1930 Ron Grumble Early Morning Waiter

In 1930 Ronald George Grumble, an instrument maker and inventor from Eltham, Kent, made a highly desirable automatic teasmade, the ‘Early Morning Waiter’, using both gas and electricity. His machine comprises a wooden plinth on which the entire apparatus was mounted, with a separate combined clock and time switch. A cylindrical brass vessel was filled with water. The vessel sat on top of a gas burner fitted with a pilot jet which was lit the night before. At a preset time the electric alarm clock triggered a solenoid in a glass box which opened a gas valve to heat the water. Gas was supplied to the ring, where it was immediately lit by the pilot light. When the water boiled, steam pressure forced it through a spout to a Crown Derby teapot sitting on a counterbalanced arm. When the pot was full its weight sank the arm, cutting off the gas and operating a switch to ring an electric bell hidden under the baseboard. This luxury device never went into production.