Oswald Williams’ Ash Tray cod invention

This is one of the Oswald Williams crazy inventions which came into the Davenport Collection via his wife Rae Warwick. We know of no written patter for it, but John Davenport’s father Gus believed it was a portable ash tray. The story is that you can never find an ash tray when you need one, so you take this out of your pocket, knock the ash from your cigar or cigarette into the hole in the middle, and then fold the ash tray up again and put it in your pocket. The craziness is, of course, that the ash simply ends up on the floor. The Davenport Collection also contains an exercise book (illustrated) which is headed ‘Inventions and illustrated ideas for more’ in Rae Warwick’s handwriting. The book is full of some great ideas but, unfortunately, the ash tray is not mentioned. It is likely that Harry Hemsley was involved in some or all of the inventions.