Chreutoscope

  

I heard about this device some years ago, with some disbelief, but I did manage to establish that, yes it had been invented in Greenwich by John Taylor Beale.  Now I had been interested for many years in Joshua Taylor Beale who was an interesting and innovative engineer of the early 19^th century. He had begun in Whitechapel, moving to Greenwich where he had a foundry on part of the Enderby site where he developed numerous interesting devices. Among things he manufactured were some steam road vehicles which he demonstrated around the Greenwich area - they all went up Shooters Hill to prove they could  get up hills!   He also invented an important rotary steam engine.  One use for this was for in small boats and he demonstrated it to George Stephenson himself. Unfortunately Stephenson had to pay to be rescued when the engine he had come to see failed out at sea.   Beale’s most important invention was a device called the ‘exhauster’ which he patented and which was eventually needed in every gas works.  It was ridiculously successful later when it was manufactured by the Bryan Dunking Company of Bermondsey and later of Chesterfield. 

Joshua died in 1866 and his foundry was inherited, and soon closed, by his son John Taylor Beale. There is a huge story about all this and whether Joshua had ever married his children’s mother. This would make a difference as to whether John could inherit the foundry and the patents. There was a long drawn out legal case on this but regardless, John was clearly a wealthy man. He had lived near his father in Conduit House in Woolwich Road on the site of what is now the Plaza, once the Granada Cinema. He later  moved to a big house in Westcombe Park Road.

In retirement he invented an important bicycle called the ‘Facile’. This was in the days when bicycles were still what we would call ’penny farthings’; but there were various inventions aimed at making t them a lot more easy to use by everyday people. They were called ‘ordinaries’ and John Taylor Beale’s s adaption of the design was extremely successful. It is in every bicycle museum and there are lots and lots of pictures of his bicycle on the net and even somewhere you can buy a replica should you want to.

John also turned his mind to this device – the choreutoscope. This was a means of showing ‘moving pictures’ in the form of tiny  dancing figures - a little skeleton was the famous one but there were also clowns and sailors and other things. It was also possible to manipulate them to some extent. To us this would be very simple but it is one of the steps leading to ‘moving pictures’ ;finding out how the very basic things work so you can build on them.

There were many other devices all of which demonstrated what could be done.  John Beale was not the only person in Greenwich doing this either. I hope soon to write about the Noakesoscope – which was also invented locally and was another and more complex device.

A couple of months ago a neighbour contacted me at  Greenwich industrial History Society d ask i we had any information about the Noakesoscope. Now I knew a bit about that because we had a speaker about it a few years ago and I was also aware that the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society had had a visit in the late 1970s t see a preserved model working model.  We talked about this a bit and also mentioned also that Noakes was not the only inventor of one of these early projection devices.

I told her about the research I had done on John Taylor Beale but more importantly – for me - on his father. She told me how some friends of hers in the Magic Lantern Society had written a book about the chreutoscope  and  that they too had researched  John Taylor Beale and the book  contained a great deal of information about him – and also a lot about what happened later in the history of this device. 

She got me a copy of the book and – thank you for that- and I was soon in touch with one of the authors, another local resident. So, I thought that I should share with you something about this interesting device and some of its background - although I must admit I have been struggling to understand ir and  how it fits in to the history f this type of projector

The people who wrote the book and also published its are part of the Magic Lantern Society.  Now I understand what magic lanterns are-  When I was a child someone had an old one, It was just like the slide projectors we had in the 70s and 80s where you put a transparent  in front of a light source and looked at it on a screen.  Beale’s device and others like it are much more sophisticated and very different . There are a whole lot of different types of them which the book explains. They tend to have really strange names - for instance ‘phenakistiscope’,  ‘zoetrope’  and  ‘praxinoscope’.

The idea is that you have a series  of figures – maybe a skeleton,  a sailor .. a dancing lady -  and each one is slightly different.   Put into a mechanical device they are quickly moved in such a way   that the figures appear to gyrate or dance in some way.  There were of course many variations on this.   The book traces as far as possible the various devices devised by Beale as he worked out his ideas.  In 1870 his ‘Automatic irire’is described which showed a woman’s face doing various grimaces in random order. Unlock the device set to be the first tourist scope is said to have been a dancing skeleton which was later very much copied as a device. 

Seems to have seen these very much as a hobby I did not patent them but he was later registered by the 1843 utility is so intact. Registered was the automatic picture the chromatic pattern charmer which was a handheld device produce various random patterns

In 1875 Beale  registered a new version of his dancing skeleton in a ‘Magic Lantern Picture; apparatus. This knew version allowed the operator to change the sequence of images and vary the rate of change thus, hopefully,  introducing playfulness and unpredictability. By this time Beale  was looking at commercial use and was involved with a Charles Baker,  with an opticians’ business in  Holborn.  Baker produced a large selection of optical and scientific equipment and was an early manufacture of photographic equipment - and who als later manufactured the choreutoscoce. Four of these devices ae known to exist in collections and in museums in Paris and elsewhere .

John Beale also known develoed a sequence called ‘The Rinker’  which is a skating figure.  This was a humorous figure and but that the mechanical device was develoed so as to  add a sense of unpredictability. Beale also began a relationshi with the Royal olytechnic Institution  It develoed and ublicised his work

The authors of the book comment that Beale seems to have originally developed these aarently recreational devices  recreations on an altruistic basis around the time of his father’s death in 1866. He seems to have develed nothng more after 1877 . 

They contiue describng how his ideas were picked up and the work done on similar devices at the royal Polytechnic institution. There are  descriptions of how some of the Galaxy skeleton sequences and so on were received, Thee are usd extracts from  reviews and descriptions of the device take room on a number of centenary books. it is quite clear that a lot of the comment on this recognises that this is not just an entertainment form but embodies some serious thought and carries the ossibility of use inside the world of entertainment.

There are  descritions  in great detail many events and projects  based on Beale's original ideas..  Successive devices with variations all of which embody new ideas about the way that moving pictures could be achieved through projection. These devices may appear to have an apparent use only as toys and entertainment there is in fact a serious background based on our  erception of moving images. In the future cinema we would appear to see natural movement despite the fact we ae in fact looking at a series of pictures each with a slight variation.  The book is quite clear and ears us that we should  not look at these devices as something to look back at form the cinema. It stresses that the relationship of these devices to future cinematography and related devices is complex and open to interpretation.  It says we should see it  as a a device of ‘ingenuity and wonder’.

This has been  a very very quick run through a complex and  int eresting subject.. As far as relevance to Greenwich is concneed we need – as I have said before to look at at a cultre f innvvastm i an inventin – and aslas mrvding a means f contacting relevant rganiasains whuxh miht tke an intresr.  I might als ntr a traditi f lcal eseearch in a wide rane if subhets, and indeed ticthe lcsl scneific ndtruemt trade s and a tradition 0 and ff urd the Rlyal bservar.  There has been ccntinual reserearh in he arrnsal and many tr rgdnidstind and sme didstiguse scetit i Wllwic edusti9n. as fasr as Beale hmlef i cince hus inetedsting fsther sent hus lifkie unvening and deelig many didfernt devices.

The bk is ;the magicv lantern fsancer .tjr rrdtir m it lace i tbgustirt if ge nving ige Ed. Jeremy VBriiker, /rihcad crae abd AETIN Gilbert, ublished by the magic lsntrern siy. Sorry  I don’t have an address to write to in order get coies but I guess that an address is traceable by specialist  bookshos