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Bender's Automatic Mouse Trap,

The Bender’s Automatic Mouse Trap was manufactured in Germany in the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century. When a mouse steps on the platform, the trap door opens and the door closes, catching the mouse in the trap. The only way for the mouse to escape is vertically up the passage to the top of the trap where it is then forced through a small hole and then falls into a water-filled tin box and drowns. As it does this it re-sets the trap door, holding it open for the next mouse, enabling many mice to be caught at a time.

1 mousetrap: wood; tin; metal gauze

MERL 'Catalogue index' card – 'This ingenious mousetrap consists is of German manufacture, though it was probably used in England. It consists of three main parts, (a) a flat box, the bottom of which consists of a moveable tin platform whose sides are closed in by wire gauze. A trap door covers the entrance. (b) The upright part which consists of a wire gauze passage running at right angles to the box and (c) a round tin box at the back. All three parts are connected by a series of passages and holes. // To set the trap the trap door which slides between two upright pieces of wood is opened and some flour or other bait is placed on the platform inside the box. A projection on the top side of the platform keeps the door open. When a mouse steps on this platform its weight causes it to be depressed and consequently the catch holding the trap door open is released and the door closes catching the mouse within the trap. The mouse unable to return can only escape by one way, that is through the upright gquze [sic] passage that leads vertically to the top of the trap. At the top a metal strip stops its upward movement, but it is able to go through a small hole in the wooden back of the passage, and as it does so it falls into the water filled tin box at the back. As it does so however, it knocks against another thin slide of tin which is connected to the trap door entrance by a wire. The weight of the animal on this sensitive slide causes the trap door to be opened and the platform to jerk upwards, holding the door open for the next mouse to come along. The process can be repeated, the mice drowning in the box at the back. // Numerous instructions are written on the trap, some in German others in English. There are also pictures of four prize medals awarded in Trade shows to the trap. The trap is known as 'Bender's Automatic Mouse Trap'. At the back there is a coloured picture of a tabby cat drying its eyes with a hankerchief [sic], probably with grief at losing its mouse to the trap. // The trap is 10.5 inches high, 9 inches from back to front and 4 inches wide at its broadest part.', No Lavinia Smith No. recorded., At the time the trap was seen as the finest and most effective on the market. Named the ‘Bender’s Automatic Mouse Trap’, it was also referred to as the Capito Mousetrap in the early 20th century. As well as England, the device was sold in France, India, Spain, Hungary, and Russia. The largest producer of these mousetraps in the 1920s was the German company Gustav Wilmking. [Added by Tim Jerrome for the Further Afield project, 2024]

Dotzheim

1875-01-01 - 1924-12-31

Wood, Metal, tin

Rippon, Miss Dorothy May Lyddon (Agent)