The Times/1936/Obituary/Mr. Will Day
MR. WILL DAY
A pioneer of the film industry
Mr. Will Day, a pioneer of the British film industry, has died at his home, Cholmeley Park, Kilburn. He would have been 63 to-day.
The preservation of much of the early articles of film equipment used in the nineties and later, and of many of the early films is due entirely to the assiduity with which he collected them and to the care he took of them through the years. Part of the collection is now in the South Kensington Museum.
His collection traced the history of cinematography and included various sidelines such as optical projection, which belong to a period before cinematography. Indeed, it had contained a set of wax figures used by the Chinese hundreds of years ago for their mysterious "Shadow Performances"; a thaumatrope disk, the invention of Lord Herschell. sold by the Royal Society at the instigation of Dr. Paris in 1826, which was the first apparatus to show more than one distinct object in a single plane of vision; and a bio-phantoscopewhich portrayed movement upon a lantern screen in 1868.
Two of the most interesting objects he saved from destruction were Lumière's combined camera,printer, and project, and an animatograph. The former was used at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in Regent Street in 1896 for the first presentation of moving pictures to the paying public. The films shown on that occasion were M. Trewey his famous act "Chapeaugraphy," "Cavalry Horses led to be Watered." The "Changing of the Guard,""The Arrival of a Train at a Country Station," "The Fall of a Wall," and "Breakfast on the Lawn." In February of this year the identical programme was repeated at the present Polytechnic Theatre, and thanks to Mr. Day, was projected by the original apparatus. The films were then, in contrast, thrown on the screen by a modern project, which proved how sound in principle the early cinematography was. The films were Lumière productions, and this year M. Louis Lumière was present at the performance, which was given in his honour. The public demand to see the films that had made history was so insistent that the programme was repeated for a considerable time, and at each performance a talk given by Mr. Day describing the early days and early methods was enthusiastically received.
Among Mr. Day's collection of early films were the late Mr. W. Friese Green's scene in Hyde Park, the firm film ever taken. Before 1900 Mr. Day dreamed of the days of talking pictures and by the synchronization of gramophone and film he produced haps the first British "talkies." He always kept abreast of developments in the industry and had published several books.
He is survived by three daughters and four sons.
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