Monday, February 20, 2006
Victorian Railway Gadget Quiz Results
last quiz, very few of you were even close. In fact I can't really say that anyone got the answers exactly correct.
The first item that some of you guessed was a nipple clamp or some sort of weighing device or even a curtain hanger, was in fact a Victorian Skirt Lifter:
As the description says "When climbing stairs or avoiding puddles the Victorian lady would pull on the leather strap attached to the lifter and up comes her skirt". It's an item that would have been easily used on the London Underground as the Victorians would have had far many more stairs to deal with on a regular basis as escalators were only introduced on the Tube in 1915, although some lifts existed before then.
 With picture two more of you were in the the right ball park with a number of you saying that it was a lantern or a torch or some form of light. However, no one got the exact answer of a Traveller's railway lamp.
The description says "This lamp would hang from a luggage rack and reflect light directly onto the newspaper reading traveller".
Soooooo, the nearest person to both answers was actuallly Nez with his short answer of "a clothespin and a torch". I wouldn't say the lamp is strictly speaking a torch as it's not hand held - but no one else guessed that it wasn't hand held either. And Nez was the only person to mention something clothes related with the first guess. So Nez is the lucky winner of The London Underground - a Diagrammatic History by Douglas Rose, kindly donated by Graham O'Mara.
By the way, the "Wonderously Wacky Gadgets" exhibition, from where I took the pictures, is still on at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum and makes for an intriguing afternoon out. Up until 17th April you can "Come and delve into Maurice Collins bizarre collection and guess the obscure purpose of a host of eccentric contraptions....
Fascinating and humorous, this exhibition will intrigue and amuse and is a testament to human ingenuity and resourcefulness.."
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