Indestructible!

Henry Greenwood (1879-1912) was ahead of his time with his Robot designs. He is famous for concentrating on development of very powerful Robots ( called "Metal Men" in his lifetime, a term first used to describe the railroad Robots designed by American Simon Kelly, "Kelly's Metal Men").

Greenwood lived for all of his life on the Wirral in the North West of England. He developed his three prototype powerful lifting Robots whilst working as a Shipping Engineer at Camel Lairds Shipyard in Birkenhead. Greenwood was supported in his ventures by his wife Catherine and his sister Sarah. Catherine was fascinated by Henry's radical and ingenious designs and used her own private wealth from her family's department stores in the North West of England to fund development of the Metal Men. Greenwood, his wife and his sister all arranged to take the prototypes to America where they would meet with automobile producer Henry Ford who had expressed a serious interest in both using and mass producing the Metal Men.

Sadly Henry Greenwood lost his life alongside his wife when the Colossus sunk on 15th April 1912. His sister Sarah survived and carried on her brother's work in the field of Robot development. She moved to Robot City in 1935 and married Terrance Kelly the grandson of Simon Kelly.

Disaster at Sea

All three of Greenwood's Metal Men were believed to have been lost with the Colossus. They were last seen helping lift a jammed lifeboat into the water and aiding passengers before their weight sent them plunging to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. They would have been just a footnote in history had not one of them reappeared in 1972.

On 6th April 1972, almost 60 years after the Colossus sank, Metal Man Number 2 clambered out of the water and onto the quayside at St. Margaret's Harbour in Robot City. It promptly seized up. The moment was captured by a passerby who took a photograph of his two sons posing alongside Metal Man Number 2. They were joined by a Robot City Police Officer and a Harbour Robot.

Metal Man Number 2, soon dubbed "Greenwood's Indestructible Man", was holding Henry Greenwood's bowler hat, its own ticket for passage on the Colossus and two of Henry Greenwood's leather cases. Sealed within one of these and still legible were Greenwood's notes on Metal Men development. It transpired that in some aspects he was way ahead of his time, most especially the water tight battery packs that powered his Metal Men. The notes and the Robot itself, when examined proved to be instrumental in the development of Curtis the Colossal Coast Guard Robot.

The second suitcase contained all of Henry Greenwood's socks and is now on display at the Robot City Museum of fashion as some of the socks were handmade by Italian designers.

"Greenwood's Indestructible Man" had other surprises to offer up. It had mapped the Ocean floor and the information contained in it's circuits yielded up the location of the Colossus. It had also recorded invaluable information on the formation of icebergs and the migration of Whales. It's own guidance systems had been damaged in the Colossus Disaster and it was more or less luck that it had finally arrived at Robot City. It's final secret was the information that Metal Men numbers 1 and 3 had also survived and were still out there on the seabed searching for safe harbours and carrying on their operational duties.

"Greenwood's Indestructible Man" is now one of the most famous exhibits in the Robot City Museum of Robot History. When it was installed there a year after it's arrival Henry Greenwoods Sister Sarah was able to attend the ceremony. Even though she was in her 80s at the time she was still involved in Robot research through The Greenwood Institute which she had set up to honour her brother in 1948.

The story of Greenwood's Metal man is told in the ROBOT CITY adventurous graphic novel "The Indestructibe Metal Man"