The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1914. TARDY RECOGNITION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 45, 15 June 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1914. TARDY RECOGNITION.

I In these days of great' popularity of tit© moving picture and the educational part which it plays in modern life, it is interesting to know something about the early days of the photographic film. The name of its inventor was the Kev. Hannibal Goodwin, who, for many years rector of the House of Prayer at Newark, devoted nearly the entire latter part of his life to research and experiment, developing and perfecting the principle i of the camera film. He lived and died in the most modest circumstances, and shared the fate of so many inventors and pioneers, being forced to realise at the last that his rights to discovery wore in doubt and might he disproved. But according to a story related by the New York Herald, his widow, aided by her adopted son and daughter, have been steadily continuing the fight for recognition, and now at last the Eastman Kodak Company has admitted the prior right in the patent of the Goodwins, and is to make a substantial settlement. Mrs Goodwin tells of her husband’s long labours in the effort to find what he at last succeeded in doing and how he had eventually become so deeply interested in his experiments that ho would spend practically every penny of his small atinend, over and above his actual living expenses, on them. A member of his congregation remembers that he would often leave the church at the close of a service to hasten to his studio, forgetting even to remove his vestments, and equally often he would come from the laboratory direct to his pulpit, with his hands stained and scarred by chemicals, standing out in an almost ghastly manner against his surplice. It is not very surprising to find that at last the pastor’* preoccupation with photography brought him into conflict

with his congregation, and eventually cost him the rectorship of the church. But as “father of the film,” he is today recognised and Ids heirs will reap the fruits of his great work.