The unsolved mystery of Yorkshire’s vanished film pioneer

In 1890, Louis le Prince disappeared after making the world’s first moving picture in Leeds. One hundred and thirty years on, theories still abound as to his mysterious disappearance - from murder to debt-induced suicide.
The film pioneer boarded a train to Paris 130 years ago, but never disembarked.The film pioneer boarded a train to Paris 130 years ago, but never disembarked.
The film pioneer boarded a train to Paris 130 years ago, but never disembarked.

On 16th September 1890, a 49 year- old Louis Le Prince bade farewell to his brother Albert in Dijon, France, and boarded an express train to Paris.

Le Prince may have walked with a spring in his step that day: after a short stop to see family in the French capital, he was due at a public screening in New York, where he was set to unveil the world’s first ever moving pictures to be captured on film.

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It’s an event which may well have changed the course of history - but it never took place.

After boarding his train that autumn morning, Le Prince was never seen again. He failed to disembark in Paris, and no luggage or personal belongings were ever recovered. Over a century later, his disappearance remains shrouded in mystery.

If you Google “who invented film” today, the top result is world-renowned American inventor Thomas Edison. For others, the French Lumière brothers - from whose “Cinématographe” projector the word “cinema” is derived - might spring to mind.

It’s Hollywood glamour and black-and-white French flicks that most think of when it comes to early cinema; some are surprised when they hear that the world’s very first film was shot, by Louis le Prince, among the greenery of Roundhay Park, Leeds.

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It’s only in recent years that Le Prince has received some of his deserved dues: in 2015 Leeds-born David Wilkinson set out to prove in his documentary The First Film that Le Prince was indeed the world’s first person to produce moving pictures.

David Wilkinson says his film has alerted more people to Le Prince's legacy.David Wilkinson says his film has alerted more people to Le Prince's legacy.
David Wilkinson says his film has alerted more people to Le Prince's legacy.

In the five years since the film was released, says David, “a lot more people” are aware of Le Prince’s place in the history of cinema

In spite of this, Le Prince’s legacy still remains more muted than one might expect: the “History of Film” Wikipedia page features no mention of Louis le Prince’s name, while a blue plaque to Le Prince - on the bridge where he shot his first film - still states that Le Prince “probably” created the world’s first moving pictures in the city.

Had he not disappeared some 130 years ago, say some, this legacy - and the world itself - might be very different today. So what are the theories as to the film pioneer’s mysterious vanishing?

Killed off by competitors

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One of the rumours advanced by Le Prince’s wife, Elizabeth Le Prince, in the years following his disappearance was that rival Thomas Edison had something to do with Le Prince’s vanishing.

The theory goes that Thomas Edison was keen to eliminate competition in the race to be crowned the inventor of moving pictures, and thus ordered a hitman to kill Le Prince before he had a chance to screen his moving pictures in New York.

Adding to suspicions of foul play was the fact that Le Prince’s son, Adolphe, was shot in 1901 while hunting. Whether his death was a murder or suicide is still unknown.

After his father’s disappearance, Adolphe had become involved in trying to establish his legacy as the inventor of film, serving as a witness in an 1891 court case where Thomas Edison was attempting to win the title.

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In 2003, a researcher looking in the Paris police archives discovered a post-mortem photograph which bore a resemblance to Le Prince, which some have taken as proof of the inventor’s murder.

David Wilkinson, however, dismisses the theory as “ludicrous”. In his 2015 film, he examines the photograph matching the description of Le Prince and points out an inconsistency in the length of the facial hair in the photograph.

David also puts the case to an ex police officer, who says there is nothing “factual or evidential” to suggest that Edison put a hit out on Le Prince.

Killed by his brother

The theory that Le Prince was a victim of fratricide by his own brother, Albert, rests on the fact that Albert was the last person who claimed to have seen Le Prince before he boarded his train to Paris.

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It’s known that Albert was the architect and executor of their mother’s estate upon her death in 1887, and that Louis was owed money as part of her will.

Some theorise that Albert killed Louis in a row over the will, and that Albert’s claim to have waved his brother off at the station may in fact have been false.

Laurie Snyder, a living descendent of the Le Princes, contests this theory, saying that the relationship between the two brothers was known to have been warm and loving, as evidenced by surviving letters between the pair.

What’s more, in David Wilkinson’s 2015 film, Ms Snyder points out that Albert was himself a man of means, and would thus have been unlikely to kill his brother over a fiscal matter.

Political assassination

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In the wake of his 2015 film hitting cinemas, David says he was contacted by someone who had, in his opinion, the most credible theory as to Le Prince’s disappearance yet.

The caller explained that several other French people died in similarly mysterious or strange circumstances around the same time as Le Prince:

“He told me that he had the evidence to show that in the late 1880s and early 1890s, France was on the verge of another revolution...and the [French] government had set up a unit to look for subversives.”

Louis Le Prince, explains David, had previously been involved in a “semi-revolution” in Paris. What’s more, the fact that the inventor lived abroad - in Leeds - and was tinkering with inventions would have made him “automatically suspicious”, says David.

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The conclusion of the caller was thus that Le Prince was assassinated by the government as a potential political enemy.

Suicide or voluntary disembarkment

Another theory as to Le Prince’s disappearance suggests that the inventor either voluntarily disembarked from the train before it reached Paris, or that he took his own life.

It’s known that Le Prince was in debt at the time, and some believe that may have motivated him to willingly disappear or kill himself.

Others, however, point out that the fact Le Prince had booked a screening in New York to reveal his breakthrough to the public makes this theory implausible.

Random accident

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Laurie Snyder - Le Prince’s great-great granddaughter - told the BBC in 2015 that her theory on Le Prince’s disappearance is far more “mundane” than suicide or assassination.

She believes that Le Prince simply arrived in the wrong place at the wrong time, pointing to memoirs of Elizabeth Le Prince that suggest Le Prince would have arrived in Paris around 11pm.

“Being so late”, she told the BBC, “he probably hailed a hansom cab [a horse-drawn carriage] to take him to his workshop.

“I think the driver, taking advantage of the hour and the darkness, took him to a remote location near the Seine, hit him over the head and threw him in the Seine. There were two articles from this time that suggest that thieves were targeting lone travellers and Le Prince was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

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“I simply can't believe that a man who loved his family as much as he did, as evidenced by his letters, would either commit suicide or disappear on his own,” she added.

Whatever happened to Le Prince, David Wilkinson believes that the world could be a very different place today had he disembarked from his train in Paris.

Though he refutes the idea that Leeds - where Le Prince shot his films - could have become “some kind of Hollywood”, he believes there’s a chance the actual Hollywood might never have developed, had Le Prince had the chance to go further with his invention:

“The screening in New York was expressly for getting investors on board…[had he not disappeared] Edison wouldn’t have got the advantage and Hollywood would never have been founded.

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“Hollywood was only founded to get out of the clutches of Edison - California wasn’t party to the laws of the land and so they could use foreign cameras and foreign celluloid - they didn’t have to buy it through Edison’s monopoly [on film cameras]”.

Le Prince’s camera, he says, could have become a “household name” in the same way that Canon or “any of the top camera makers” are today - and given Leeds’ manufacturing past, the main factories could have been set up there.

Though we’ll likely never know what happened to Le Prince, David says that what he was able to prove in his 2015 documentary was that “the world's very first film was made in Leeds, Yorkshire”.

The two-second clip of Le Prince’s relatives marching playfully in Roundhay Park may not have been Oscar-worthy, but it survives today as proof that the unlikely city of Leeds was the true birthplace of film - an invention that changed the world beyond what even Le Prince could have imagined.