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EYE ON EDWARDIAN ENGLAND

Newly restored scenes include:

  • Whitsuntide Fair at Preston (1906)
  • Pendlebury Colliery (1901)
  • Blackpool Victoria Pier (1904)
  • Burnley v Manchester United (1902)



    • “This is an incredibly exciting and significant film discovery and we are immensely lucky to have such a clear, informative and entertaining visual record of life in Edwardian times"
    bfi Director Amanda Nevill


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    British Film Institute
    Notes on the Mitchell and Kenyon collection
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    University of Sheffield
    The Mitchell and Kenyon Research Project
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    Details on tomorrow night's Gala launch
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    Advertisement

    Watching the past
    Film



    Published: 13-Jan-2004
    By: Samira Ahmed



    Imagine you could travel back in time to find yourself at a turn of the century coal mine; on the bridge of a Cunard liner in Liverpool or promenading at Morecambe Bay when the resort was the height of sophistication.




    Glebe Mills, Hollinwood, 1901




    The British Film Institute has made it possible by restoring 28 hours of black and white footage, discovered after 80 years in the Blackburn shop basement of Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, two Lancashire entrepreneur film makers who shot the pictures for fairground owners and travelling showmen.





    Audley Range School, Blackburn, 1904




    Shot in the north of England between 1897 and 1913, these films were shown before the advent of cinemas to audiences at fairgrounds, village fetes and town halls.





    Morecambe Church Lads Brigade, 1901




    It was a unique experience – for the first time, people could see themselves, their friends and family on screen in what were dubbed “local films for local people”.





    Glebe Mills, Hollinwood, 1901




    There is even the earliest surviving footage of a football match between Manchester United, in its first season following its change of name from Newton Heath, playing Burnley. The film was never shown in Burnley as the local side lost 2- nil.



    Mitchell and Kenyon’s business folded in 1920 and it wasn’t until 1994 that some 800 original nitrate film negatives were discovered in the basement of their original premises.





    Manchester street scene, 1901




    A local film historian, Peter Worden, recognised their importance and brought the footage to the attention of the BFI, who duly went to work on the negatives.



    The results of the £1 million pound restoration project will be shown at a special gala screening in Blackburn tomorrow night, with two DVD’s being released later this year.




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