ABSTRACT
The final birth-pangs of cinema in Britain began on 17 October 1894 with the English debut of Edison’s kinetoscope, in a parlour opened at 70 Oxford Street, London, by Frank Z.Maguire and Joseph D.Baucus of the Continental Commerce Company of New York. As in other countries, the kinetoscope stimulated imitators and improvers. The order of events in Britain was roughly: first, the appearance of copies of the kinetoscope machine using the same mechanism and the same films; second, the re-invention of the camera, to produce more films to meet the demand caused by the spread of the kinetoscope; and third, the invention of the projector which turned Edison’s peep-show into cinema proper. Other associated pieces of equipment were also invented in the process, such as machines for the perforation of film stock.
