Have You a Tiger In Your Family?

Rank : Captain

Biography :

William Henry Richards (known as ‘WH’) began his civilian career as a printer from which he progressed to becoming a journalist.
He first served as a soldier in the Royal North Devon Hussars (Yeomanry). He was awarded a National Riffle Association medal for "The Highest Possible Score" at Bisley; undated it is inscribed "Sgt W H Richards, late R.N.D.H." He served in 27th (Devonshire) Company of the 7th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry, which arrived in South Africa on 23.3.1900 and took part in the Boer War. He was later commissioned into The Leicestershire Regiment, from which in the rank of Lieutenant he transferred to The Sherwood Foresters on 26.10.1914, aged 46 years. He served in its 9th (Service) Battalion in Gallipoli from Aug 1915, and also staged through Greece and Lemnos. After the Allied withdrawal from Gallipoli he was at Alexandria in Egypt in mid-Feb 1916. The London Gazette (L.G. 11.10.1915) records him as a "Temporary Captain in The Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), from a Service battalion on 1.3.1916, but with seniority 12.10.1915". In the rank of Temporary Captain and aged 51 years, he relinquished his commission in the Labour Corps on 5.7.1919, and retained the rank of Captain. It is believed that, due to his age and skill as a journalist, he served as a war correspondent.
In his civilian career, at different times he was a journalist for the Plymouth-based Western Morning News, and later, The Manchester Guardian, The Illustrated London News and The Daily Sketch. He eventually settled in Camberwell, London. WH was a member of the Press Club in London and later, as he became more entrepreneurial, he was the proprietor of the London News Agency in Fleet Street, a speciality agency involved in sales and marketing.
WH was also an amateur engineer, keen on models and early technology. By 1928 he was Acting Secretary of the Society of Model Engineers in London in 1928, and had the idea to build a mechanical man, thus making the first British robot, which he called ‘Eric’. He took 'Eric' on a four-month promotional tour to the USA in 1929. He went on to conceive and have built an improved robot 'George' in 1930 by London-based Research Engineers Ltd and which he further co-developed with his son, W E (Ted) Richards, a motor engineer and WW1 veteran. They travelled extensively together promoting 'George' round Northern Europe (including France, Belgium, Germany and Denmark), culminating in a tour of Australia 1935/36. Little is known of 'George' after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
WH died in 1948, aged 80 years.
Much of the above comes from http://www.richardsrobots.com/captain-wh-richards.html, which is the copyright of 'Richards Family Robot Archive, 2017'

A report in the USA's Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper dated 20.2.1929 states: "Eric Robot, ‘the perfect man,’ made his first public appearance in America on the stage of the John Golden Theater, 58th St. and Broadway, yesterday afternoon.
"Eric arrived from England with Capt. William Henry Richards, secretary of the Model Engineering Association of England, 14 days ago, and plans a tour of the continent. Eric is the mechanical man invented by Captain Richards after many years of private experimental work, and was exhibited before the public for the first time 17 weeks ago in London.
"Eric is made of aluminum, copper, steel, miles of wire, dynamos and electro-magnets. His eyes are two white electric bulbs, and his teeth, or rather tooth, is a blue bulb which, on the command, ‘Smile, Eric,’ appears, accompanied by a sputtering sound. The upper half of Mr. Robot’s body, Captain Richards explained, is devoted to the speaking mechanism, and the rest to the movable parts. Eric made a five-minute speech yesterday, talking in an ordinary male voice. Eric was bombarded with questions by the audience, and having been posted with answers to hundreds of probable questions, made a fairly good showing.”

Date of Birth : 4.9.1868

Place of Birth : Bicklington, Devon

Date of Death : 25.12.1948

Place of Death : Guildford, Surrey

Civil Occupation : Journalist, Mechanical Inventor

Period of Service : 1900-01; 1914-1919

Conflicts : Boer War, WW1

Places Served : South Africa, Gallipoli, Greece, Lemnos, Egypt, France and Flanders