kinesigraph (11. 669)

Public Domain Review contributor Irfan Shah revives the forgotten figure of Wordsworth Donisthorpe of Leeds—inventor, chess enthusiast, anarchist, linguist, social reformer and unrecognised pioneer of cinematography, only to fall behind the competition in Louis Le Prince and Thomas Edison. Though Donisthorpe’s career is punctuated with lamentable near successes and frustrating failures—which saw him turn to blackmail on more than one occasion but that did not produce a favourable outcome either—except as a posthumous postscript that connects Donisthrope, through his social outreach, to one of the early icons of the silver screen. Read more about the Kinesigraph patent, free love and his Latinate language reform attempts at the link up top.