patentee of the machine and maker of this example, Frank Clarke, a Birmingham gunsmith, purchased the original machine and all rights to it from Richardson for an undisclosed sum. It was heated by methylated spirits which would be lit by the automatic striking of a match. This action was initiated by the sounding of the alarm clock, which rang again when the tea was ready. A wooden base holds the alarm clock, kettle tilter and methylated spirit stove. Although ingenious, the heavy reliance on the match being lit at the correct time made the machine potentially dangerous. Made by the Automatic Water Boiler Co.