After William Riley attended a demonstration of the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe in Paris, the Bradford-based Riley Brothers became enthused by the idea of moving images. In 1896, the brothers introduced the Kineoptoscope projector, based on the designs of local electrical engineer Cecil Wray.
Wray, a Bradford-based electrical engineer, designed the device to project Kinetoscope images onto a screen. The Kinetoscope, first produced by Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Dickinson, could only be used by one person at a time, viewing the film through a peephole at the top of the device. The development of film projection devices in the mid-1890s marked a revolution in how the new art of cinematography was exhibited.
