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Documents relating to Muriel Binney's inventions

Date1908-1937

Object numberANMS0233

NameArchive series

ClassificationsEphemera

Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Jerry Grover

Terms

DescriptionThis archive series numbered [001] - [014] consists of material relating to amateur artist and inventor Muriel Binney's designs, including her bassinet/cot, body harness, and portable shoe stand. It includes Binney's 1908 certificate of patent; design specifications from 1908 and 1930; a flyer for Binney's portable shoe stand; five letters regarding designs and patents; a photograph of the Warren Lodge Cot; two receipts and an admission ticket to the 1930 international exhibition of inventions.HistoryMuriel Mary Sutherland Binney (1873-1949), was an amateur artist and inventor. She lived at Warren Lodge, Elizabeth Bay, with her surgeon husband Edward and sons John and Richard. In 1907 Binney painted a 20-metre-long panorama of Sydney Harbour entitled ‘Sydney Harbour foreshores at sunset’. She produced the work for the First Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work in October 1907, and it was then selected for the Australian Pavilion at the Franco-British Exhibition the following year where it was awarded a silver medal. Binney used a variety of working and leisure craft to produce a balanced, harmonious and eye-catching panorama of harbour life. As a panorama it is unusual, completed at a time when most other examples of this genre were photographic. Although Binney did not put a price on her work, she was certainly aware of its commercial potential, and applied to copyright the design in 1907 and to reproduce a fold-out postcard or Christmas card of photographs of the frieze in panoramic format by Henry King. It was inventing rather than arts and crafts that Binney pursued in later years, exhibiting and patenting a cigarette smoker’s complete outfit, a portable shoe stand and travelling case, and a body harness to redistribute body weight when using a crutch.