Weeks's Museum

From Benjamine Rush Memoranda of a Residence at the Court of London Comprising Incidents Official and Personal from 1819 to 1825. (1845)

Pages 46-49

March 5. [1819] Visit Week’s Museum, in Tichborne street, which consists chiefly of specimens of mechanism. There were birds that not only sung, but hopt from stick to stick in their cages; there were mice made of pearl that could run about nimbly; there were human figures of full size playing on musical instruments, in full band—though neither musicians, nor mice, nor birds, had a particle of life in them. There were silver swans swimming in water, serpents winding themselves up trees, tarantulas running backwards and forwards—all equally without life; in short, a collection too numerous and curious for me to attempt to describe. There were clocks of curious workmanship, and in great variety. Besides being musical, some of them, in the shape of temples, were ornamented in the richest manner. The proprietor said that his collection in clocks alone, was of the value of thirty thousand pounds Sterling. His entire collection he valued at four hundred thousand pounds. It was prepared for the Chinese market, where such articles would be in demand at the prices he put upon them; so he confidently said, though valuing some of the birds at a thousand guineas a-piece. He said that the government of China would not permit the English to have intercourse with then for such purposes, and seemed to be in present despair; but he added, that “one of these days England would oblige China to receive her wares, by making her feel the strong arm of her power.” The outside of this museum, looks like a common shop for umbrellas and other small wares; as, in fact, it is, in front. No one passing along would ever dream of what it contains as you advance inside and get towards the rear.

It may be taken perhaps, as one of the evidences of the immensity of London, that although I occasionally spoke of this collection in society afterwards, I hardly met with any one who had as much as heard of it. It was not, to be sure, a place in which to pass whole days, as in the British Museum, where I have been; that repository of the memorials of genus, science, literature, history and the arts; but it was a remarkable sample of that exquisite subdivision in mechanical genius, in a field bearing neither upon the useful arts nor fine arts, to be found only in a vast metropolis. The interior mechanism of the little spider, was said to be composed of more than one hundred distinct pieces. My attention had been drawn to the collection by a friend from Canada, with whom I went to see it.

From Leigh’s New Picture of London Samuel Leigh (1820)

Pages 387-388

This museum is in Tichborne-street, facing the Haymarket, where is exhibited some curious ad surprising mechanism. There is a Tarantula Spider, made of steel, that comes independently out of a box, and runs backwards and forward on a table; stretches out and draws in its paws, as if at will; moves its horns and claws, and opens them with ease. This singular automaton, that has no power of action than the mechanism contained in its body, must fix the attention of the curious. The thing might have been though impossible, on account of its smallness and difficulty, being composed of 115 pieces!--Subscriptions have been received for a museum, similar to that once unrivalled and brilliant assemblage of mechanism, jewelry, &c., exhibited by Mr. James Cox, in Spring-gardens, 1778. A specimen of that museum is shown—Two magnificent clocks, engaged for the emperor of China, at nine thousand pounds, in the form of temples, supported by sixteen elephants, and embellished with upwards of seventeen hundred pieces of jewelry, in the first style of elegance. Admission 2s. 6d.

John Timbs Curiosities of London: Exhibiting the Most Rare and Remarkable Objects (1868)

Page 606

Week’s Museum.--3, Tichborne-street, established about 1810, was famed for its mechanical Curiosities. The grand room, by Wyatt, had a ceiling painted by Rebecca and Singleton. Here were two temples, 7 feet high, supported by 16 elephants, and embellished with 1700 pieces of jewelry. Among the automata were the tarantula spider and bird of paradise. Week’s Museum, has long been dispersed; after his death, March 23, 1864, were sold many of the large mechanical pieces originally exhibited at his museum, comprising the large swan of chased silver; also temples, birdcages, clock and automaton figures, several with musical movements; also a great variety of clocks ad candelabra, miniatures, musical birdboxes, watches &c. The chased silver swan was in the Great Paris Exhibition of 1867.

The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences (1834 ) at 486

Sights of London

Weeks’s Museum

This curious and valuable assemblage of mechanical curiosities, which has for so long a time been before the public, and a detailed description of which has already appeared in the Literary Gazette, will next week, be disposed of by auction; and the Tarantula Spider, the Silver Swan, the Gold Canary Birds, the Musical Automata the Temple of Perpetual Fountains, the Radiating Stars, and the other extraordinary triumphs of skill and ingenuity of which it consists, will be separated, and will go to enrich private collections. Old recollections lead us to lament this extinction of one of the “Sights of London,” which, in our youthful days, and ere we had visited the metropolis, was always associated in our minds with Westminster Abbey, the Tower, St. Paul’s and its other “ferlies.”