John Joseph Merlin proves that even the most successful people have very bad days. The man was a mechanical genius with an exhausting curriculum vitae. He made and played musical instruments, constructed fine clocks, built wheelchairs and robots, ran a museum, invented a barrel organ, and experimented with perpetual motion machines. But he still found time for socialising. In fact, John Joseph was a bit of a celebrity in 1770s London.
He lived on Oxford Street and moved with the smart set. He was mates with JC Bach (who played on his keyboards) and Thomas Gainsborough (who painted him).
Belgian by birth, Merlin had been persuaded to come to London as a technical adviser by the Spanish ambassador. People were having some difficulty understanding the chronometers invented by John Harrison of Longitude fame. Merlin did not have a lot of time for chronometers, but he clearly liked the city and decided to move there.
Just round the corner in Soho Square lived Mrs Corneily, a society hostess, who invited the Belgian inventor to one of her celebrated masquerades.
Merlin got a bit carried away. He had recently come up with the idea of fixing small metal wheels on shoes. These first roller skates were of the inline variety (as was to be the case for the next 100 years), which made stopping or turning extremely difficult. Nevertheless, Merlin decided to wear his skates to Mrs C’s do. He might have been all right... had he not decided it would be fun to play the violin at the same time.
What happened was recorded in the newspapers. Merlin, wearing his “ingenious novelties”, “impelled himself against a mirror of more than pound;500 value, dashed it to atoms, broke his instrument to pieces and wounded himself severely”.
He did not apply for a patent.
