Mitchell and Kenyon
Encyclopedia
The Mitchell & Kenyon film
company was a pioneer of early commercial movies based in Blackburn in Lancashire
, England
at the start of the 20th century. They were originally best known for minor contributions to early fictional narrative film and Boer War
dramatisation films, but the discovery in 1994 of a hoard of film negatives led to restoration of the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection, the largest surviving collection of early non-fiction actuality film
s in the world. This collection provides a fresh view of Edwardian England and an important resource for historians.
in the United Kingdom
, the first showing to a paying audience was by Auguste and Louis Lumière
of France
, in Paris
in 1895 and in London
the following year, featuring La sortie des usines Lumière showing workers leaving their factory gates in Lyon
. Others in France and Britain soon made films, some in "the factory-gate film" genre, and when Mitchell & Kenyon came together they found themselves ideally placed in the heart of the industrial North of England. People were excited at the opportunity of seeing themselves on film, and there were commercial opportunities for short films featuring as many local people as possible.
and James Kenyon founded the firm of Mitchell & Kenyon in 1897. Under the trade name of Norden, the company was one of the largest film producers in the United Kingdom
in the 1900s, with the slogans of "Local Films For Local People" and "We take them and make them", they operated initially from their respective business premises at 40 Northgate and 21 King Street, Blackburn.
The first reported showing of a Mitchell & Kenyon film was a film of Blackburn Market, shown at 40 Northgate, in Blackburn, on 27 November 1897. The company produced films either on their own initiative or as commissioned by local businesses. In April 1899 the travelling showman George Green commissioned them to film workers leaving factories, to be shown at the Easter fair, thus beginning the showing of their films by a network of showmen.
Three Norden fiction films released in September 1899 — The Tramp's Surprise, The Tramps and the Artist, and Kidnapping by Indians — brought them to national attention. The success of their early films encouraged Mitchell to give up his shop and in September 1901 Mitchell & Kenyon moved into premises in Clayton Street, Blackburn, to concentrate on film production. Fiction production was not as extensive as their production of "topicals", but by 1903 the company had an outdoor studio at its premises at 22 Clayton Street, Blackburn, which was used in addition to outside locations. The Cinema Museum in London currently preserves 65 Norden fiction films.
The showmen became self-publicising travelling cinematograph operators. Films taken during the day were shown on the same evening in fairground tents or local meeting halls and music halls with slogans like "see yourselves as others see you". Dramas took a while to catch on and the non-fiction actuality films were more popular. A typical two-hour programme would show drama, comedy, live actors and then the main attraction, local "topicals", with a brass band and the showman's commentary during the silent films, plus occasional sound effects from guns and members of the audience paid to scream and faint to add to the excitement.
s, some horse drawn as well as the new electric trams, and Mitchell & Kenyon added variety by filming from moving trams. Bicycles abound, and they also showed the novel rarity, a motor car. Warships and steamboat
s are shown, and at Liverpool
docks emigrants are shown boarding ships such as the Cunarder bound for Boston
, the films having been developed on the same day for relatives to see that night.
Workers now had one week's holiday each year, albeit unpaid, and films were made in the thriving holiday resorts including Blackpool
and Morecambe Bay
. Leisure activities shown include boating on rivers, promenading in pleasure gardens and rolling Easter eggs.
The parades and processions include carnivals with participants blacking up and doing 'golliwog' dance routines, and men dressed as both Dutch men and women doing a clog dance. Others show religious processions, [carnival processions) charity parades and marches, and Temperance
parades featuring their children's section, The Band of Hope. Military marches and parades were featured, as well as marches by the Boys' Brigade
and the Church Lads' Brigade
in October 1899 brought new business opportunities to the company — it turned its attention to the production of war films. Troops were shown marching off to join the war or coming back from the front, past flag waving spectators. Crowds were shown greeting war heroes, in particular Private Charles Ward
of Leeds, the last man to receive the Victoria Cross
from Queen Victoria herself, being interviewed by Ralph Pringle.
Fictionalised scenes from the South African war and the Boxer Rebellion
were filmed in the countryside around Blackburn. These are described as fakes, but the audiences may well have accepted them as dramatic re-enactments. Screenings were enlivened by smoke bombs and guns being fired.
Mitchell & Kenyon's most innovative film was The Arrest of Goudie in 1901, which is arguably the world's first filmed crime reconstruction — the film incorporates the actual crime locations and depicts the arrest of Thomas Goudie, a Bank of Liverpool
employee who embezzled £170,000 while involved in a gambling ring. The film was shown at the Prince of Wales Theatre
in Liverpool
only three days after Goudie's arrest. Goudie was subsequently jailed for ten years. A full detailed history of this film by Vanessa Toulmin can be found "An Early Film Crime Rediscovered: Mitchell & Kenyon’s Arrest of Goudie (1901)", in Film History vol 16, no 1 (2004): 37-53.
, at the match they played on 6 December 1902 against Burnley
— the film was to have been shown that evening at the Burnley Mechanics' Institute, but the showing was cancelled as Burnley lost 2-0, and the film was never shown until its recent rediscovery. A match between Sheffield United and Bury in September 1902 featured William "Fatty" Foulke
, one of the most famous players of his day who also played for Bradford City and Chelsea. They also filmed possibly the first football injury to be captured on film, when an Irish striker struck the goalpost in the Wales versus Ireland international match at Wrexham
in 1906. For further details see Vanessa Toulmin, "Edwardian Sport on Film", International Journal of Sport in History (Volume 26, No. 2 (2006).
Rugby league and cricket matches were also featured, and when A D Thomas, who styled himself "the picture king, the master mind of the world", heard of a cricketing scandal where the respected Lancashire
bowler Arthur Mold was repeatedly given no ball by the umpire, he promptly commissioned a filmed re-enactment of Mold's bowling to prove that his technique was valid — the first action replay, which was a popular success.
Other films featured rowing events, horse trotting, athletics, cycle races and motor tricycle races.
and Charlie Chaplin
more than a decade later. Diving Lucy of 1903 showed a lady's legs sticking up out of a pond in Blackburn's Queen's Park, and rescuers setting up a plank which a tubby policeman goes out on only to find it a hoax, at which the others let go and he falls in the water. It was an international success, in France and the US where it was billed as "the hit British comedy of the year".
To enliven some street scenes the showmen arranged for mock fights or hosing down a spectator, and slapstick was added to park scenes with male actors dressed as women falling off a donkey or in the water from a boat, revealing their petticoats under the long skirts of the time.
Knowing of local businessman and historian Peter Worden's interest in cinematography, Gregory phoned Worden and offered to arrange for the drums to be delivered to him. The films were then looked after by Worden until their transfer to the British Film Institute in July 2000
Worden, along with another local historian, Robin Whalley, researched the films and provided an invaluable introduction into the firm and their films in an article published as "Forgotten Firm" in Film History, volume 10, number 1, 1998 (ISBN 1-86462-031-5).
The Peter Worden Collection of Mitchell & Kenyon Films has now been preserved by staff at British Film Institute
's National Film and Television Archive
, carefully storing the dangerously inflammable 35 mm nitrate negatives. Painstaking film preservation
techniques were used to produce remarkably clean and scratch-free positives, adjusting the speed to smooth out the variations in these hand-cranked films. The results are fresh and natural, offering an unparalleled social record of early 20th century British life.
The University of Sheffield
's National Fairground Archive and the British Film Institute were awarded a three-year research grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Board to research, catalogue, identify and contextualise the 800 plus films. This has culminated in a collection of essays The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon: Edwardian Britain on Film, edited by Vanessa Toulmin, Simon Popple and Patrick Russell and published by the BFI in October 2004 (ISBN 1-84457-046-0, paperback, ISBN 1-84457-047-9, hardback) and over 15 articles. The major catalogue and interpretation of the Collection has been published by the British Film Institute titled Electric Edwardians: The Story of the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection (London: BFI, 2006), by Vanessa Toulmin, it contains over 431 stills from the collection, an array of handbills and posters from the National Fairground Archive and 100,000 words of text and filmographic references. Also available is a companion DVD titled The Electric Edwardians with two hours of highlights from the Collection with extras on the archiving of the films, an essay by film historian Tom Gunning and an interview with the lead researcher on the Collection, Vanessa Toulmin. Forthcoming film releases include Mitchell & Kenyon in Ireland and Edwardian Sport on Film (both to be released in late spring 2007)
A prime-time three-part series The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon
was shown on the BBC
in January 2005 with enthusiastic commentary by historian Dan Cruickshank
and interviews with descendants of people shown in the films, and is available on DVD from the BBC or the BFI.
The BFI and the NFA have toured the Collection extensively presenting over 100 shows throughout the North of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales and proving once again that local films for local people are as popular today as they were a century ago. Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive has also presented specialist feature shows on the history of Rugby League with Professor Tony Collins, seaside entertainment with John Walton and football history with Dave Russell.
In May 2011, the Collection was inscribed in UNESCO
's UK Memory of the World Register
.
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
company was a pioneer of early commercial movies based in Blackburn in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
at the start of the 20th century. They were originally best known for minor contributions to early fictional narrative film and Boer War
Boer War
The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat and the Republiek van Transvaal ....
dramatisation films, but the discovery in 1994 of a hoard of film negatives led to restoration of the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection, the largest surviving collection of early non-fiction actuality film
Actuality film
The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that like the documentary film uses footage of real events, places, and things, yet unlike the documentary is not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coherent whole. In practice, actuality films preceded the emergence of the...
s in the world. This collection provides a fresh view of Edwardian England and an important resource for historians.
Background
Following on from the first motion picture, made in October 1888 by Louis Le PrinceLouis Le Prince
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince was an inventor who is considered by many film historians as the true father of motion pictures, who shot the first moving pictures on paper film using a single lens camera....
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the first showing to a paying audience was by Auguste and Louis Lumière
Auguste and Louis Lumière
The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean , were among the earliest filmmakers in history...
of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1895 and in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
the following year, featuring La sortie des usines Lumière showing workers leaving their factory gates in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
. Others in France and Britain soon made films, some in "the factory-gate film" genre, and when Mitchell & Kenyon came together they found themselves ideally placed in the heart of the industrial North of England. People were excited at the opportunity of seeing themselves on film, and there were commercial opportunities for short films featuring as many local people as possible.
"We take them and make them."
Sagar MitchellSagar Mitchell
Sagar Jones Mitchell was a pioneer of cinematography in Blackburn, Lancashire, England.The son of John and Eliza Mitchell, he was educated at a private academy and apprenticed as a cabinet maker. In 1887 Sagar and his father John founded the firm of S. & J...
and James Kenyon founded the firm of Mitchell & Kenyon in 1897. Under the trade name of Norden, the company was one of the largest film producers in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in the 1900s, with the slogans of "Local Films For Local People" and "We take them and make them", they operated initially from their respective business premises at 40 Northgate and 21 King Street, Blackburn.
The first reported showing of a Mitchell & Kenyon film was a film of Blackburn Market, shown at 40 Northgate, in Blackburn, on 27 November 1897. The company produced films either on their own initiative or as commissioned by local businesses. In April 1899 the travelling showman George Green commissioned them to film workers leaving factories, to be shown at the Easter fair, thus beginning the showing of their films by a network of showmen.
Three Norden fiction films released in September 1899 — The Tramp's Surprise, The Tramps and the Artist, and Kidnapping by Indians — brought them to national attention. The success of their early films encouraged Mitchell to give up his shop and in September 1901 Mitchell & Kenyon moved into premises in Clayton Street, Blackburn, to concentrate on film production. Fiction production was not as extensive as their production of "topicals", but by 1903 the company had an outdoor studio at its premises at 22 Clayton Street, Blackburn, which was used in addition to outside locations. The Cinema Museum in London currently preserves 65 Norden fiction films.
The showmen became self-publicising travelling cinematograph operators. Films taken during the day were shown on the same evening in fairground tents or local meeting halls and music halls with slogans like "see yourselves as others see you". Dramas took a while to catch on and the non-fiction actuality films were more popular. A typical two-hour programme would show drama, comedy, live actors and then the main attraction, local "topicals", with a brass band and the showman's commentary during the silent films, plus occasional sound effects from guns and members of the audience paid to scream and faint to add to the excitement.
Topicals
As well as workers streaming out of factory gates, Mitchell & Kenyon filmed street scenes, parades, marches, walking out on Sunday and the fairgrounds. Charmingly, as the crowds pass by there are usually a few who come up and stare or wave at the camera, in a way that nowadays annoys news presenters. The street scenes are busy with pedestrians wandering across in front of the slow horse drawn carts and tramTram
A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...
s, some horse drawn as well as the new electric trams, and Mitchell & Kenyon added variety by filming from moving trams. Bicycles abound, and they also showed the novel rarity, a motor car. Warships and steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
s are shown, and at Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
docks emigrants are shown boarding ships such as the Cunarder bound for Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, the films having been developed on the same day for relatives to see that night.
Workers now had one week's holiday each year, albeit unpaid, and films were made in the thriving holiday resorts including Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...
and Morecambe Bay
Morecambe Bay
Morecambe Bay is a large bay in northwest England, nearly due east of the Isle of Man and just to the south of the Lake District National Park. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the United Kingdom, covering a total area of 310 km².-Natural features:The rivers Leven,...
. Leisure activities shown include boating on rivers, promenading in pleasure gardens and rolling Easter eggs.
The parades and processions include carnivals with participants blacking up and doing 'golliwog' dance routines, and men dressed as both Dutch men and women doing a clog dance. Others show religious processions, [carnival processions) charity parades and marches, and Temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
parades featuring their children's section, The Band of Hope. Military marches and parades were featured, as well as marches by the Boys' Brigade
Boys' Brigade
For the 80s New Wave band from Canada, see Boys Brigade .The Boys' Brigade is an interdenominational Christian youth organisation, conceived by William Alexander Smith to combine drill and fun activities with Christian values...
and the Church Lads' Brigade
News and re-enactments
The outbreak of the Boer War in South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in October 1899 brought new business opportunities to the company — it turned its attention to the production of war films. Troops were shown marching off to join the war or coming back from the front, past flag waving spectators. Crowds were shown greeting war heroes, in particular Private Charles Ward
Charles Ward (VC)
Charles Burley Ward VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Details:...
of Leeds, the last man to receive the Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
from Queen Victoria herself, being interviewed by Ralph Pringle.
Fictionalised scenes from the South African war and the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
were filmed in the countryside around Blackburn. These are described as fakes, but the audiences may well have accepted them as dramatic re-enactments. Screenings were enlivened by smoke bombs and guns being fired.
Mitchell & Kenyon's most innovative film was The Arrest of Goudie in 1901, which is arguably the world's first filmed crime reconstruction — the film incorporates the actual crime locations and depicts the arrest of Thomas Goudie, a Bank of Liverpool
Bank of Liverpool
The Bank of Liverpool was a financial institution founded in 1831 in Liverpool, England.In 1918, it acquired Martins Bank, and the name of the merged bank became the Bank of Liverpool and Martins Ltd...
employee who embezzled £170,000 while involved in a gambling ring. The film was shown at the Prince of Wales Theatre
Liverpool Empire Theatre
Liverpool Empire Theatre is located on the corner of Lime Street and London Road in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. The theatre is the second to be built on the site, and was opened in 1925. It has the largest two-tier auditorium in Britain and can seat 2,350 people...
in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
only three days after Goudie's arrest. Goudie was subsequently jailed for ten years. A full detailed history of this film by Vanessa Toulmin can be found "An Early Film Crime Rediscovered: Mitchell & Kenyon’s Arrest of Goudie (1901)", in Film History vol 16, no 1 (2004): 37-53.
Sports
The recent introduction of Saturday afternoons off work had made sporting events into popular mass entertainment. Mitchell & Kenyon filmed these events, taking care to get as many spectators in as possible as well as showing some of the action. They took the first known film of the newly-renamed Manchester UnitedManchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
, at the match they played on 6 December 1902 against Burnley
Burnley
Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....
— the film was to have been shown that evening at the Burnley Mechanics' Institute, but the showing was cancelled as Burnley lost 2-0, and the film was never shown until its recent rediscovery. A match between Sheffield United and Bury in September 1902 featured William "Fatty" Foulke
William Foulke (footballer)
William Henry "Fatty" Foulke was a professional cricketer and football player in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
, one of the most famous players of his day who also played for Bradford City and Chelsea. They also filmed possibly the first football injury to be captured on film, when an Irish striker struck the goalpost in the Wales versus Ireland international match at Wrexham
Wrexham
Wrexham is a town in Wales. It is the administrative centre of the wider Wrexham County Borough, and the largest town in North Wales, located in the east of the region. It is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley close to the border with Cheshire, England...
in 1906. For further details see Vanessa Toulmin, "Edwardian Sport on Film", International Journal of Sport in History (Volume 26, No. 2 (2006).
Rugby league and cricket matches were also featured, and when A D Thomas, who styled himself "the picture king, the master mind of the world", heard of a cricketing scandal where the respected Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
bowler Arthur Mold was repeatedly given no ball by the umpire, he promptly commissioned a filmed re-enactment of Mold's bowling to prove that his technique was valid — the first action replay, which was a popular success.
Other films featured rowing events, horse trotting, athletics, cycle races and motor tricycle races.
Comedy
As early as 1900 some fiction films included slapstick comedy with blundering policemen, in anticipation of the Keystone KopsKeystone Kops
The Keystone Kops were incompetent fictional policemen, featured in silent film comedies in the early 20th century. The movies were produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917. The idea came from Hank Mann who also played police chief Tehiezel in the first film...
and Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
more than a decade later. Diving Lucy of 1903 showed a lady's legs sticking up out of a pond in Blackburn's Queen's Park, and rescuers setting up a plank which a tubby policeman goes out on only to find it a hoax, at which the others let go and he falls in the water. It was an international success, in France and the US where it was billed as "the hit British comedy of the year".
To enliven some street scenes the showmen arranged for mock fights or hosing down a spectator, and slapstick was added to park scenes with male actors dressed as women falling off a donkey or in the water from a boat, revealing their petticoats under the long skirts of the time.
Decline
In May 1907 Sagar Mitchell resumed possession of his original business, S. & J. Mitchell, at 40 Northgate, Blackburn. The volume of film production seems to have tailed off from this date, and from 1909 was increasingly restricted to local events. By the mid 1900s the taste of audiences for seeing themselves was fading, and more structured films were coming into vogue and the company concentrated on their fictional output. The last surviving film dates from 1913. Mitchell was joined in his business by his son John in 1921. His partnership with Kenyon was formally dissolved around 1922 and Kenyon died in 1925. Mitchell carefully stored the film negatives away in the basement of his shop. He lived to the age of 85, and died on 2 October 1952. John continued to run the business until he retired in 1960.Discovery and restoration of the Collection
In 1994 during demolition work in what had been Mercers shop in Northgate, Blackburn, two workmen were clearing out the basement when they found three metal drums like milk churns, and looked inside to see hundreds of small spools of film. On their way to the Lethbridges Scrap Metal Processors was Magic Moments Video which did cine to video transfers, and the workmen dragged in a churn and asked the proprietor, Nigel Garth Gregory, if the films were of any value.Knowing of local businessman and historian Peter Worden's interest in cinematography, Gregory phoned Worden and offered to arrange for the drums to be delivered to him. The films were then looked after by Worden until their transfer to the British Film Institute in July 2000
Worden, along with another local historian, Robin Whalley, researched the films and provided an invaluable introduction into the firm and their films in an article published as "Forgotten Firm" in Film History, volume 10, number 1, 1998 (ISBN 1-86462-031-5).
The Peter Worden Collection of Mitchell & Kenyon Films has now been preserved by staff at British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's National Film and Television Archive
BFI National Archive
The BFI National Archive is a department of the British Film Institute, and one of the largest film archives in the world. It was originally set up as the National Film Library in 1935; its first curator was Ernest Lindgren. In 1955 its name became the National Film Archive, and in 1992, the...
, carefully storing the dangerously inflammable 35 mm nitrate negatives. Painstaking film preservation
Film preservation
thumb|300px|Stacked containers filled with reels of [[film stock]]The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain...
techniques were used to produce remarkably clean and scratch-free positives, adjusting the speed to smooth out the variations in these hand-cranked films. The results are fresh and natural, offering an unparalleled social record of early 20th century British life.
The University of Sheffield
University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
's National Fairground Archive and the British Film Institute were awarded a three-year research grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Board to research, catalogue, identify and contextualise the 800 plus films. This has culminated in a collection of essays The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon: Edwardian Britain on Film, edited by Vanessa Toulmin, Simon Popple and Patrick Russell and published by the BFI in October 2004 (ISBN 1-84457-046-0, paperback, ISBN 1-84457-047-9, hardback) and over 15 articles. The major catalogue and interpretation of the Collection has been published by the British Film Institute titled Electric Edwardians: The Story of the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection (London: BFI, 2006), by Vanessa Toulmin, it contains over 431 stills from the collection, an array of handbills and posters from the National Fairground Archive and 100,000 words of text and filmographic references. Also available is a companion DVD titled The Electric Edwardians with two hours of highlights from the Collection with extras on the archiving of the films, an essay by film historian Tom Gunning and an interview with the lead researcher on the Collection, Vanessa Toulmin. Forthcoming film releases include Mitchell & Kenyon in Ireland and Edwardian Sport on Film (both to be released in late spring 2007)
A prime-time three-part series The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon
The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon
The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon is a BBC documentary series produced in conjunction with the British Film Institute. Three one-hour episodes were broadcast on BBC One in January 2005 and released on Region 2 DVD soon after....
was shown on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in January 2005 with enthusiastic commentary by historian Dan Cruickshank
Dan Cruickshank
Dan Cruickshank is an art historian and BBC television presenter.-Early life:As a young child he lived for some years in Poland...
and interviews with descendants of people shown in the films, and is available on DVD from the BBC or the BFI.
The BFI and the NFA have toured the Collection extensively presenting over 100 shows throughout the North of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales and proving once again that local films for local people are as popular today as they were a century ago. Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive has also presented specialist feature shows on the history of Rugby League with Professor Tony Collins, seaside entertainment with John Walton and football history with Dave Russell.
In May 2011, the Collection was inscribed in UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
's UK Memory of the World Register
UK Memory of the World Register
The UK Memory of the World Register, on which work started in 2009 and whose first inscriptions were made in 2010, is a list of individual documents and documentary collections of particular importance to the United Kingdom; it is the national complement to UNESCO's international Memory of the...
.
External links
- Mitchell & Kenyon footage of Morecambe
- Mitchell & Kenyon at the National Fairground Archive, Sheffield University
- Mitchell & Kenyon at the British Film Institute
- Guardian Unlimited | Features | The Lost World
- bfi Video: The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon (DVD)
- The Latest Industry News (restoring the films)