About the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection

Mitchell & Kenyon was a late Victorian and Edwardian film company based in Blackburn in Lancashire - hitherto best known for minor contributions to early fictional narrative film and for fake Boer War films. The Mitchell & Kenyon collection, however, consists almost entirely of actuality films commissioned by travelling fairground operators for showing at local fairgrounds or other venues across the UK.

The collection was stored for many decades in two large barrels following the winding-up of the firm, and was discovered in Blackburn in the early 1990s. The Mitchell & Kenyon Films are now being preserved by the BFI.

Preservation

bfi is systematically restoring the entire collection of films, transferring the images from the fragile original nitrate film stock to new masters and viewing copies - expensive, painstaking work which will enable the films to be seen once again for the first time in a century.

Research

bfi and The National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield are working in partnership on a three-year research programme in parallel with the restoration of the films, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. This will place, date and contextualise the films, revealing for the first time the extent of the relationship of early film makers with fairground operators and travelling showmen.

Outcomes

The bfi has completed the extensive restoration and research programmes. The bfi is now actively making the collection available, through screenings across the UK, video and DVD releases, and a book of specially commissioned essays on themes within the collection by leading authorities in a broad range of disciplines, a fully illustrated filmography and a full catalogue of the collection.

A prime-time three-part series about the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection, The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon, was screened on BBC Two early in 2005.

Experts, academics from a variety of disciplines, and archivists gathered together for the Mitchell & Kenyon Study Day in June 2003. This event was devoted to the screening and discussion of a selection of the collection.

A book, The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon, has been published by the bfi.