I couldn't get your link to work Dr. Bill, but I found this site:

http://courses.ncssm.edu/gallery/collections/toys/html/exhibit07.htm

The introductory text is intriguing:

In 1832, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and his sons introduced the phenakistoscope ("spindle viewer"). It was also invented independently in the same year by Simon von Stampfer of Vienna, Austria, who called his invention a stroboscope. Plateau's inspiration had come primarily from the work of Michael Faraday and Peter Mark Roget (the compiler of Roget's Thesaurus). Faraday had invented a device he called "Michael Faraday's Wheel," that consisted of two discs that spun in opposite directions from each other. From this, Plateau took another step, adapting Faraday's wheel into a toy he later named the phenakistoscope.

It does not, alas, explain the Roget connection.

Bingley

Bingley