It was during a Cricket match, one balmy afternoon in the summer of 1897, that Professor Maximillian Whistlecraft was informed of England’s forthcoming destruction.

His friend and fellow tinkerer at the outer boundaries of science and engineering, one Herbert Wells, had just returned from a brief jaunt into the near future through the use of his Extraordinary Temporal Conveyancer, and had a shocking tale to relate. In only a few short years hence the green and pleasant land of good old Blighty would be overrun by a dastardly Martian invasion force, the likes of which could barely be comprehended. As part of the invasion, Herbert had witnessed the razing of his friend’s own residence near Horsell Common and had hastened at the earliest opportunity to warn the good fellow of the impending danger.

Professor Whistlecraft had several years to make safe his home and family before the interplanetary scourge descended. He considered simply moving house, but could not bear to pass his doom to another poor unsuspecting soul. And from this initial conviction he vowed to save not just himself but the whole of the English populace. He concluded the best way to achieve this was not to engage the wretched invaders in battle but simply move everybody out of their way.

Luckily his previous scientific researches and engineering dabblings had uncovered a way to instantaneously move objects and persons from one place to another. He concluded that with a Translation Engine of a suitable size and power he might move everything in England out of harms way. He consulted books, talked with eminent Astronomers, Geologists and Botanists and decided that the best destination would be a small blue green planet circling a star at the edges of the visible galaxy. He was assured this would be a world much like the Earth we know, but with the additional bonus that due to a peculiarity of its orbit it would have two tea-times.

He realised that he could not expect the good people of England to abandon all they knew for some strange new world on the strength of a single man’s word, no matter how honourable the gentleman. So he concluded that a mechanised workforce should be sent ahead to build all that the future inhabitants would expect of a decent English society, in order to ease their transition.

To this end he re-fitted a number of his automated servants, built some new ones and gave them all careful instructions on what to do at their destination. He also tutored his mechanical creations in methods to create more like themselves, to fit whatever purpose was required of them. He sent them off on the eve of the new century to build a new Empire amongst the stars and await his arrival.

He never came.

Two hundred years later they have never known the fate of their creator and his people. But they go on doing what he instructed. Building a bigger and better and more decent society for all Mechtorians and for all those who may, some day, still arrive.

The first Mechtorian character appeared in 2006. Since then over 300 different pieces have been created along with 20 different toys with a total of 88 variations, countless drawings and numerous pieces of related merchandise.

Each character’s short biography (originally intended only as a little enlightenment to the viewer of that piece), have over time knitted together in an organic fashion to weave the larger story of the “people” of Retropolis. The mythos of the Mechtorians grows and deepens with the introduction of each new character and is an ongoing process.

Collected here for the first time are the majority of the pieces created over the last decade. With all new images each remastered from the original photographs, Mechtorians are presented in more detail than ever before.