Trafalgar Square 1890 - ten remaining frames by Wordsworth Donisthorpe

__NOTOC__Wordsworth Donisthorpe (24 March 1847 – 30 January 1914) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

barrister,

individualist anarchist Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems."What do I mean by individualism? I mean by individualism t ...

and

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, pioneer of

cinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...

and

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

enthusiast.

Life and work

Donisthorpe was born in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popul ...

, on 24 March 1847. His father was George E. Donisthorpe, also an inventor; his brother, Horace Donisthorpe, was a myrmecologist. He studied at

Leeds Grammar School Leeds Grammar School was an independent school founded 1552 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Originally a male-only school, in August 2005 it merged with Leeds Girls' High School to form The Grammar School at Leeds. The two schools physicall ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

. Donisthorpe married Ann Maria Anderson on 17 December 1873; he and his wife later separated and he had a daughter with Edith Georgina Fleming (whom he described as his second wife) in 1911. In 1885, Donisthorpe was co-founder of the British Chess Association and the British Chess Club. Donisthorpe spoke on anarchism at a conference organised by the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

in 1886. He was associated with the Liberty and Property Defence League and edited their ''Jus'' journal until his split from the League in 1888. Donisthorpe filed for a patent in 1876, for a film camera, which he named a "kinesigraph." The object of the invention was to: According to Donisthorpe, he produced a model of this camera around the late 1870s. In 1890 he also produced, together with his cousin

W. C. Crofts William Carr Crofts (1846–1894) was an English architect and entrepreneur who was a photographic pioneer. History Crofts was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire and became an architect. With his cousin, Wordsworth Donisthorpe, he was one of the ...

, a moving picture of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson comm ...

. The camera that produced this moving picture was patented in 1889 along with the projector necessary to show the motion frames. In 1893, Donisthorpe was one of the founding members and President of the

children's rights Children's rights are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors.

and

free love Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The movement's initial goal was to separate the state from sexual and romantic matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It stated that such issues were the concern ...

advocacy organisation the Legitimation League; he left the organization in 1897. On 30 January 1914, Donisthorpe died of heart failure at

Shottermill The town of Haslemere () and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south west Surrey, England, around south west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill, they comprise the civil parish of Haslemere i ...

, Surrey.

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *

References

* *

Works online

''The claims of labour, or, Serfdom, Wagedom, and Freedom''
(1880).
''Labour capitalization''
(1887).
''Individualism: A System of Politics''
(1889).
"The Woes of an Anarchist"
''Liberty'' (25 January 1890). Reprinted in

Benjamin Tucker Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (; April 17, 1854 – June 22, 1939) was an American individualist anarchist and libertarian socialist.Martin, James J. (1953)''Men Against the State: The Expositers of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827–1908''< ...

''Instead of a Book''
(1897).
"L'État Est Mort; Vive L'État!"
''Liberty'' (23 May 1890). Reprinted in

''Instead of a Book''
(1897).
''Law in a Free State''
(1895).

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Donisthorpe, Wordsworth 1847 births 1914 deaths 19th-century chess players Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Cinema pioneers English anarchists English chess players English cinematographers English inventors Game players from Yorkshire Individualist anarchists People from Leeds Pioneers of photography