John Joseph Merlin he wheeled about himself, with great facility to any part of the room." At an event held by Teresa Cornelys in Carlisle House, Soho Square, Merlin appeared somewhat disastrously on roller skates of his own invention. By April 1783 Merlin was putting his musical instruments and his automatons on display at his own museum. Advertisements invited readers to visit his Museum of Musical Instruments and Mechanical Inventions at No. 2, Princes Street, Hanover Square, London. Well-off Londoners could meet their friends at Merlin's Mechanical Museum in the afternoon or evening, pay to see the exhibits, and drink tea or coffee
John Joseph Merlin automated bird, was bought at the auction by Charles Babbage for 35 pounds. He had seen it as a child at Merlin's Mechanical Museum. John Joseph Merlin John Joseph Merlin (born Jean-Joseph Merlin, September 6, 1735 – May 8, 1803) was a clockmaker, musical-instrument maker, inventor and showman. He moved to England in 1760. By 1766 he was working with James Cox and creating automatons such as Cox's timepiece and the Silver Swan. By 1773 he was designing and making innovative keyboard instruments. In 1783 he opened Merlin's Mechanical Museum in Princes Street, Hanover Square, London, a meeting-place for the