All Films

Female graduates and gents sporting spectacular Edwardian whiskers take part in Birmingham’s first Degree Day ceremony.

Outside a fairground cinematograph in Edwardian Lancashire.

An excellent picture secured on the Esplanada of the Pan-American Exposition, showing the live stock exhibitor's exposition of prize winners at the Pan-American...

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

Shows a tramp asleep. Two mischievous boys appear on roller skates. One removes his skates and they strap them to the feet of "Weary Willie." They then wake him...

Stage star Anna Held (1872-1918) riffs on her once-famous scene from the comedy Papa's Wife (1899-1901) featuring a naif getting tipsy on her first champagne, in this "photographic interview", filmed in 68mm by Frederick S. Armitage. AM&B's Picture Catalogue of 1902 pitched it as "A stunning picture of the well-known actress in the drinking scene which made such a hit in Papa's Wife. The figure is shown in bust view, making the head very large and giving a clear view of the facial expressions of the beautiful artiste." The company said that both "make hits either in the Biograph [35mm projection service] or Mutoscope" [hand-cranked peep-show viewer].

A young man's telephone call to his sweetheart is intercepted by her father, who beats him with his umbrella.

Exciting scenes of amateur cycling's 'Race of Champions' at Manchester's Fallowfield track.

Here we show Captain N. P. Nissen, formerly known as Captain Bowser, making a trip through the Whirlpool Rapids in his famous twenty-four foot craft known as the "Fool Killer"...

A conjurer vanishes animals then vanishes himself.

This clip shows part of the official parade for the Inauguration of the Commonwealth on 1 January 1901 as it passes through the temporary gate built especially for the occasion in Hyde Park, Sydney.

A young girl reciting "The Star Spangled Banner" in sign language as taught at Gallaudet Institute.

First Hungarian film ever made. Considered lost.

The great geyser at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. c. 1901.

A short documentary registering the meeting between two aviation pioneers: the Brazilian Santos Dumont and the Briton Charles Rolls. In it, Dumont presents his ideas for a future balloon, showing to Rolls the concept of such invention and the project with his notes, all of which the other man delightfully enjoys.

Panorama of a mountainside railroad and tunnel.

The evolution of Rugby League in a top of the table match between rival Lancashire clubs.

Early footage of the Lucania passenger liner.

It shows a garden wall in the background. Two lovers appear and lean over the garden gate where the moon throws a shadow upon the ground. The young man invites the young lady to a settee, when the moon's face brightens into a very pronounced grin. As the pair begin love making, the moon winks one eye and then the other, and, finally, as the lovers become more interested, the moon comes down from the sky with a grin on his face as large as an old-fashioned apple pie.

Batley go down to Lancashire rivals Salford in the very first season of the Northern Rugby League.

Our presidential hunter runs across the landscape and falls down in the snow, gets up with his rifle, and gazes upward at a treed animal which isn't in the camera's view. He fires a shot into the tree, then leaps on the ground to grab the fallen prey, a domestic cat, finishing it off with wild blows of his hunting knife while his companions, a photographer and a press agent, record the event that will be reported far and wide as a manly moment. Teddy then rides out of the forest followed by two companions afoot, never mind that they all originally arrived afoot. Perhaps it was funnier in its day than it is now, but apparently shooting cats was regarded as funny in those days. The larger point was to use a minor whimsy as a political criticism, in this case of Teddy Roosevelt's easy manipulations of the press. It was based on two frames of a political cartoon that had appeared in the paper a mere week before the film was made.

George Albert Smith and Charles Urban snaffled the plum job of travelling to Italy to take a series of views of Italy for the Warwick Trading Company, including this one. The long panning shots of Pompeii linger respectfully, as a tourist would, before the camera finally raises its eye to the mighty volcano looming in the distance beyond.

The cook has trouble lighting the stove, so she adds kerosene, with explosive results.

A camera sits on top of a moving train, providing a panoramic view of Ealing (western London) as the train moves.