Wordsworth Donisthorpe

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Wordsworth Donisthorpe (Leeds, March 24, 1847Shottermill, January 30, 1913)[1] was an English individualist anarchist[2] and inventor, pioneer of cinematography and chess enthusiast. His father was George E. Donisthorpe, an inventor as well, his brother, Horace Donisthorpe, was a myrmecologist.

Contents

[edit] Life


[edit] Political activism


[edit] Chess

In 1885 he was co-founder of the British Chess Association and the British Chess Club.

[edit] Inventor

Donisthorpe filed for a patent in 1876, for a film camera, which he named a "kinesigraph." The object of the invention was to:

facilitate the taking of a succession of photographic pictures at equal intervals of time, in order to record the changes taking place in or the movement of the object being photographed, and also by means of a succession of pictures so taken of any moving object to give to the eye a presentation of the object in continuous movement as it appeared when being photographed.[3]

Although unsuccessfully at first, in 1890 he produced, together with his cousin W. C. Crofts, a moving picture of London's Trafalgar Square. In 1889 they already patented this camera, and the projector necessary to show the motion frames.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] Works Online

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gaige, Jeremy (1987), Chess Personalia, A Biobibliography, McFarland, p. 96, ISBN 0-7864-2353-6 
  2. ^ Edward Bristow quotes Donisthorpe in the Westminster Gazette: "The Late Lord Bramwell, Tolstoi, Herbert Spencer, Benjamin Tucker, Vaillart, Auberon Herbert, J.H Levy, Kropotkin, the late Charles Bradlaugh, Yves Guyot, Caserio, and thousands of smaller fry, including myself, are anarchists". Bristow, Edward. "The defence of liberty and property in Britain, 1880-1914". . Yale University
  3. ^ Burns, R. W. (1998). Television: An International History of the Formative Years. London: Institution of Engineering and Technology. ISBN 0-85296-914-7. 
  4. ^ Herbert, S. (1998). Industry, Liberty, and a Vision: Wordsworth Donisthorpe's Kinesigraph. London: The Projection Box. ISBN 0-95239-413-8. 
  • Bristow, Edward (1975). "The Liberty and Property Defence League and Individualism". Historical Journal 18 (4): 761–789. 
  • Barker, Rodney (1997). Political Ideas in Modern Britain. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-07121-6. 

[edit] Bibliography

  • (1886) Empire and Liberty, a Lecture on the Principles of Local Government. London: Liberty and Property Defence League. 
  • (1889) Individualism, a System of Politics. London: Macmillan. 
  • (1893) Love and Law: An Essay on Marriage. London: W. Reeves. 
  • (1895) Law in a Free State. London: Macmillan. 

[edit] External links

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