Henry Langdon Childe

Henry Langdon Childe (1781–1874) was an English showman, known as a developer of the magic lantern and dissolving views, a precursor of the dissolve in cinematic technique. While the priority question on the technical innovations Childe used is still debated, he established the use of double and triple lanterns for special theatrical effects, to the extent that the equipment involved became generally available through suppliers to other professionals. By the 1840s the "dissolving view", rooted in Gothic horror, had become a staple of illustrated talks with restrained animations.

Paul de Philipsthal used a magic lantern in London in 1802, for a phantasmagoria; he used effects such as animation of images, and a lantern on rails so that images could be changed in size. Childe reportedly worked for Philipsthal. He demonstrated his own magic lantern at the Sanspareil Theatre which was replaced by 1806, by the Adelphi Theatre.

The magic lantern had not advanced much from the 17th century to the latter part of the 18th century. Childe used achromatic lenses and an improved oil-lamp; and moved to the limelight, then associated with Thomas Drummond. The limelight has also been attributed to Robert Hare, and Goldsworthy Gurney. In Childe's hands, it increased the scale and brightness of the projected images at public performances.

It was the combination of the double image and the improved lighting that made the lantern technique standard for a time; credit for this advance in projection, underpinning "dissolving views" in practice, has been given to John Benjamin Dancer. The innovations of Childe and the instrument-maker Edward Marmaduke Clarke (the "biscenascope") played a part in displacing the diorama as a fashionable entertainment; it was a type of double lantern, but in fact had a single light source, divided by a mirror system.

Claims of priority were made on Childe's behalf, by 1885. On this account, repeated in the Dictionary of National Biography account of 1887, Childe innovated with his method of "dissolving views": one picture appeared to fade away, while another as gradually took its place, an effect created by two lanterns with shutters. He worked from 1807, and completed his method in 1818; a brother of the artist Elias Childe, he had learned while still a young man to paint on glass, and prepared his own lantern slides.

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