Wordsworth Donisthorpe facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Wordsworth Donisthorpe
Born	(1847-03-24)24 March 1847 Leeds, England
Died	30 January 1914(1914-01-30) (aged 66) Shottermill, England
Occupation	Barrister, political activist, inventor
Spouse(s)	Ann Maria Anderson ​ ​ (m. 1873, divorced)​ Edith Georgina Fleming
Children	1

Donisthorpe filmed London's Trafalgar Square traffic in 1890; these are the surviving 10 frames

Wordsworth Donisthorpe (24 March 1847 – 30 January 1914) was an English barrister, individualist anarchist and inventor, pioneer of cinematography and chess enthusiast.

Life and work

Donisthorpe was born in Leeds, on 24 March 1847. His father was George E. Donisthorpe, also an inventor; 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; 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.

Donisthorpe spoke on anarchism at a conference organised by the Fabian Society in 1886. He was associated with the Liberty and Property Defence League and edited their Jus journal until his split from the League in 1888.

Donisthorpe filed for a patent in 1876, for a film camera, which he named a "kinesigraph."

According to Donisthorpe, he produced a model of this camera around the late 1870s. In 1890 he also produced, together with his cousin W. C. Crofts, a moving picture of London's Trafalgar Square. The camera that produced this moving picture was patented in 1889 along with the projector necessary to show the motion frames.

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On 30 January 1914, Donisthorpe died of heart failure at Shottermill, Surrey.

Works online

• The claims of labour, or, Serfdom, Wagedom, and Freedom (1880).
• Labour capitalization (1887).
• Individualism: A System of Politics (1889).
• "The Woes of an Anarchist", Liberty (25 January 1890). Reprinted in Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book (1897).
• "L'État Est Mort; Vive L'État!", Liberty (23 May 1890). Reprinted in Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book (1897).
• Law in a Free State (1895).