John Nevil Maskelyne

English inventor and stage magician (1839–1917)

John Nevil Maskelyne (22 December 1839 – 18 May 1917) was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet, along with other Victorian era devices. He worked with magicians George Alfred Cooke and David Devant, and many of his illusions are still performed today. His book Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill is considered a classic overview of card sharp practices. In 1914 he founded the Occult Committee, a group to "investigate claims to supernatural power and to expose fraud".

Maskelyne was born on 22 December 1839 at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England to John Nevil Maskelyne (1800–1875), a saddler, and his wife Harriet née Brunsdon (1812–1871). He trained as a watchmaker.

Maskelyne became interested in conjuring after watching a stage performance at his local Town Hall by the fraudulent American spiritualists the Davenport brothers. He saw how the Davenports' spirit cabinet illusion worked, and stated to the audience in the theatre that he could recreate their act using no supernatural methods. With the help of a friend, cabinet maker George Alfred Cooke, he built a version of the gigantic cabinet. Together, they revealed the Davenport Brothers' trickery to the public at a show in Cheltenham in June 1865, sponsored by the 10th Cotswold Rifle Corps to which they belonged In addition to the pseudo spiritualist phenomena of the Davenports, they added comedy illusions which included the transformation of Maskelyne and Cooke into an 'unprotected female' and a gorilla. Inspired by the acclaim they received for their clever exposure of the deception, the two men repeated their show several times. Following their local success, they branched out taking their show to nearby towns. Encouraged by their results, they decided to become professional magicians and organised tours, building on their initial routines and expanding their programme. At first they struggled to make ends meet but they were saved by a young and relatively inexperienced theatrical agent named William Morton, Morton remained their manager for 20 years. He helped them to become firmly established on the national stage, including such marathon theatrical engagements as their famous 31 year tenancy at the Egyptian Hall, which ended in 1905 when the Hall was demolished. During his performances, Maskelyne often incorporated his illusions into short plays. His performances at the Egyptian Hall influenced the magician and filmmaker Georges Méliès, whose short films incorporated special effects and illusions into short narratives.

Maskelyne and Cooke invented many illusions still performed today. Maskelyne was adept at working out the principles of illusions, one of his best known being levitation. Levitation is commonly but incorrectly said to be Jean Eugène Robert Houdin's creation, but it was Maskelyne's. Levitation is also credited to American magician Harry Kellar, who in fact stole the illusion by bribing Maskelyne's technician, Paul Valadon. In 1894, Maskelyne wrote the book Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill. It became an instant hit, and to this day is considered a classic gambling book. It was the first detailed revelation of the secrets of cardsharps. Other authors prior to Maskelyne had written about crooked gambling, but never had anyone published a work with in depth, detailed explanations of the secrets of crooked gambling. The first edition was published in London and New York. Later, when it entered the public domain, the Gambler's Book Club of Las Vegas published the first reprint. It is now also available online in the form of an annotated website. Maskelyne wrote several books, but Sharps and Flats is by far his most important and best known literary work.

Maskelyne became attracted to conjuring after witnessing a Davenport brothers performance, which he and Cooke set out to establish as fraudulent. Maskelyne's observations of trickery at the Cambridge séance sittings in 1895 were important for the exposure of the medium Eusapia Palladino. In 1876, Maskelyne was a witness in a fraud case against Henry Slade, a purported medium who was convicted at the end of the trial. In 1910, Maskelyne debated Hiram Maxim in The Strand Magazine on the trickery of the Davenport brothers.

With his son, John Nevil Maskelyne Jr., Maskelyne invented a typewriter whose types were inked by a pad and which typed proportionally (some characters receiving greater widths than others). This machine was probably introduced to the market in 1893. The 1897 Victoria model of the Maskelyne Typewriter introduced further refinements. Maskelyne's invention of the door lock for London toilets required the insertion of a penny coin to operate it, leading to the euphemism to "spend a penny". With John Algernon Clarke, Maskelyne invented the Psycho Automaton, a machine that could supposedly play Whist. At London's Egyptian Hall, Psycho appeared in more than 4,000 performances.