In the 1890s in the busy English market town of Salisbury - actually a city, with a medieval cathedral - a young engraver named Theodore Brown became interested in photography, the magic lantern, moving pictures, and stereoscopy.

In 1894 he patented a mirror attachment, to enable amateurs with a conventional camera to take stereoscopic pairs. Although an English patent for a similar device had been applied for previously, Brown's was the first application to be completed and granted. The device illustrated in the patent - consisting of collapsible struts on which the two mirrrors were attached - was perhaps never marketed, but over the next 18 years or so Brown sold various stereoscopic camera attachments based on this principle, initially from his mail-order 'Stereoscopic Supply Stores' in Salisbury, and later from the nearby seaside town of Bournemouth, and then from London. One of these attachments he named the Stereoscopic Transmitter, and another the Stereophotoduplicon, which he licensed a major manufacturer to sell. Since then, of course, numerous firms have marketed variations of this device, and some are still made today.

Theodore Brown's involvement in stereoscopic imaging wasn't restricted to camera attachments. In the early years of this century he published Magic Post Cards (anaglyph cards, litho printed from stereoscopic photographs, with cut-off red/green viwer attached), and sold both anaglyph magic lantern slides and special multi-plane slides for producing a quasi-stereoscopic effect. He also produced and sold miniature or 'pocket' stereoscopes, and published numerous designs for novel stereoscope viewers, including the 'spectacles stereoscope' containing a double set of tiny Stanhope views. For a short time Brown was president of the United Stereoscopic Society, and wrote a book on stereoscopic perception and imaging.

Brown's greatest dream, which stayed with him for thirty years, was the development of a system of stereoscopic cinema projection that did not need special viewing aids. In 1903/4 he started his experiments, using special oscillating cameras (and sometimes even oscillating subjects!) in his attempts to achieve success. These films were shown on a conventional cinematograph projector, and broke the 'rules' of stereoscopic perception by presenting differing views to both eyes, instead of just one particular view to each eye. Through experimentation he discovered that a stereoscopic effect was possible, although the theories of perception of that time suggested otherwise. Recognising the limitations that lay ahead for 3-D motion pictures if they were to be hampered by viewing devices, he continued to develop his monocular-stereoscopic method, but there were many problems and the system was not ready for commercial exploitation.

At one point he temporarily abandoned this original idea and adopted a different pseudo-stereoscopic presentation system, which originated in Germany, known as Kinoplastikon. This was basically a version of the old 'Pepper's Ghost' theatrical device, using a mixture of real stage props, and performers on motion picture film. Brown patented it in England, and obtained the necessary financial backing to present shows at the Scala Theatre in London. These were singing (gramaphone accompanied), coloured, pseudo-stereoscopic motion pictures shown publicly a year before Charlie Chaplin made his first film. Even "The Times" was impressed!

Despite its initial success, disruption by the First World War, the difficulties of installing the necessary stage/glass sheet arrangement into conventional cinemas, and the purely 'novelty' nature of the content, meant that Kinoplastikon was ultimately a dead end. Brown later returned to his original 3-D motion picture ideas, and developed and patented increasingly complex cameras for the system, even as late as 1930. But the defects were, apparently, never completely overcome, and the system failed.

What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Brown's work is the way in which it crossed so many fields in popular visual entertainments. Not only stereoscopic imaging in its many forms - including a 3-D jigsaw! - but also charming children's books with 'magic moving pictures', ingenious Bookano and Daily Express Children's Annual pop-up books, the Spirograph home movie system using images on a spiral disc, flickerless motion pictures, electric kaleidoscopes, and mechanical shadow slides for the magic lantern.

Brown became a journalist and editor, and I have spent many hours since first encountering his work in 1986 browsing through the audio-visual literature of the period to discover more about this fascinating experimenter, much of the information being in his own words. In 1993 Reel 3-D Enterprises, Inc., published a facsimile edition of Theodore Brown's own book, "Stereoscopic Phenomena of Light and Sight", in which many of his devices and techniques are described, and for which I was very happy to provide a very brief biographical note.

Stephen Herbert

Large format hardback. 130 pp (8 pp in full colour). 200 illustrations. Includes set of 3 viewers.

ISBN 0 9523941 4 6 £32