Wordsworth Donisthorpe
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2012}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Wordsworth Donisthorpe
| image = Wordsworth Donisthorpe (2) (cropped).png
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1847|03|24|df=y}}
| birth_place = Leeds, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1914|01|30|1847|03|24|df=y}}
| death_place = Shottermill, England
| nationality =
| other_names =
| occupation = Barrister, political activist, inventor, photographer
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Ann Maria Anderson|1873|end=div}}
- Edith Georgina Fleming
}}
| children = De Aula Donisthorpe died in South Africa.
Edmund Donisthorpe died in South Africa
Ethel Donisthorpe Died in Australia
Frank Donisthorpe Died in England
Edith Donisthorpe.
}}
File:Trafalgar Square 1890 - ten remaining frames by Wordsworth Donisthorpe.gif__NOTOC__Wordsworth Donisthorpe (24 March 1847 – 30 January 1914) was an English barrister,{{cite book|last=Mingardi|first=Alberto|title=Herbert Spencer|year=2011|publisher=Continuum|isbn=9780826424860|page=123}} individualist anarchist{{cite thesis|last=Bristow|first= Edward|title=The defence of liberty and property in Britain, 1880-1914|year=1970|publisher=Yale University}} 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". and inventor, pioneer of cinematography and chess enthusiast.
Life and work
Donisthorpe was born in Leeds, on 24 March 1847.{{Cite book|last=Gaige|first=Jeremy|title=Chess Personalia, A Biobibliography|publisher=McFarland|year=1987|isbn=0-7864-2353-6|page=96|author-link=Jeremy Gaige}}{{Cite ODNB|last=Taylor|first=M. W.|date=2012-05-24|title=Donisthorpe, Wordsworth (1847–1914), political activist and pioneer of cinematography|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-47851|access-date=2020-07-04|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/47851}} His father was George E. Donisthorpe, also an inventor;{{Cite web|last1=Herbert|first1=Stephen|last2=Coe|first2=Brian|year=2000|title=Who's Who of Victorian Cinema|url=http://www.victorian-cinema.net/donisthorpe.htm|access-date=2009-05-10}} his brother, Horace Donisthorpe, was a myrmecologist. He studied at Leeds Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge. Donisthorpe married Ann Maria Anderson on 17 December 1873; whom he had four children. 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.
He was an avid explorer and traveled throughout Northern Africa with Newnes, the publisher. He wrote a book, 'Down the Streams of Civilization,' and many papers.
Donisthorpe spoke on anarchism at a conference organised by the Fabian Society in 1886.{{cite book|last=Pease|first=Edward R.|title=The History of the Fabian Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jkAvt1MZPu0C&pg=PT47|year=1916|publisher=Library of Alexandria |oclc=162970488}} He was associated with the Liberty and Property Defence League and edited their Jus journal until his split from the League in 1888.{{cite book|last=Ryley|first=Peter|title=Making Another World Possible: Anarchism, Anti-capitalism and Ecology in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Britain|year=2013|publisher=Bloomsbury|isbn=9781441153777|pages=60–69|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qojFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA61}}
In 1876, Donisthorpe filed for a film camera patent that he named a "kinesigraph". The object of the invention was to: {{cquote|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.{{cite book|last=Burns|first= R. W.|year=1998|title=Television: An International History of the Formative Years|publisher=Institution of Engineering and Technology|location=London|isbn=0-85296-914-7}}}}
According to Donisthorpe, he produced a model of this camera around the late 1870s.{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TVVXAAAAIAAJ&q=Donisthorpe |title = Cinema Studies|year = 1960}} In 1890 he also produced, together with his cousin W. C. Crofts, a moving picture of London's Trafalgar Square.{{Cite web |first=Paul T |last=Burns |title=The History of The Discovery of Cinematography – 1885 – 1889 |url=http://www.precinemahistory.net/1885.htm |access-date=2009-05-10 }} and {{Cite web |title=Ten Remaining Frames of Donisthorpe's 1890 'Trafalgar Square' Footage Come To Life |url=http://www.precinemahistory.net/images/trafalgarsquare_animation_small.gif |format=GIF |access-date=2009-05-10 }} The camera that produced this moving picture was patented in 1889 along with the projector necessary to show the motion frames.{{cite book|last=Herbert|first=S.|title=Industry, Liberty, and a Vision: Wordsworth Donisthorpe's Kinesigraph|publisher=The Projection Box|year=1998|isbn=0-9523941-3-8|location=London}}
In 1893, Donisthorpe was one of the founding members and President of the children's rights and free love advocacy organisation the Legitimation League; he left the organization in 1897.{{Cite journal|last=Watner|first=Carl|date=Winter 1982|title=The English Individualists as They Appear in Liberty|url=https://cdn.mises.org/6_1_4_0.pdf|journal=The Journal of Libertarian Studies|volume=6|issue=1|pages=76}}
In his last book Uropa (1913), he proposed a philosophical language derived from Latin roots.
An example is the phrase {{lang|art-GB|Karla avyrie ma glacyrusam}}, "Charles has given me a refrigerator".{{cite journal |last1=Shah |first1=Irfan |title=Sensitive Material: Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Blackmail, and the First Motion Pictures |journal=The Public Domain Review |date=June 26, 2024 |url=https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/wordsworth-donisthorpe-blackmail-and-the-first-motion-pictures/ |access-date=27 June 2024 |language=en}}
On 30 January 1914, Donisthorpe died of heart failure at Shottermill, Surrey.
Bibliography
- {{cite book|year=1876|title=Principles of Plutology|url=https://archive.org/details/principlesofplut00doniuoft|publisher=Williams & Norgate|location=London}}
- {{cite book|year=1880|title=The claims of labour, or, Serfdom, Wagedom, and Freedom|publisher=Samuel Tinsley & Co.|location=London}}
- {{cite book|year=1886|title=Empire and Liberty, a Lecture on the Principles of Local Government|publisher=Liberty and Property Defence League|location=London}}
- {{cite book|year=1887|title=Labour capitalization|publisher=G. Harmsworth & Co.|location=London}}
- {{cite book|year=1889|title=Individualism, a System of Politics|url=https://archive.org/details/individualismsys00doniuoft|publisher=Macmillan|location=London}}
- {{cite book|year=1893|title=Love and Law: An Essay on Marriage|publisher=W. Reeves|location=London}}
- {{cite book|year=1895|title=Law in a Free State|url=https://archive.org/details/lawinafreestate00donigoog|publisher=Macmillan|location=London}}
- {{cite book|year=1898|title=Down the stream of civilization|url=https://archive.org/details/downstreamofcivi00donirich|publisher=George Newnes|location=London}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite journal|doi=10.1017/S0018246X00008888|last=Bristow|first= Edward|year=1975|title=The Liberty and Property Defence League and Individualism|journal=Historical Journal|volume=18|issue=4|pages=761–789}}
- {{cite book|last=Barker|first= Rodney|year=1997|title=Political Ideas in Modern Britain|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-07121-6}}
{{refend}}
Works online
- [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112064554725 The claims of labour, or, Serfdom, Wagedom, and Freedom] (1880).
- [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.78843306 Labour capitalization] (1887).
- [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=291&Itemid=28 Individualism: A System of Politics] (1889).
- [http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/the-woes-of-an-anarchist "The Woes of an Anarchist"], Liberty (25 January 1890). Reprinted in Benjamin Tucker, [http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/ Instead of a Book] (1897).
- [http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/letat-est-mort-vive-letat "L'État Est Mort; Vive L'État!"], Liberty (23 May 1890). Reprinted in Benjamin Tucker, [http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/ Instead of a Book] (1897).
- [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=290&Itemid=99999999 Law in a Free State] (1895).
External links
- {{chessgames player|id=62253}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donisthorpe, Wordsworth}}
Category:19th-century chess players
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:British cinema pioneers
Category:English chess players
Category:English cinematographers
Category:Game players from Yorkshire
Category:Individualist anarchists