There Ain’t ‘Alf Some Clever Bastards – Part Ninety Two
Charles Francis Jenkins (1867 – 1934)
Whether we like it or not, popular entertainment was transformed in the early 20th century by the development of television and cinematography. Someone who could justifiably claim to be at the birth of both media is the latest inductee into our illustrious Hall of Fame, Charles Francis Jenkins. Much good it did him.
Born to a Quaker family who moved, when Jenkins was just two, to farm in Fountain City, Indiana, as a boy he was forever tinkering with machinery and soon proved to be a dab hand at fixing broken down implements. He also showed an inventive streak, developing a jack to lift wagons so their axles could be greased.
Like many a youth, Jenkins could not resist the lure of the city and at the age of nineteen moved to Washington DC, working as a stenographer in the early incarnation of the US Coast Guard. Although he had left his country roots behind, Charles could not shake off his inquisitiveness.
By 1890 Jenkins began working on what he described as a “motion picture projecting box” and called a Phantoscope. By the spring of 1894 he was sufficiently satisfied with his progress that he wrote to his parents that he was coming back to Indiana to show them his latest invention, instructing them to assemble a crowd of relatives and interested bystanders at his cousin’s jewellery store in Richmond on 6th June.
The gadget was packed up and sent to Richmond, Jenkins following on, completing the 700-mile journey by bicycle.
After some technical issues, according to the Richmond Telegraph, “there began a sputtering sound as the machine kicked into life and out of the lens shot light onto the wall and a girl clad in garments more picturesque than protective stepped lively. She did not seem bashful thus displayed, while those in the audience were taken aback.” The shameful hussy was Annabelle, a vaudeville favourite.
The audience, after recovering from the assault on their sensibilities, went behind the screen to check that there had been no sleight of hand. Not only was this the earliest documented performance of moving pictures to an audience but, astonishingly, it was in colour as each frame had been stained or coloured by hand. Moreover, it used reeled film and an electric light to project the images.
In the winter of 1894 Jenkins was introduced to Thomas Armat who was looking for investment opportunities. Jenkins was strapped for cash and by March 1895 they concluded an agreement by which Armat would “finance and promote the invention” of Jenkins.
The duo patented the Phantoscope on 28th August 1895 and gave a public demonstration of their device at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta in the autumn of 1895. A modified Phantoscope was patented on 20th July 1897 but relations between the two began to deteriorate. Jenkins eventually sold his interest in the projector to Armat who then sold the rights to Thomas Edison and the rest is history.
But Jenkins wasn’t finished as an inventor.
He developed a spiral-wound cardboard container, the design is still used today, a car with an engine in the front rather than under the driver (in 1898), an early version of a sightseeing bus (in 1901), an automatic starter for cars (1911), and an improved internal combustion engine (in 1912).
In an article entitled Motion Pictures by Wireless – Wonderful possibilities of Motion Picture Progress which appeared in the Movie Picture News of 27th September 1913, Jenkins announced that he had developed a mechanism which enabled him to view distant scenes by radio or, what we would nowadays know as television. Notwithstanding his enthusiasm, it took him another ten years before he was able to transmit a picture, of President Harding, from Washington to Philadelphia but by 1925 he was beaming moving pictures.
Granted a patent (US No 1,544,156 for Transmitting Pictures over Wireless) on June 30th 1925, Jenkins established the first commercially licensed TV station in America, W3XK, which made its first transmission on 2nd July 1928 from Washington. In 1929 it was broadcasting five nights a week.
It initially broadcast silhouettes but later moved on to transmitting black and white programmes. Jenkins’ company even produced the equipment that early adopters would have to use to receive the pictures.
But timing is everything. Selling expensive and, essentially, novelty equipment and services as America was plunging into the depths of the Depression was not a smart move. Jenkins’ company was declared bankrupt in 1931, opening up a space for RCA to exploit.
For your part in developing the cinema and television and failing to profit from it, Charles, you are a worthy inductee into our Hall of Fame.
If you enjoyed this, check out Fifty Clever Bastards by Martin Fone
