William Godwin's Diary

Events

These are two separate exhibitions – the London Panoramas on this date featured a night scene, Lord Nelson’s Victory of the Nile, which had opened in May, and also an ongoing View of Margate at Leicester Square. The Androides (sic) that Godwin is referring to were fully automated mechanisms on exhibit at 38 Norfolk Street, The Strand which were particularly recommended for youth – 'calculated to please and instruct both sexes'. The automata performed tasks such as spelling, writing, drawing, operating a telegraph – and The Times even boasted of a 'Highland Oracle'.

See The Times, 27 July, 1 May, and 6 July, 1799.