Magic Lanterns with Colin Isaac

Our Christmas meeting was entertained by Colin Isaac, an enthusiastic collector of antique 'magic lantern' slides and projectors.  This style of entertainment started around 1830 with the projector using a paraffin lamp.  The projected  pictures were small and suitable only for the drawing room, but with the advent of limelight which produced  a more intense illumination, and hence a larger picture,  the magic lantern entered the field of public entertainment.  The earliest slides were hand painted pictures about two inches square, and Colin showed examples of Niagara Falls, Polar scenes and prairie fires.  The next development was the introduction of limited movement to the scenes by using two superimposed slides, and an amusing example showed a snoring man inadvertently swallowing a mouse.  The introduction of transfers as an alternative to hand painting, improved the details in the pictures, and a short story, usually with a strong moral overtone, could be portrayed with a succession of slides.  In these, the callous treatment of animals, and the casual use of the word 'nigger', demonstrates how public attitudes have changed during the past 150 years.  Photographic reproduction was another step forward and Colin showed scenes of Weymouth sea front dating from the 1870's.  The evening ended in a truly Victorian melodrama, accompanied with a heart-breaking story provided movingly by David Lane.  A little boy, ravaged with disease lay dying in a garret, yearning only for the rose he had once seen in a garden.  Alas, the rose arrived too late, but happily there it was waiting for him in the next world.

Tony Johnson

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