Robots in the West End
Andrew Walker of The Survey of Lincoln reports on the arrival of robots in the city in the 1930s.
The term ‘robot’ was a relatively new one in Britain in the 1930s. The country’s first humanoid robot, known as Eric (pictured), was invented by First World War veteran Captain William Richards, and aircraft engineer Alan Reffell, and displayed in 1928 at the Model Engineers’ Society exhibition in London.
It captured the public’s imagination, touring the world with its ‘brother’, George in the following years. Eric’s world tour included a visit to Lincoln’s Drill Hall in October 1933.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the word ‘robot’ was used regularly to describe almost anything of an automated nature. In the Lincolnshire press, ‘robot’ was employed regularly to refer to new automated traffic signals that began to appear in Lincoln from 1930 onwards, three years after they were used for the first time in Britain in Wolverhampton.
The first set of traffic lights in the city began operating at the junction of West Parade and The Avenue in Spring 1930 and the installation of five other sets of automated lights across the city’s road network soon followed.
These traffic lights – a term that began to be used regularly in the Lincolnshire press from about 1933 onwards – meant that the police officers and RAC scouts who had directed traffic at busy times at the West Parade junction, especially on busy bank holiday weekends, were no longer needed.
The selection of The Avenue and West Parade crossroads as the first site of robot traffic signals in Lincoln was largely prompted by a series of accidents that had occurred at the junction in recent years. In October 1926, the junction was described in one newspaper headline as ‘Lincoln’s danger spot’.
Lincoln’s City Surveyor, S.C. Baggott was in charge of the erection of the city’s first traffic lights, and the electrical connections were made by the City Electricity Department.
The controlling system used to operate Lincoln’s robot traffic signals, known as Co-ordiplex, was described as the ‘very latest pattern’ and the contract for their installation was issued to Forest City Electric Company of Manchester.
Road users in Lincoln did not, however, adjust easily to the arrival of the robots. The police regularly informed readers of the local press of the meanings of the light sequence - red, red-amber, green and amber – and reminded them that pedal cyclists and the drivers of horse-drawn vehicles should also obey the signals.
He strongly urged road users to obey the green ‘Go’ signal with caution ‘because there is always the possibility of somebody from the country who does not understand these signals crossing the junction when the signals are against him.’
By 1933, Lincoln’s Police Court was no longer taking a lenient view when rural visitors ignored the city’s lights. On 18 October, the Lincolnshire Echo reported, below the headline ‘Farmer puzzled by signals’, that a motorist from Gedney Marsh, Long Sutton, was fined for failing to observe a red light at the West Parade traffic lights.
Notwithstanding their unpopularity among some road users, the robots’ arrival at the intersection of West Parade and The Avenue in 1930 undoubtedly helped to reduce the number of accidents at this previously dangerous junction. Chief Constable Hughes declared in July 1931 that these lights were a complete success.
