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Robert W. Paul Theatrograph Projector (1895-96) aka Animatograph - Living Pictures (1896)
The UK Science and Media Museum has this to say about Robert Paul’s Theatrograph: “Paul felt that his early films compared unfavourably to Edison’s due to a lack of intermittent motion—the process by which each frame is momentarily held in place, creating a clearer picture. He solved this problem by incorporating a ‘Maltese cross’ mechanism, also known as a Geneva drive, into his camera. Such a mechanism was also part of the design for his projector, which became known as the Theatrograph.
The first public demonstration of the Theatrograph was given at Finsbury Technical College on 20 February 1896—the very same day that French entertainer Félicien Trewey gave a preview of the Lumière Cinématographe at the Regent Street Polytechnic, just five miles away.
The public received the new moving pictures enthusiastically. Entrepreneurial showmen seized on the novelty, though many expected it to last only a few weeks. Paul secured an engagement at the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square; originally for two weeks, it lasted around two years. The manager of the Alhambra renamed Paul’s projector ‘the Animatograph’.”
The pioneers of British film, including perhaps especially Robert W Paul, his erstwhile business partner Birt Acres, and the showman, experimentalist George Albert Smith, feature in the immaculate and detailed account, compiled by John Barnes: The Beginnings of the Cinema in England 1894-1901 - a 5-volume history of British film. These pioneers - began a tradition that made Britain in the late 20th and 21st century, a world-class centre for motion-picture making and special effects...