A D V E N T U R E S   in   C Y B E R S O U N D

Summary

In November, 1886, Louis Le Prince, an inventor and scientist living in New York, N. Y, applied for a U.S. patent covering a photographic camera which would expose successively a number of images of the same object or objects in motion and reproduce the same in the order of taking.

Although the patent granted him on January 10, 1888 (U. S. Pat. 376,247), described a camera having sixteen lenses, it is shown that the original application specified one or more lenses. His British patent No. 423, accepted Nov. 16, 1888, provided for both a camera and projector with one lens as well as multiple lenses.

A lot of Le Prince's important work was done in England and France from 1887 to 1890 with a single lens camera, at least two of which were built and used. Descriptions are included of these cameras as well as a multiple lens camera.

Evidence is introduced concerning the design of the cameras, such as the use of the Maltese cross intermittent movement, and of the building of and demonstrations with a projector.

Le Prince was educated in colleges at Bourges and Paris and did post-graduate work in chemistry at Leipsic University, which was very useful for his future career. He was a born artist, and, after some training in Paris, took up oil painting and pastel portraits; he also specialised in the painting and firing of art pottery.

In 1866, he met a friend, John R. Whitley ², who afterward became famous as the builder and organiser of the first exhibitions at Earl's Court, and also as the builder of Le Touquet in France. He invited him to Leeds. and Le Prince decided to remain and join the firm of Whitley Partners, brass founders, of Hunslet, as designer, afterward taking charge of the valve department.

In 1869 he married Miss Whitley, who had been trained as an artist under Carrier Belleuse, the director of the Government pottery of Sevres. His father-in-law, Joseph Whitley, was a remarkably clever inventor, who introduced, among other things, the method of spinning large cylinders and pipes from molten metal.

During the Franco-Prussian War, as an officer of volunteers, Le Prince went through the siege of Paris. After returning to Leeds, he and Mrs. Le Prince started a school of applied art in Park Square, the first of its kinds in Leeds.

Le Prince carried out colour photography on metal and pottery and fixed the colours in a special kiln. He executed commissions for Royalty and his portraits of Queen Victoria and W. E. Gladstone were placed in the foundation stone of Cleopatra's Needle, along with other records of the time.

In 1875 the series of photographs taken by Eadweard Muybridge at Palo Alto, Calif., were published, and Le Prince was attracted to the idea of producing a series of photographs, in other words, motion pictures with one camera. Muybridge employed about two dozen separate cameras, and his mode of taking the photographs in sequence was limited and not suitable for reproducing the illusion of motion.

Le Prince had been working at this for some time, when, in 1881, his brother-in-law, who had become interested in the Lincrusta-Walton process, invited him to go to New York to assist in introducing that process. He went, and, on the patent rights being sold to an American company had to find something else to do.

Mrs. Le Prince and the family had joined him meanwhile and deciding to stay on, he became manager of a group of French artists who produced large circular panoramas. One in New York showed the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac. Others were in Washington and Chicago.

Jean Le Roy, of New York, who was employed by Joseph T. Thwaites, the English photographer, from 1872 to 1879 and from 1882 to 1888, has written as follows:

"I met and became acquainted with Le Prince about the spring of 1884, when he came to my employer's studio and photograph gallery at No. I Chambers Street, New York City. I recollect an order was for a number of lantern slides of military scenes, that he explained were to be made to scale so that he would be able to project them without any varying sizes or proportions. It was to help him to make outline drawings on canvas to be used in a panorama of war. This was built at 59th St. and Lexington Ave., in later years converted into the 71st Regt. Armory, and now the site of the Plaza Theatre. The last time I saw Le Prince was in 1887."

At this time, Mrs. Le Prince was teaching art at the Institute for the Deaf on Washington Heights. New York, N.Y. Her husband became friendly with the principal, Isaac Lewis Peet, and was permitted to use the tools and facilities of the institution's well-equipped workshop. Joseph Banks, the mechanic, who is still living in New York, assisted Le Prince in the constructional work and recalls the early attempts to make motion picture machines.

When a child of 14, Miss. Le Prince went one evening to the institute. Seeing a light shining under the door, she entered and saw her father and Joseph Banks operating a machine which threw dim outlines of figures on the whitewashed wall and thus the first projected motion pictures of Le Prince, the earliest in America, were screened in the Institute for the Deaf.

In 1886 Le Prince drew up a specification giving full details and working drawings, and applied for an American patent in November of that year. Three clauses of the application read as follows:

(I) The successive production by means of a photographic camera of a number of images of the same object or objects in motion and reproducing the same in the order of taking by means of a projector or deliverer thereby producing on the eye of the spectator a similar impression to that which would have been produced by the original object or objects in motion.

(2) In an apparatus for producing animated pictures the continuous alternate operation of the film and its corresponding shutter or series of shutters.

(4) As a means of producing animated pictures on a photographic receiver provided with one or more lenses and one or more shutters, in combination with one or more intermittently operated film drums.

Being a good mechanical draughts-man, he made his own drawings for the specification and showed the most difficult proposition. namely, a machine with 16 lenses. It is important, however, to note that his specification, as first filed, covered any number of lenses from one upward.

On January 10, 1888, the U. S. Patent Office in Washington granted his patent, No. 376,247, entitled "Method of, and Apparatus for, Producing Animated Pictures." They, however, cut out claims for machines with one lens and with two lenses, giving as the reason that Dumont's British patent No. 1457 of 1861 was an interference.

Le Prince was in England at the time and did not know that this had been done until it was too late for effectual protest. His patent attorneys, Munn and Co, very foolishly permitted his patent to be issued without challenge, and so it stands in the American records.

Many consider the attitude of the Patent Office to have been wrong because the Dumont patent was in no sense a motion picture device. It was for photographs on glass plates, arranged to form the facets of a prismatic drum, the object being to enable one to choose the best single photograph out of several successive ones. Dumont's object was not to show continuous movement by projecting pictures on a screen, which was the purpose of Le Prince.

In a statement of his father's claims, made in 1898, Adolphe Le Prince wrote quite fairly that:

"He was the first investigator to grasp the value and necessity of an unlimited amount of pliable film, moving from a supply drum, on Which it was wound as many times as desired; not just a circumference length as Dumont had in mind. In the Le Prince apparatus the part of the film acted on was, at that instant, between the upper and lower drums, and therefore flat, being additionally aided by a clamping pad and tension device; this enables the Le Prince apparatus to take large pictures, and yet have perfect focus; both these points are primary necessities for good projection of Animated Pictures on a screen."

"Marey, in 1885-1886, working independently on somewhat the same lines as my father, added greatly to the understanding of Animal Locomotion and its more specific allies, but he had not used an endless pliable film, nor a means for definitely cutting off one phase from the next. His work has been given the credit it deserves"

Miss M. Le Prince, who saw pictures which her father took between 1885 and 1887, and which he projected on a wall of the Institute for the Deaf, has stated that some were taken with a single-lens camera-projector, and others with a four-lens camera. The pictures were about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

It is important to note that his British patent No. 423, applied for on the date of the issuance of his American patent, January 10, 1888, and accepted November 16, 1888, provided for a "receiver" (camera) and "deliverer" (projector) with one lens as well as multiple lenses. Otherwise it differs in no other essential particular from his United States patent.

Later, similar patents were issued by France, Italy, Austria, and Belgium, without the Dumont patent or any other being cited against them.

Obviously, if a machine could be designed and made to work with 16 lenses, it was easier to make it with 8 or 4, and easiest of all with only one. We do know that practically all Le Prince's most important work was done with one-lens machines. The camera which Le Prince made in Leeds in 1887-1888 had only one lens, as Mr. Frederic Mason (who helped to make it) and myself have repeatedly stated. (See Appendix) This is fully demonstrated by the actual machine now in the Science Museum, London.

Le Prince returned to England in May, 1887, and then stayed with his mother in Paris. While there he gave attention to the taking out of his French and other continental patents. To facilitate this and demonstrate proof of working as it is called, he made a camera-projector with 16 lenses (Fig. 2)

The lenses were operated by an ingenious system of double shutters worked by a series of electromagnets connected to a battery and a circular electric switch. On rotating the handle of the switch, the shutters operated in regular and rapid succession. Two additional lenses were provided as view finders, one for each film, in conjunction with a bellows at the back of the apparatus; focusing could be done while the machine was working.

Several sets of motion pictures were taken, including one of the mechanic who assisted Le Prince to make the machine. They were projected on a screen in the Paris Opera House on March 30, 1890. The Secretary of the National Opera made a statement, of which the following is a translation:

"I the undersigned, Ferdinand Mobisson. secretary of the National Opera. Paris, residing am 38 Rue de Mauberge. certify by this present to have been charged with the study (or examination) by means of the apparatus brought before me. of the system of projection of animated pictures. for which Mons. Le Prince. Louis Aime Augustin of New York, United States, has taken out in France patent rights dated the 11th of January 1888 having the number 188,089 for "Method and Apparatus for the projection of Animated Pictures in view of the adaptation to Operatic Scenes" and to have made a complete study of this system.

In faith of which, I have delivered time present certificate to serve whom it may concern.

Paris. March 30th, 1890.

(Signed) F. Mobisson"

Before going to Paris he had been to see William Mason and Son, wood-workers, of 150 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, and secured the services of Frederic Mason to make parts of cameras, etc. On returning to Leeds, he rented a workshop at 160 Woodhouse Lane and employed as assistant a clever mechanic, James Longley. who had done work for him at Rhodes Bros., Engineers, of Leeds. Some of the metal work was also carried out at Whitley Partners, his father-in-law being much interested in the invention. J W. Longley was also an inventor and made the first machines to deliver tickets automatically with a coin-feeding mechanism. They were used at the Leamington athletic ground, Leeds.

The film, 2 1/2 inches wide, is wound from one to the other of a pair of ebonite spools about six inches in diameter, one above the other. The top one is revolved intermittently by a cam bearing a number of teeth which engages with projections on the hub of the spool. The film is thus drawn up through the "gate" behind the lens in a series of jerks. At each exposure, it is held fast by a flat brass plate also operated by a cam. The plate moves back slightly when the film is being pulled through, to prevent scratches . Many years later, this last device was claimed by firms as being original with them.

Light is cut off from the film during movement by a circular slotted brass shutter which revolves behind the lens in the same way as in modern machines. The shutter is a robust affair, and the opening in it is adjustable. Focusing is accomplished by means of a rack and pinion movement operated by a lever at the side, the front bearing the lenses and shutter being moved backward and forward. There is, of course, a finder lens attached above.

To assist in promoting smooth, even motion the spindle of the lower spool carries a heavy brass flywheel. The intermittent drive on the top spool was unvaried, whatever the amount of film the latter carried. Le Prince's assistant, James Longley, wrote:

"As the drum gets larger, it takes more material to go round. All we bad to do was simply rewind the band of pictures off the drums of the camera machine on to the drums of the delivering machine and start the delivering machine with the same end of band of pictures. They would travel at the same rate in both the machines."

A series of pictures (Fig. 5) was taken by Le Prince in 1888 in the garden of his father-in-law, Joseph Whitley, at the residence now called Oakwood Grange. Roundhay, and occupied by Sir Edwin Airey. and the window shown in the photographs can still be seen. His son. Adolphe Le Prince, wrote the following on a print of these pictures:

Portion of a series taken in early in October, 1888, by the second one-lens camera. Le Prince's mother-in-law its this picture died October 24. 1888. Le Prince's eldest son is also in the picture. as is his father-in-law. Taken from 10 to 12 a second. There was no trial of speed contemplated here.

The following statement was also made by him on prints of the series of pictures taken from a window of the premises of Hick Brothers, at the south-east corner of Leeds Bridge, which firm supplied Le Prince with tools and materials:

"Portion of a series taken by Le Prince with his second one-lens camera in October. 1888. A view of the moving traffic on Leeds Bridge. England. Taken at 20 pictures a second in poor light. His eldest son was with him when he took the picture".

Animated sequence of several frames from Le Prince's 'Leeds Bridge' film of 1888

Source: City of Leeds Website

James W. Longley wrote about them in the following characteristic way:

"Leeds Bridge where the tram horses were seen moving over it and all the other traffic as if you was on the bridge yourself. I could even see the smoke coming out of a man's pipe, who was lounging on the bridge. Mr. Augustin Le Prince was ready for exhibiting the above mentioned machine in public. We had got the machine perfect for delivering the pictures on the screen."

For taking these pictures, Le Prince used sensitised paper film, and one of the exhibits at the Science Museum is a reel of this material. It is on record that Le Prince used gelatin stripping film when Eastman introduced it. In any case he had no trouble in getting good photographs at 12 to 20 per second. The pictures of Leeds Bridge were on film 2 1/8 inches square.

To project the pictures was more difficult, for the reason that the film had to pass close to a lamp, and the heat made the material cockle or blister, and put the pictures out of focus.

His great problem was to obtain a suitable supporting base for his emulsion and, as mentioned in the specification, he tried horn, mica, hard gelatin sheets, and collodion sheets; also, at one time he used glass positives, attached to bands moved by sprocket wheels.

His patent specification refers to material carrying the film transparencies, reading:

"Punched with holes fitting on the pins of the guide rollers; also sensitive film for the negatives may be an endless sheet of insoluble gelatin, coated with bromide emulsion or any convenient, ready made, quick-acting paper."

His eldest son, Adolphe, who left a record of the experiments, stated that his father went to all the photographic supply houses in England, France, and the United States to obtain suitable material.

He obtained a supply of sensitised celluloid in sheets about a foot square, which he cut into positives and printed from the roll negative films. These he mounted on flexible, robust carrying bands.

Finally, the coming of long sensitised celluloid strip or film did away with the bands.

These particular reels were used for developing his exposed films, which were rolled up in the spool of celluloid, the whole being then immersed in the developer. The silver projections allowed space between each coil for the solution to reach the film. The celluloid is pierced with holes to allow the developer free access to the film. The strip has a matte surface on one side. This idea was patented years later by another inventor, but if the authorities had known of Le Prince's arrangement they would not have allowed the patent.

Examination of the clever mechanism of the camera and the construction of the spools gives the impression that Le Prince had the ability to cope with all the problems necessary to make motion pictures a commercial success. Had he lived, he would have been a master figure in the industry.

He had the usual characteristics of the true inventor, and was always making improvements. His projectors or "deliverers" went through many stages with the object of simplifying the mechanism.

In the winters of 1888-1889 he built a "deliverer", or projector, having three lenses and three belts, which is thus described by his son:

"In this machine the belts, at slight tension, were moved by teeth pulling in the eyelets of the three belts, and rapidly stopping and starting at equal intervals (depending on speed of rotation of main shaft) by means of three toothed wheels timed to correspond with the opening and closing of the three lenses. The opening and closing were governed by a slotted circular shutter, rapidly rotating on a shaft. A gear wheel on the end of this shaft connected with the feed gear, and completed the harmonious action of the feed shutter and stopping and starting device. This deliverer gave continuous illumination on the screen."

"He also constructed in 1889 a one-lens "deliverer", the picture belt being arranged in an endless spiral, the pictures appearing before the lens in rapid succession, storing automatically as soon as projected and released."

"g is the star wheel arrangement allowing the band to work at the proper time. The wheel with the pins is for gearing into the band of pictures and should have two rows of pins, one on each side and we had brass eyelets fixed in the band similar to the eyelets of boots."

Detail of camera sketch above

"Once developed and toned the transparencies may pass through the hands of artists who will tint them in transparent colours, dyes, or lacquers as the subject may require."

In 1889, Le Prince constructed a projector to work with one lens, and decided to use an electric arc light instead of oxy-hydrogen previously employed. For this purpose, he came to his friend, Wilson Hartnell, an electrical engineer, of Leeds, by whom I was employed. I went to see about it and entering the workshop at 160 Woodhouse Lane, saw his assistant, Longley, whom I had known for some years. Noticing a large sheet at the end of the room, I asked if it was for a magic lantern, and his reply was, "Much better than that; the pictures actually move and represent life."

In due course, the plant was installed, direct current being generated by a Crompton dynamo driven by a semi-portable Robey boiler and engine in Mason's yard. That was at No. 150, and permission was obtained to carry the cables over intervening buildings to No. 160.

A difficulty in recording the history of events is that those who were eyewitnesses die. However, I state positively that the projector and the camera worked with single lenses, and William Mason and Wilson Hartnell have told me about seeing Le Prince's pictures on the screen.

The unveiling of a tablet on Le Prince's workshop (Dec. 12, 1930) has brought forward letters from people who would not otherwise have been traced. One from Walter Gee, chief engineer to the British Barnsley Cooperative Society, says:

"I am very pleased to give my testimony about the pioneer work of the late Louis A. A. Le Prince and confirm what I know of particulars given in your pamphlet about the electric installation.

During the late eighties I was an electrician with Wilson Hartnell, M.I.Mech.E,. Consulting Engineer, of Basinghall Street, Leeds, and worked on the installation for the supply of electricity to an arc lamp in Le Prince's workshop at 160 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds.

Mr. Le Prince worked his projector machine and showed moving pictures on a white sheet hung at the other end of the room.

At the time of the first switching on, there was one other person present beside Mr. Le Prince and myself, namely, James W. Longley, who was his assistant.

I know nothing of details of construction of the projector machine, but I was very pleased to see it work so well. I noticed how Mr. Le Prince opened his mind as he was working it, for he had been very quiet up to then.

Regarding the time of the electrical installation, my recollection is that it was about the middle of 1889. In 1890, I came to Barnsley, to put in plants for the Barnsley British Co-operative Society, where I have been ever since and am chief engineer.

(Signed) Walter Gee."

J. T. Baron, chief electrical engineer of the Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras, 57 Pratt Street, London, N.W.l, writes:

"I well remember the occasion of Mr. Le Prince's experiments about 1889 in Woodhouse Lane, when, along with others of Mr. Wilson Hartnell's staff, I was sent to see about fixing up the equipment, consisting of a dynamo and electric arc projector, for what was known to us then as moving pictures.

I trust you will get further support for the interest you have taken in the recognition of Le Prince.

(Signed) I. T. Baron."

Arthur Wood, engineer and machinist, of 331 Pietermarita Street, Pietermaritzburg, Natal, wrote on the 25th of November, 1930:

"In 1888, two years prior to my leaving Leeds for South Africa, I was with the firm of Whitley Partners. Railway Works, Leeds. The head of the firm in those days was Mr. Joseph Whitley, a very capable man, one who would spend thousands of pounds in experiments for his business, and greatly interested in anything unusual.

I can very well remember Le Prince's invention, as, while I was with Mr. Joseph Whitley, I personally made mechanical parts of the projector, such as the pedestal, gears, chains, etc. I was shown the film for which it was made, and if my memory holds good this film was of a horse galloping, although I did not see it actually projected.

(Signed) Arthur Wood."

Certain people have said that Le Prince was not the pioneer he is claimed to be because he only made machines with multiple lenses. This mistaken idea has been helped by the description given in Hopwood's book, Living Pictures, and on seeing what he had written, I told the author he was wrong. Unfortunately after Hopwood died, Mr. Bruce Foster, also of the Patent Office, repeated the error in a second edition. He has, however, written me the following letter:

"I have been away for a few days and have been looking through the various documents you have sent me, more particularly in respect of the bearing of the information thereon in the relevant matter of Hopwood's Living Pictures for the second edition of which I must plead guilty.

There can be no question of fact that Le Prince's specification of 423/1888 includes the proposition of a one-lens camera and projector. The specification includes the following passages in addition to the claims cited on p. 7 of the pamphlet:

When the receiver is provided with one lens only as it sometimes may be, it is so constructed that the sensitive film is intermittently operated at the rear of the said lens which is provided with a properly timed intermittently operated shutter, and correspondingly in the deliverer, when only one lens is provided, the band or ribbon of transparencies is automatically cooperated so as to bring the pictures intermittently and in the proper order of succession opposite the said lens.

It is a matter for regret that this aspect of Le Prince's specification was not brought out clearly in the second edition of Hopwood's book. The reason probably was that the specification described in greater detail the multiple-lens construction. This fact cannot, however, be relied on to exclude a one-lens construction according to the specification.

If, as it would appear from the information you have, the film referred to on p. 6 of the pamphlet shows Mr. Whitley walking in the garden, and can be identified as taken with a one-lens camera. then, as Mrs. Whitley died on the 24th October, 1888, these facts alone would appear to date the one-lens camera as made before that date.

I am sorry the storm of controversy should be so tied up with the detailed paragraphs in Hopwood's Living Pictures, and apart from my regret that the existing text docs not give due weight to the one-lens proposition in the specification of 423/1888 if the story has to be rewritten it will have to be modified also in other particulars, in the light of new facts which were not put in my possession when the second edition was published.

(Signed) E. Bruce Foster."

Le Prince worked with collodion and gelatin for several years and, when living in New York, must have heard that Hyatt Bros., of Newark, were engaged on the problem. They made sheets of transparent celluloid by veneering it from a large block. Afterward it was made by spraying on glass.

John Carbutt sold sensitised celluloid sheets late in 1888, and showed this material and photographs made on it at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. in November of that year.

Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, of Newark, N.J., was evidently in touch with Hyatt Bros., for in 1887 he knew enough about the possibilities of celluloid film to apply for an American patent in that year. Dr. Marey, of Paris, is said to have used sensitized film in the late eighties.

There is very little doubt that long sensitized celluloid strip became available in 1889, and Le Prince had some reels of it in that year. Frederic Mason was employed to cut each reel into two to suit Le Prince's machines, as declared before a Commissioner. (See Appendix)

The 1889 patent of W. Friese-Greene and Mortimer Evans makes mention of sensitive photographic film; However. there is no special merit in mentioning a material which anyone could buy. If celluloid film had been on the market when Le Prince applied for his first patent 2 1/2 years before, i.e., in 1886, he would most certainly have mentioned it along with the other materials.

Le Prince had trouble with his film cockling and getting on fire with the heat of the lamp, and the water screen he made is thus described by Longley:

"It was made of two plates of glass and thick India-rubber put between and clamped with brass plates across, also two siphon tanks so that the water was continually changing."

They fully recognised that in the use of sensitized celluloid film the last hurdle had been cleared. It was the production of satisfactory transparent, pliable and robust films that finally brought motion pictures into commercial use in the middle nineties. In that work many inventors, engineers, and commercial men helped.

In the spring of 1890, Le Prince decided to return to his family in New York, and ordered special boxes to be made to carry his apparatus. These boxes recently came back to Leeds as containers of the original apparatus, which was shown at the unveiling of the memorial.

In preparation for showing her husband's apparatus and pictures, Mrs. Le Prince rented the Jumel Mansion in New York and had it redecorated. The home life of the family was ideal and she was a splendid helpmate.

"Proof of Working" of his first French patent was granted in June, 1890, and there is no doubt but that he then had business in that country. In August he went to France with his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Wilson, and left them at Bourges to visit his brother, an architect and surveyor of Dijon. He was last seen entering the train for Paris with his luggage. Intensive searches were made by French and English detectives, but not a single clue was ever discovered.

Some time after his disappearance, Mr. Richard Wilson collected such things as he thought worthy of preservation. As a banker he did not know their technical and historical value, and thus films, etc., were lost that would now be considered valuable. Charles Pickard, commercial photographer of Leeds, has the tripod of the camera and Frederic Mason picked up a few photographs.

It will be remembered that much the same thing happened in the case of Friese-Greene, practically all his apparatus being sold for junk only a few pieces of film being saved. In the case of Friese-Greene, no machines remain, but in the case of Le Prince there are two, fortunately, to testify to his ingenuity.

When it became certain that her husband was lost, Mrs. Le Prince consulted Mr. Choate, sometime American Ambassador to Great Britain, but all he could tell her was that she would have to wait until the death could be legally presumed which took seven years. In 1898 the eldest son visited England and France and took back to New York the camera and other things, some of which are now deposited in the Science Museum at South Kensington.

Appendix

Declaration of Frederic Mason³

"In 1887 I was near the end of my apprenticeship with my father's and brother's firm. Win. Mason & Son, joiners and contractors. of 150 Woodhouse Lane Leeds and one day there came to the works a Mr. Louis Augustin Aime Le Prince who previously had been with Whitley Partners of Hunslet and also had a Technical School of Art in Park Square. Leeds.

He said that he required some woodwork which must he very accurately made and it was given to me to carry out. During the next two years I was engaged almost continuously for Mr. Le Prince. I made all the woodwork and the patterns for metal castings.

I discovered that he was constructing apparatus for the purpose of taking photographs in rapid succession and projecting them on a screen, so as to give the illusion of motion; in other words - moving pictures.

Mr. Le Prince equipped a workshop at 160 Woodhouse Lane, now occupied by the Auto Express Company on which a bronze memorial tablet was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Leeds on December 12, 1930.

At this unveiling the camera which Miss M. Le Prince brought from New York was shown, and this I at once identified as the one I assisted to make and which was completed about the summer of 1888. It was constructed to scale drawings made by Mr. Le Prince; he was a very clever draughtsman. The metal parts were cast at Whitley Partners and machined and fitted by Mr. J. W. Longley, who was the mechanic of Mr. Le Prince,

The camera has two lenses, one being for taking the photograph and the other for the view finder. The gate mechanism behind the lens is constructed to hold the film firmly in position during exposure, and then to momentarily release it while being drawn upward without it being scratched. The intermittent movement consists of a toothed cam which engages with a projection on the side of the top reel, the latter pulling the film through the gate and also winding it up.

The handle projecting from the side of the camera operates the mechanism through gear wheels. A brass shutter revolves in front of the lens which has in it an adjustable diaphragm. Turning the handle at the proper rate enabled pictures to be taken at the desired speed.

For his cameras Mr. Le Prince used sensitised paper film and gelatin stripping film. Miss Le Prince brought along with the other apparatus a reel of the paper film which was found in the camera.

In the early autumn of 1888 the camera was used for photographing a series of pictures, at about 12 per second, in the garden of Mr. Joseph Whitley, father-in-law to Mr. Le Prince. In them Mrs. Joseph Whitley is shown, and as she died on 24th October, 1888. this conclusively shows that the series was taken before that date.

Another series, taken about the same time but at a higher speed, was from a window of Hick Brothers, Ironmongers, from whom he had purchased tools and materials. Their premises are at the south-east corner of Leeds Bridge, and the pictures showed very clearly the moving of traffic across the bridge.

Mr. Le Prince found the construction of the projecting machine much more difficult than the camera: it evolved through several stages, and when making changes existing parts were re-used as much as possible. One projector had three lenses, and was like a sketch of Mr. J. W. Langley's which he sent to Mr. Adolphe Le Prince in 1898. a photostat copy of which is in my possession (Fig. 7).

As indicated in his patent specification. Mr. Le Prince first dealt with the positive pictures by mounting them on bands, one material that he used being thin red fibre. Small holes were punched along the edges of the bands to engage with pins in the sprocket wheels.

In his earlier experiments Mr. Le Prince used oxy-hydrogen lime-light, but when finally he was able to get quick enough movement of pictures to employ only one lens, then he decided to have an arc lamp. This involved installing an electric generating plant, and he called in the assistance of his friend. Mr. Wilson Hartnell electrical engineer, who lived close by in Blenheim Terrace.

He supplied a dynamo and arc lamp, and his men installed them and ran cables over the roofs of intervening buildings from our yard at 150 to the workshop at 160 Woodhouse Lane.

The dynamo was driven by belt from our semi-portable Robey engine and boiler, which I operated at night. I have reason to remember the first time because Mr. Le Prince sent round that he wanted a higher voltage, and I took the risk of placing extra weights on the safety valve in order to get more speed on the dynamo.

When the arc lamp was first switched on there were present, besides Mr. Le Prince, Messrs. J. W. Longley and Walter Gee, the last-named being an electrician for Mr. Hartnell. He is now chief engineer to the Barnsley Co-operative Society. They were the first people to see moving pictures projected with the arc lamp illumination. but afterward a few others had an opportunity, including Mr. Hartnell and my brother William; the latter said the pictures showed well except for some flickering.

It is important to note that details of the camera and projector with which Mr. Le Prince did his best work in Leeds departed considerably from those shown in his British patent No. 425 of 1888 and his United States patent serial 217,809 of 1886. It was his intention to take out further patents, and naturally he was therefore reluctant to show his machines.

Miss Le Prince brought back with the camera, etc., two long reels which her father had built up of strips, each about 3 inches wide and a foot long, fastened together and having silver along the edges to keep the layers apart. These he used for developing films.

At a later date, long reels of somewhat similar material, sensitised and nearly transparent, became available. It would be in the early autumn of 1889 that Mr. Le Prince came to me in high spirits to say he had obtained some rolls of sensitised film called celluloid. As these were too wide I cut them in halves on a lathe, working with a red lamp at night. The incident is clear in my mind because I had to wait until it was dark, about 9 p.m.

The coming of celluloid film solved the last difficulty, and in the spring of 1890 Mr. Le Prince decided to go to New York, where his wife and family were, to show moving pictures there. He ordered from Mr. Trinder, a maker of port-manteaux in Woodhouse Lane, special cases to hold the apparatus. The cases which Miss Le Prince brought back were the originals with the makers name still on them.

Before sailing he went to France to see about patent business, also to bid adieu to his brother, an architect and engineer of Dijon, who saw him off at the station en route for Paris on 16th September, 1890. Unfortunately, from that moment he disappeared completely and, although exhaustive enquires were made by detectives and members and friends of the family, no clue was ever found.

After waiting about a month, Mr. Longley and myself entered the workshop and found everything quite normal, the machines intact, and tools, drawings, photographs. as well as a quantity of discarded material, lying about. Mr. Richard Wilson, a friend of the family and manager of Lloyds Bank, Leeds, took charge of all the effects and proceeded to dispose of such parts as could readily be sold.

A large tripod I made for the camera passed into the possession of Mr. Charles Pickard, photographer, of Leeds. who showed it at the unveiling ceremony. I picked up a few relics, and am sorry now that I did not secure some exposed films and the drawings, as unfortunately nothing was done to preserve them. That they might have historical importance was not appreciated.

Mr. Wilson retained the camera, parts of the projector including a lens, the above-mentioned reels, and a machine with multiple lenses that Mr. Le Prince made in Paris in 1887 for the purpose of proving his patent They eventually went to Mrs. Le Prince in New York City, and were kept there until October, 1930, when they were brought back to Leeds by Miss Le Prince. They are now housed in the Science Museum, South Kensington, London.

In conclusion, I would say that Mr. Le Prince was in many ways a very extraordinary man, apart from his inventive genius, which was undoubtedly great. He stood 6 ft. 3 in. or 4 in. in his stockings, well built in proportion, and he was most gentle and considerate and, though an inventor, of an extremely placid disposition which nothing appeared to ruffle. (See Fig. 8.)

(signed) Frederic Mason

Signed by the said Frederic Mason in the presence of

Frances R. Outhwaite

461 Bolton Villas, Bradford

Subscribed and sworn to before me, by Frederic Mason, this twenty-first day of April, 1931.

(Signed) Geo. L. Fleming

Vice-Consul of the United States of America at Bradford, England"

Footnotes

¹ Copyright Society of Motion Picture Engineers, 1929.

² Consulting Engineer, London, England

³ Builder, 11 Quarry Mount, Hyde Park, Leeds, England

also ⁴ this most early example of cinema has now been painstakingly restored by Charl Lucassen

Images

Fig 1: Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince.

Fig 2: Le Prince's 16 Lens Camera, 1887 (Front and rear views), Science Museum, London, England

Fig 3: Le Prince's Single Lens Camera, 1888, (Front view), Science Museum, London, England

Fig 4: Le Princes' Single Lens Camera, 1888, (Rear view), Science Museum, London, England

Fig 5: Two frames of a series taken by Le Prince, October, 1888

Fig 6: Spools for developing film, 1888, Science Museum, London, England

Fig 7: Photostat of memorandums and sketch prepared by Longley who assisted Le Prince in constructing his cameras.

Fig 7a: Detail of camera sketch above

Fig 8: Signatures and witnesses to declaration by Frederic Mason

References

Scott, E. Kilburn, The Pioneer Work of Le Prince in Kinematography, Phot. J., 63 (Aug., 1923), pp. 373-8.

Crawford, Merritt: Louis A. A. Le Prince, Cinema, 1 (Dec., 1930), pp. 28-31.

Source

A Technological History of Motion Pictures and Television

An Anthology from the Pages of The Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers

Edited, with an Introduction, by Raymond Fielding

Part II A (Historical Papers / Motion Pictures / Early Film Technology)

Career of L. A. A. Le Prince, by E. Kilburn Scott, July, 1931

Acknowlegements

The preparation of this article for the web would not have been possible without the help and dedication of David Quinlan

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