Lioret, Henri Jules

SUBJECT AREA: Horology, Recording

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b. 26 July 1848 Moret-sur-Loing, Seine-et-Marne, France d. 1938

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French clockmaker, developer of sound recording and reproducing equipment, and inventor of a celluloid cylinder.

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His first connection with the phonograph principle was in the development of a miniature talking doll with a spring motor and interchangeable and indestructible celluloid cylinders in 1893 for the firm Emile Jumeau. He went on to develop commercial recording and reproducing equipment for celluloid cylinders, perfecting the process of embossing a piece of heated celluloid tube and supporting it by shrinking it onto a piece of metal tube. His training as a clockmaker enabled him to construct a functional clockwork phonograph at a time when other companies struggled with the conversion from manual or electrical to clockwork. He was unable to compete with cheap mass production and left the phonograph field in 1911. However, he continued in other acoustic fields, including moving pictures with sound and underwater sound ranging.

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Bibliography

18 May 1893, French patent no. 230,177.

Further Reading

O.Read and W.L.Welch, 1959, From Tin Foil to Stereo, Indianapolis: Howard W.Sams, pp. 94–5.

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