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An authentic screen hero
• I READ with interest your article on Robert Paul (The Man behind the birth of British Films, March, 1) I am afraid you are wrong.
Thomas Alva Edison did not invent the movie camera, he bought up patents.
The inventor and first film maker was an Englishman named William Friese-Green. His machine is on display at the Science Museum. There was even a film made about him called The Magic Box. He was played by the star Robert Donat.
William Friese-Green also invented the first colour film. But he is ill remembered because the Lumiere brothers in France bought out the first commercial camera and stole his thunder in 1895. I think Friese-Green developed his camera around 1889.
My great great grandfather was the very first commercial photographer. He had a shop in Commercial Street, Portsmouth, in 1860. His name was Henry Robins. He was also an artist and painted several pictures for Queen Victoria.
A number of similar inventors came about at the same time. But Edison invented nothing, he stole it. Humphrey Davy an English scientist invented the electric light in 1810, it was in use at the Houses of Parliament soon after.
Henry Robins in 1850 while a sergeant in the Royal Marines invented the first machine gun. The Admiralty could not see the future in it so it was dropped. In 1870 French revealed a secret weapon, a machine gun, or mitruluse.
My late great aunt Ade Eliott, Henry’s granddaughter, said it was his invention, she saw the original plans. And it went on display at the Royal Marine Museum in Portsmouth. This was published in the Portsmouth Evening News July 1963.
Dr J R POPE-DE-LOCKSLEY
Bakers Hill
E5
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