Wordsworth Donisthorpe

Who was Wordsworth Donisthorpe?

Wordsworth Donisthorpe was an English individualist anarchist and inventor, pioneer of cinematography and chess enthusiast. His father was George E. Donisthorpe, an inventor as well, 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:

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.