Spectacles for horses, a bicycle railway and a steam-powered man that can pull carts filled with people.

These are just some of the wacky inventions that were designed by innovative Victorians looking to make the next big technological breakthrough.

They are documented in a series of black-and-white illustrations that were uncovered by Caroline Rochford, an author and family historian from Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Bizarre breakthroughs: The steam man, left, was invented by a Canadian professor in 1893 to pull wagons filled with people. The sunshade, right, was designed in 1885 for British soldiers fighting in the Sudanese desert

Future of commuting? Those using the bicycle railway, pictured, pedaled on an inverted bike that rode along a single track on top of a wooden fence. Plans for the innovative network were scrapped after five years

Mrs Rochford came across the images in a collection of rare magazines from the late 1880s while carrying out research for the genealogy company she runs with her husband, Michael.

She said: 'The volume was packed with articles about everyday life in Victorian times, and as soon as I saw the illustrations of the latest inventions of the day, I was hooked.

'I loved their charm and quaintness, as well as the diversity of technology, from an automatic egg-boiling machine, which was no doubt the Victorian housewife's dream, to a steamship made out of paper!'

Diagrams of hundreds of long-forgotten inventions are published alongside insights into Victorian life in Mrs Rochford's book, Great Victorian Inventions: Novel Contrivances & Industrial Revolutions.

One striking illustration taken from the book shows the steam-powered man, which was invented in about 1893 by a Canadian professor named George Moore.

Professor Moore dreamed that all tasks would one day be carried out by robots and set about building a mechanical man, made of steel and tin and powered entirely by steam, that would pull a wagon filled with commuters through city streets.

Seeing things more clearly: Mr Dolland, from the opticians Dolland & Aitchison, developed a set of bi-focal spectacles for horses, shown in the photograph, in order that the animal might see distant objects more clearly

The futuristic figure was said to have stood six feet tall and could walk at a brisk pace of five miles an hour.

The trunk of the figure, which looked like a knight in armour, contained the furnace, boiler and engine, and the limbs the mechanisms for walking. It is not known what became of the steam man.

While Professor Moore's endeavours in early robotics amounted to a quirky one-off piece, other early Victorian inventors came closer to reaching the mass market.

Inspired by the success of the railroad, an unnamed American inventor from New Jersey, came up with the idea of a bicycle railway.

His single rail was mounted on a wooden fence, and an inverted bicycle - with wheels above the handlebars - was placed on top.

Saving lives? The Whitby lifebuoy (left) was a safety device that could be found on board Victorian ships. Right: A woman holds the hand-grenade fire extinguisher (left hand), billed as a way to put out small house fires

All-terrain vehicle: The road and river cycle was introduced in America for travelling across roads and rivers in a single vehicle, thereby eliminating the inconvenience of having to travel for miles around stretches of water

There was no danger of falling of, and no need to use any form of steering, which meant commuters could freely look about and enjoy the scenery. It also combined exercise with travel.

Though plans were underway to double the track for coming and going passengers - and also to provide stations at intervals which offered fresh supplies of vehicles - the bicycle railway closed down just five years after its opening.

Similar trials were made in England across Norfolk, Great Yarmouth and Blackpool, but by the turn of the century this unusual mode of transportation fell out of favour and the tracks were ultimately dismantled.

Other inventions, like the sunshade that was designed for soldiers in the desert, sought to tackle smaller-scale problems.

Doomed: The aerodrome, pictured, was invented by Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley. It crashed shortly after takeoff on its first flight, paving the way for the Wright brothers to invent their own flying machine

Early animator: In 1893 a French inventor named Charles-Émile Reynaud developed his own motion picture technique based on the same principle as the zoëtrope, above. He later transposed the same principle to drawings, and was ultimately responsible for showcasing the first ever animated cartoon at a public exhibition

The sunshade was conceived by the women in the National Aid Association, who wanted to make life more comfortable for the British soldiers involved in the bitter Sudan Campaign of 1885.

The drawing of the invention shows a man with a kind of sunshade made from paper and bamboo, worn as a virtually weightless backpack - leaving his hands free to carry a notepad and pen.

Mrs Rochford said that while the majority of the inventions that are featured in her book were made by the inventors, very few of them stood the test the time.

She said that her favourite invention is probably the first one she saw when she opened the book: an office chair railway.

She said: 'It ran from a clerk's desk to the different bookshelves in his office, so he didn't have to keep getting in and out of his seat all day. 'I think it would be fun to re-invent that!'

Mrs Rochford, who runs Heir Line Ltd with her husband, is now planning a follow-up book entitled Great Victorian Discoveries, which will be published next year.