Wordsworth Donisthorpe

Wordsworth Donisthorpe filmed London's Trafalgar Square traffic in 1890; these are the surviving 10 frames

Wordsworth Donisthorpe (Leeds, 24 March 1847 – Shottermill, 30 January 1914) was an English individualist anarchist and inventor, pioneer of cinematography and chess enthusiast. His father was George E. Donisthorpe, also an inventor; his brother, Horace Donisthorpe, was a myrmecologist.

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

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.

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.

Works online

• Individualism: A System of Politics (1889).
• "The Woes of an Anarchist", Liberty (25 January 1890). Reprinted in Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book (1897).
• "L'État Est Mort; Vive L'État!", Liberty (23 May 1890). Reprinted in Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book (1897).
• Law in a Free State (1895).

External links

• Wordsworth Donisthorpe player profile and games at Chessgames.com