"Talking Photographs" (1878)

JF Ptak Science Books  Overall Post 5135 (Updating and revising an earlier post from 2011)

There appeared in the wonderful pages of Nature (for 24 January 1878) a short but interesting technical communication from the probably/improbably-named Wordsworth Donisthorpe (1847-1914): "Talking Photographs".¹  It is a letter to the editor, really, about an invention that is deeply related to the earliest stages of motion pictures--it was among the first papers that coupled sound with the moving images, appearing eleven years before the first successful demonstration of a motion picture (1889).  

"...Donisthorpe was an English individualist anarchist and inventor, pioneer of cinematography and chess enthusiast..." (Photography News). He invented a language ("Uropa"), was an ardent Darwinist, maths wrangler Trinity 1882, non-practicing Barrister, political fringe-elementist, and helped to found the British Chess Association, among much else. 

With his device called the "Kinesigraph" (patented with his cousin William Crofts who whose sister was married to Darwin's son Francis) which was based somewhat on the wool-combing machines that their fathers helped to invent and improve, the pair stepped into the instant future of the motion picture.

As I said, Donisthorpe introduces a lot in this very short letter. He states:

"By combining the phonograph with the kinesigraph I will undertake not only to produce a talking picture of [Prime Minister] Mr. Gladstone which, with motionless lips and unchanged expression shall positively recite his latest anti-Turkish speech in his own voice and tone. Not only this, but the life-size photograph itself shall move and gesticulate precisely as he did when making the speech, the words and gestures corresponding as in real life." He states further: “It is already possible, by ingenious optical contrivances, to throw stereoscopic photographs of people on screens in full view of an audience." And then, taking advantage of the newly invented Edison phonograph, continues: "Add the talking phonograph² to counterfeit their voices and it would be difficult to carry the illusion of real presence much further.”

*Lastly, I've included this in the "history of Memory" category because of the vast amount of memory that these inventions were able to store. Up to this point, before the introduction of the means to record sound and motion, people depended on static portrayals of these memories that were also subject to change and interpretation. With the phonograph and motion picture cameras continuous motion and audio sources are saved for as long as the media survives.  

Notes:

1. DONISTHORP, Woodsworth. "Talking Photographs", in Nature, volume 17, no. 13. 24 January 1878, page 243 in the complete weekly issue of pp 237-256.
2. What Mr. Donisthorpe is talking about in the pages of the Scientific American is really the back-door entry to an even bigger topic: the first announcement of Thomas Edison's phonograph as it appeared on the back of the first  page in the last issue for the year, 29 December 1877.  "A Wonderful Invention--Speech Capable of Indefinite Repetition from Automatic records" was the article by Edward Johnson on the introduction of Thomas Edison's phonograph. It is one and a half columns long, but contains a very compact 1500 words.