Architect and Bartlett Professor of Architecture and Urbanism CJ Lim, told WIRED that Robinson's work and commentary doesn't feel dated. Gopnik adds: "Robinson's machines are eccentric; Goldberg's are practical -- you can build them, as in the game of Mouse Trap -- and so, because they are practical and buildable, they are, in another way, sinister. That his drawings are beautifully rendered and his contraptions set against fine landscapes or townscapes is an essential part of the joke. It was a book bursting with images and a nice size to hold (bigger than an average hard back but with a lighter weight feel.

The Heath Robinson Museum opened in October 2016 to house a collection of nearly 1,000 original artworks owned by The William Heath Robinson Trust. By the 40s he even had a BBC radio programme trying -- somewhat absurdly -- to advise children on how to draw. By 1900, when he illustrated Poe’s Poems, he was acclaimed as a ‘worthy disciple of the modern school of penmen. In his early drawings, he set out to satirise the pomposity, fussiness and self-importance of ‘experts’. At the time of Heath Robinson's death in 1944, only a minority of the public remembered his work as a serious illustrator.The British are still a nation of garage-haunting amateur engineers who will recognise the inhabitants of Heath Robinson’s world, with their pot bellies and pots of tea, archaic faces and sturdily commonsensical approach to the problems of existence. Elon Musk may be one of the most famous people in the world, but his name isn’t an adjective and if it were, it probably wouldn’t be for anything good. The phrase 'Heath Robinson', used to describe eccentric machinery, had entered the language by the First World War (the earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is of 1917).

Heath Robinson in ''British'' inside out in the way he never really lets you know what I thinks about while he is totally able to laugh at himself under his thick moustaches and spectacles. Robinson was one of the leading illustrators selected by Percy Bradshaw for inclusion in his The Art of the Illustrator (1917–1918) which presented a separate portfolio for each of twenty illustrators. id=GTM-PWMWG4" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

The creators of the 'Wallace and Gromit' films have acknowledged that many of Wallace's inventions owe a great debt to those of Heath Robinson. With illustrations salvaged from the family archives and commentary by Heath Robinson expert, Geoffrey Beare, Contraptions is the best possible introduction to the work of one of Britain’s great comic talents.

disputed (for: first dictionary appearances) – discuss] It became part of popular language during the 1914–1918 First World War as a description of any unnecessarily complex and implausible contrivance. Portly human operators and bystanders are oblivious to the absurdity of their creations, seemingly preferring to rely on gadgetry than perform simple manual tasks.