French mechanic, projectionist

Late in life Charles Moisson recalled how Antoine Lumière had arrived at his office in 1894, where Moisson was with Louis Lumière, bearing a piece of Edison Kinetoscope film, the start of the Lumières' interest in motion pictures (other sources suggest that this discussion involved the Lumières and Clément-Maurice). Moisson was the Lumières' chief mechanic and worked with the brothers on the design of the prototype of the Cinématographe camera, and constructed the first working example. For the trials, the machine used bands of perforated photographic paper. He was operator of the Cinématographe at several of the early Lumière projections in 1895, including the demonstration to the Belgian Photographic Association on 10 November 1895, and the first show to a paying public at the Grand Café on 28 December 1895. The famous engraving of a Lumière Cinématogaphe projectionist is said to represent Moisson. Five months later on 14 May 1896 was in Russia with Francis Doublier to photograph the coronation of Tsar Nikolas II. Later in the year he travelled to Italy for the Lumières but does not seem to have had any further career as one of their travelling operators. Moisson's first model Cinématographe survives at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris.

Stephen Herbert