Mitchell & Kenyon

Bustling scenes show Edwardian Derry-Londonderry before industrialisation took hold.

Kidnapping by Indians is a 1899 British silent short Western film, made by the Mitchell and Kenyon film company, shot in Blackburn, England. It is believed to be the first Western film, pre-dating Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery by four years.

A group of miners (including a sole black worker) exits the colliery gates.

The ornate pavilions of cinematographs, boxing booths and menageries at Hull Fair.

In 1901 people in Belfast paid their tram drivers in carrots.

Footage from the dawn of film taken by Mitchell and Kenyon in North England, 1901.

The annual championship meeting of England's premier athletics association.

These short scenes were filmed in January 1902 in and around Wexford's Bull Ring market, capturing an array of local characters, including a cheery fishwife. Children and members of the Royal Irish Constabulary mingle with the traders and customers. The Mayor of Wexford, in his official regalia, appears with his daughters. The films were later shown at the Theatre Royal, Wexford. This film was shot during a two-day visit to the South East Ireland town by Mitchell and Kenyon cameraman Louis De Clercq. The man in the pale hat seen walking arm-in-arm with another man towards the camera may be Hugh McCarthy, manager of Wexford's White Hotel. The same man reappears later, alongside the mayor and his daughters.

Turn of the century rugby league.

All the fun of the Whitsuntide Fair in Edwardian Preston.

A dozen years before hostilities broke out between Britain and Germany, members of their respective royal families visited the Cork Exhibition together on 8 May 1902. They are shown here inspecting one of its most imposing visual highlights: the gigantic water chute, which cost £3,000 to construct (nearer £300,000 today), as well as a police parade and more leisurely boating activities.

A lively crowd surround the camera filming a tram leaving Wigan Market Place.

Splendid views of Edwardian Rochdale from the front of a tram after a recent dusting of snow.

These slightly weary-looking soldiers, just back from South Africa, were perhaps only temporarily housed in their Cork barracks before a well-earned return home. Despite Irish misgivings, some 30,000 Irish soldiers fought in the Boer War. In a neat lesson in colonial history, the barracks were named after Queen Victoria in 1849 and rapidly re-named 'Collins Barracks' after Irish independence.

This film recreates the arrest of Thomas Goudie, a bank employee who embezzled £170,000 to pay gambling debts, using the real locations. It shows the exterior of the house where he was hiding during a nationwide manhunt and re-enacts scenes of the landlady informing on him and his arrest. The film has no explanatory titles, so presumably audiences would have known, or were told, the story.

The Lillywhites take on the Wolves at Deepdale, watched by a large crowd and the club mascot.

As well as its extensive railway network, Cork was served by an impressive tramway system, which was just four years old when this film was made. As the tram veers into Bridge Street the filmmakers capture an excellent panorama of Patrick's Bridge, one of the city's major landmarks, and the bustling atmosphere of the commercial centre. This kind of 'phantom ride' was a staple of early film.

An Edwardian football match at Newcastle's St James' Park ground.

Yet another factory gate exit film from Mitchell and Kenyon.

Evocative film of the passengers and crew of a ship docked at Liverpool.