IRISH LIVES:Lucien (George) Bull (1876-1972), inventor, was born on January 5th, 1876, at 16 Upper Gloucester Street, Dublin, one of two sons and two daughters of Cornelius Bull of Bedford, England, and Gabrielle Jouvé of Paris, owners of Bull's religious depository, on Suffolk Street, Dublin.
Educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, and the Faculté des Sciences, Paris University, he graduated with a degree in zoology, botany and geology. Having developed an interest in photography, he became assistant to the photographic pioneer Étienne-Jules Marey, in 1896. From 1904 he worked at the Institut Marey, of which he became the director in 1914.
Like his mentor, he became a groundbreaker in cinematography. In 1902 he invented an automated system of slow-motion cinematography, but his main interest lay in rapid photography. Also in 1902, he managed to record 500 images per second, an achievement he progressively bettered over the next 50 years, reaching a million images per second in 1952. Other of Bull’s inventions were, in 1908, the electrocardiograph and, in 1915, the first apparatus for locating artillery through sound, the result of his experiments in sonic phenomena. His brother, René, was also responsible for a wartime innovation that made possible the firing of machine guns through the propellers of fighter planes.
Bull received a CBE (1920) and moved to Britain in the 1930s, becoming head of research at the National Office of Research and Invention (1933) and director of the School of Higher Studies (1937). He frequently visited Ireland, but never lived here after childhood. He returned to Paris and became president (1948) of the Institute of Scientific Cinematography. Among the honours he received in France were the Légion d'Honneur. On March 16th, 1966, the Hommage à Lucien Bullexhibition was mounted at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. He never married, and died on August 30th, 1972, in Paris.
William Murphy
Adapted from the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography. See dib.ie
