The soldier, his robots and their global tour

Eric, believed to be Britain's first robot, was born in a Surrey garage in 1928

In a small motor engineering garage in Surrey in 1928, two men were hard at work creating what would become a futuristic global phenomenon.

Captain WH Richards had a problem – as secretary of the Society of Model Engineers, he was told the Duke of York was unable to open their annual exhibition in London.

Unsure what to do, Capt Richards, a veteran of the Boer War and World War One, declared that a mechanical engineering exhibition should be opened by a mechanical man.

And so, in a small garage in Shere owned by Alan Reffell, the pair spent five months building "Eric" - believed to be the first ever British robot.

Deborah Richards, Capt Richards' great-granddaughter, said: "At the exhibition, great-grandfather appeared with Eric on the stage.

"They went through a whole scenario with questions and demonstrated what Eric could do – he could stand up, take a bow, look left and right, and he delivered an opening address.

"He was a rather frightening figure."

Around the world

As word spread of Eric's display, Capt Richards, a journalist by trade, organised a four-month tour of America with Mr Reffell to showcase their creation.

But upon their return, the relationship between two creators soured and the pair split, with Eric going on tour with Mr Reffell.

In response, Capt Richards built "George", a new and improved version of the robot.

Captain WH Richards with George, the second iteration of the robot

George went on tour with Capt Richards and his son, WE Richards, across Europe and Australia, but galivanting was halted at the outbreak of World War Two.

After Capt Richards died in 1948 his son set about trying to discover what had happened to his father's creation.

Clinging on to titbits of information, Mr Richards eventually found photos of George in the possession of Diana Dors, the actress dubbed the "English Marilyn Monroe".

Ms Richards said that, after her grandfather's discovery, her father and uncle tracked down Dors and her husband Dennis Hamilton to ask for George back – but they would not give him up or say where he was being kept.

Rediscovering George

Years went by and the quest to find Eric and George fell by the wayside, but interest was again sparked in 2016, when the Science Museum began to rebuild a replica of Eric for its Robots exhibition the following year.

And in 2020 Shere historian Andrew Baker, having heard the tale, put a call out to find anyone who knew more about the robots.

He said: "We put an advert in the parish magazine and a gentleman rang up the next day very excited. He came in with a shopping bag and pulled out the head of a robot.

Deborah Richards going through family records of her great-grandfather's creations

"We showed it to the family and it turned out to be George."

With robotics now taking leaps and bounds into the future, what Capt Richards and Mr Reffell created in a garage in Shere now seems a far cry from the creations of today.

But what they created will remain a key part of the history of robots, embedded in its circuitry and cultural DNA.