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| Mechanical silver swan that entranced Mark Twain lands at Science Museum | Mechanical silver swan that entranced Mark Twain lands at Science Museum |
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| A robotic swan that entranced Mark Twain and generations of other viewers will be a star attraction at the Science Museum’s Robots exhibition when it opens next week. | A robotic swan that entranced Mark Twain and generations of other viewers will be a star attraction at the Science Museum’s Robots exhibition when it opens next week. |
| The banal truth behind the piece – the nuts and bolts, levers and cogwheels that for almost 250 years have powered a lifesize silver swan to play music and catch a golden fish out of a crystal stream – has been laid bare in a workroom at the west London museum. | The banal truth behind the piece – the nuts and bolts, levers and cogwheels that for almost 250 years have powered a lifesize silver swan to play music and catch a golden fish out of a crystal stream – has been laid bare in a workroom at the west London museum. |
| The swan, on loan from the Bowes Museum in County Durham, is so loved that it has never left the premises except for conservation reasons, and the loan to the Science Museum is for only six weeks of the seven-month exhibition. | The swan, on loan from the Bowes Museum in County Durham, is so loved that it has never left the premises except for conservation reasons, and the loan to the Science Museum is for only six weeks of the seven-month exhibition. |
| When the swan was first displayed in the 18th century, admission cost the enormous sum of five shillings. Twain, the Huckleberry Finn author, who saw it in an exhibition in Paris in 1867, wrote: “I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes, watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as if he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop.” | When the swan was first displayed in the 18th century, admission cost the enormous sum of five shillings. Twain, the Huckleberry Finn author, who saw it in an exhibition in Paris in 1867, wrote: “I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes, watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as if he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop.” |
| The exhibition curator, Ben Russell, said: “It’s not the most complicated robot ever built, but if the aim of the automaton inventor was to create a mechanism imitating real life – then the swan is as close to perfection as you’re going to get.” | The exhibition curator, Ben Russell, said: “It’s not the most complicated robot ever built, but if the aim of the automaton inventor was to create a mechanism imitating real life – then the swan is as close to perfection as you’re going to get.” |
| The swan was made in London in 1773 by John Joseph Merlin, a creator of mechanical marvels, musical instruments and inline skates. A century later it was bought from a Parisian jeweller for £200 by John and Josephine Bowes, for the museum they were building. | The swan was made in London in 1773 by John Joseph Merlin, a creator of mechanical marvels, musical instruments and inline skates. A century later it was bought from a Parisian jeweller for £200 by John and Josephine Bowes, for the museum they were building. |
| It has been a treasure and a torment to the museum ever since it arrived in County Durham in thousands of pieces, without an instruction book. | It has been a treasure and a torment to the museum ever since it arrived in County Durham in thousands of pieces, without an instruction book. |
| “When it came to us first it took years to put it together – and we have absolutely no records of how it was done,” Karen Barker, antiquities conservator, said. | “When it came to us first it took years to put it together – and we have absolutely no records of how it was done,” Karen Barker, antiquities conservator, said. |
| In the 1960s it needed repairs, and was sent to two clockmakers who turned the job down, and finally to an engineer at Durham University who spent years working on it, simplifying the mechanism and building a sturdy frame, but again the museum has no records of exactly what he did. | In the 1960s it needed repairs, and was sent to two clockmakers who turned the job down, and finally to an engineer at Durham University who spent years working on it, simplifying the mechanism and building a sturdy frame, but again the museum has no records of exactly what he did. |
| In 2008 Barker and Matthew Read, a horologist who teaches at West Dean College, dismantled the swan, recorded and cleaned every part, and reassembled it – and learned for the first time that it had more than 2,000 moving parts, including 139 crystal rods, and 113 rings in the neck alone. | In 2008 Barker and Matthew Read, a horologist who teaches at West Dean College, dismantled the swan, recorded and cleaned every part, and reassembled it – and learned for the first time that it had more than 2,000 moving parts, including 139 crystal rods, and 113 rings in the neck alone. |
| “We estimated it would take us three months – we were out by months. In the end we got it finished with six hours to spare before the grand public reinstatement,” she said. | “We estimated it would take us three months – we were out by months. In the end we got it finished with six hours to spare before the grand public reinstatement,” she said. |
| They are working on it again with another clockmaker and former pupil of Read’s, Sean Martin. Although it was transported with meticulous care, parts of the delicate mechanism had shifted and loosened on the journey, and weaknesses in previous repairs were exposed. | They are working on it again with another clockmaker and former pupil of Read’s, Sean Martin. Although it was transported with meticulous care, parts of the delicate mechanism had shifted and loosened on the journey, and weaknesses in previous repairs were exposed. |
| “We’re already a day behind and rising,” Read said, “but we’ll get there, it’s not going to defeat us.” | “We’re already a day behind and rising,” Read said, “but we’ll get there, it’s not going to defeat us.” |
| A demonstration of the Silver Swan working will be given on many days of the Robots exhibition, and on weekdays at 10.25am between 20 February and 23 March. The Robots exhibition will be at the Science Museum from 8 February until 3 September. |