Darkest hour: the first ever film of a solar eclipse

Film, like magic, combines art and science. Film is a highly technical medium, but perfect for delivering illusion. The pioneer filmmakers of the 1890s were quick to exploit stop-motion and the different uses of perspective and superimposition to create filmic magical tricks that were hard to produce on stage; and audiences loved them. It is no coincidence that many early filmmakers and showmen worked in magic theatres or were performing magicians: G.A. Smith, David Devant, Walter Booth, and in France, Félicien Trewey, Georges Méliès and Gaston Velle to name a few, all worked as illusionists before trying their hand at film. Many of these filmmakers were also by necessity accomplished mechanics, engineers or photographers, with a strong grounding in science.

Just such a man was John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917), a famous Victorian magician, part owner of London’s oldest magic theatre, the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly, who staged all kinds of elaborate magic acts. Even though some of these acts invoked spiritualism and the supernatural, he was fascinated by the science and technical workings of illusions and adopted/adapted the latest technological novelties, such as automata, photography and ‘animated pictures’, for his shows. He became interested in film through one of his performers, the magician David Devant, an early adopter of cinematography, the first man to buy a movie camera from Robert Paul (George Méliès bought one soon after). Initially reticent, Maskelyne soon saw the value of a regular film strand in his show.

A contemporary account in the popular weekly magazine Black and White in April 1900 describes how the film show was “introduced by Mr Nevil Maskelyne who makes appropriate observations, which are often witty and never too long”. He also incorporated music from his mechanical orchestra. At some point, in collaboration with his son Nevil (they are commonly confused), a keen amateur astronomer and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), he had the idea of employing film to capture a solar eclipse using a camera with a telescopic adapter he devised. 

Why an eclipse? The solar eclipse was a powerful icon in both magic and science. As well as associations with the occult, as in Egyptian or Aztec mythology, eclipses represented the triumph of reason over superstition. The investigation and recording of them was an important scientific endeavour in the 19th century. You could see it as the equivalent of the ambitions to land men on the moon in the mid-20th century. The historian David Gange, in The Victorians: A Beginner’s Guide (2016), describes eclipse expeditions as markers of social and national prestige and international pre-eminence: “They required years of planning which drew in scientific societies, instrument makers, chemical companies, photographic suppliers, politicians, army officers, administrators, transport officials, and many others” – all to observe a phenomenon that would last less than seven minutes and might be obscured by cloud or prevented by a host of other catastrophes. To achieve the first moving picture of an eclipse would be a heroic feat of filmmaking, and would demonstrate that the cinematograph could be used in a rigorous way for the advancement of science.

The job was not easy. For an eclipse in January 1898, Maskelyne sent his camera all the way to India in the capable hands of the Rev John Bacon and his daughter Gertrude, famous later for their intrepid balloon aerial photography. The filming went well, but on its way back to London the can was stolen. A second opportunity came in May 1900, when Maskelyne Jr set off for North Carolina with his wife as part of the British Astronomical Association Expedition.

Disaster nearly struck again when the camera equipment didn’t turn up in America: Nevil Maskelyne had to work night and day to remake it using whatever he could lay his hands on. His hard work paid off – he managed a continuous film shot at 5 or 6 frames a second with an exposure of ⅙0th of a second at f15 during the minute and a half of totality and for four minutes afterwards. Syndicated newspaper reports all over the world listed the number of frames taken as a great achievement. This is the fragment of film recently discovered by archivist Sian Prosser at the RAS and restored with alacrity by the team at the BFI, having probably been unseen since the early 1900s.

Nevil Maskelyne presented his findings to the British Astronomical Association and the RAS. The screening of the film was not perfect, but he was congratulated by RAS president Edward Ball Knobel, who said, “It is the first time we have seen anything of the sort and we are much interested. We shall look forward to a time when Mr Maskelyne has perfected his instrument and we may see an eclipse of the sun without the expense and annoyance of taking such journeys as we have to at present.” 

More positively, it was noted: “Mr Maskelyne’s kinematograph film is of special interest by the way in which it enables us to trace the gradual fading of the corona in the face of the increasing sunlight.” From a scientific point of view, this was its most useful feature; from an entertainment point of view, it must have been a revelation to those who had only seen eclipses in still photographs. The Maskelynes wanted a novelty to show at their magic theatre – what better than the most impressive natural phenomenon of them all?