The Mitchell and Kenyon films
Rare documents of social and filmic history, the Mitchell and Kenyon films reveal the dynamics of crowds and give insights into people as individuals and members of groups at the beginning of the 20th century. They also show a relationship between camera, subjects and spectators, which is both intimate and intrusive.
The local children were always part of the audience of the films showings and could often see themselves for the first time on a screen. Before the Education Act of 1902, many children under the age of 12 had to work half-time and in some of the scenes we can spot children wearing working outfits.
Preston Egg Rolling
UK, c 1901, 3 minutes
Egg-rolling on Easter Monday afternoon was at this time an established tradition in many parts of Britain, and is still widely practised in northern England.
The showman element of this film can be captured in the first frames of this film as we see a man
in a top-hat and tails bowing to the camera. He is actually Charles Pool who travelled the country with a pre-cinematographic show incorporating film and magic lanterns.
This was eg-rolling on a Easter Monday in Preston, a long standing local tradition, which involved children boiling hard-boiled eggs, then painting them with faces and rolling them down the local park. Thousands of people would get together in the park, families would dress up and children can be seen carrying baskets with eggs. As again can be Charles Pool, directing and throwing eggs towards the camera in order to get the encouragement of the local people to actually respond to being filmed. As a result we see many children waving to the camera, using their caps and handkerchiefs.
After the egg-rolling, families would have picnics in the park, often having fun skipping - even the adults - and playing football. Children and babies were shown off. And so were hat fashions - the little girl in the pram is actually wearing an Easter bonnet.
Audley Range School, Blackburn
UK, c 1904, 2 minutes
Before the introduction of the Education Act in 1902, most of these children would have been working in factories rather than being able to go to school.
In the summer of 1904 George Green commissioned Mitchell and Kenyon to film children leaving their schools. These are some of the most delightful films in the collection, illustrating the change in the Eduation Act. And illustrating different aspects of the physical education regime that was brought in. These films would have been advertised to the parents “Come and see your children on the screen!” The children were always also invited along, getting them to shout out excitedly “Look, that's me there on the screen!”
We see the Morecambe Church Lads and the crowd reacting to being filmed. The boys are doing their drill and military exercises in front of the camera. One of the younger boys looses his place, tries to maintain military discipline, but doesn't actually succeed. Then we see the search of the crowd, wanting to see themselves on the screen while being filmed, laughing and waving.
Background information
Before purpose built cinemas existed, Mitchell and Kenyon, a small pioneering film company, was commissioned by traveling exhibitors to produce films for public screenings. These films, screened in town halls, at local fairs or village feasts, were advertised as 'local films for local people'. In most cases, the requirement was that as many people as the operator could possibly film in two minutes be captured, thereby increasing the film's audience. The motive behind such films was therefore almost always a highly commercial one, as the audiences paid to see other locals, family, friends and themselves leaving work, enjoying the annual works holidays, and watching or playing sports.
James Kenyon (1850-1925) and Sagar Mitchell (1866-1952) formed their partnership at the very end of the 19th Century and continued making films until 1913, but the bulk of their film activity was in the first five years. They were thus among the wave of film-makers who swiftly followed in the footsteps of Britain's film pioneers - rather than themselves being pioneers of British filmmaking itself.
The rediscovery and archiving (by the BFI National Film and Television Archive) of the Peter Worden Collection of Mitchell and Kenyon films - some 800 of these early films, unusually in the form of the original negatives - was accompanied by a major research project (at the University of Sheffield) exploring this generally neglected history. Interestingly, this has tended to reveal more about the colourful lives and characters of the showmen, and about the company's practices, than perhaps it has about Mitchell and Kenyon themselves as individuals. Future film histories may reach a settled judgment on Mitchell and Kenyon's real importance. It is likely that this will leave them neither the footnote they were for so long, nor perhaps the key filmmakers that they have now become. What future histories cannot take away from them is their place in the imagination of the early 21st Century British public. They owe this partly to the attention brought by the rediscovery of so much lost material, partly to the wealth of research that now supports it - but also to the skill, humour and humanity the films display.
- See also Screenonline
- For more Mitchell & Kenyon films have a look at the BFI Electric Edwardians DVD
- For more information about the films and film-makers have a look at the BFI books The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon and Electric Edwardians, The story of the Mitchell & Kenyon collection.
Teaching materials and additional materials
The teaching materials have been developed by practising teachers to provide a springboard for your own work with your pupils. Feel free to use and adapt them appropriate to your pupils' needs.
There are also some stills and additional materials, provided by the film-makers, that can be used to develop your work with the film and deepen pupils' understanding of the process of film-making.
