The 1897 catalogue of Lumière Cinematograph Film Views published by Fuerst Brothers, the company's London agents, lists 625 films, of which 38 are subjects filmed in London. These appear in six different places in the catalogue, beginning with seven scattered among the first section of 98 'General Views'. There are three of animals at London Zoo:
The 1897 catalogue of Lumière Cinematograph Film Views published by Fuerst Brothers, the company's London agents, lists 625 films, of which 38 are subjects filmed in London. These appear in six different places in the catalogue, beginning with seven scattered among the first section of 98 'General Views'. There are three of animals at London Zoo:
And three of exotic performers, filmed in the grounds of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham:
According to the Fuerst catalogue these are views of 'Japanese Dance', 'Japanese Jugglers' and 'Japanese Wrestlers'. They are clearly not Japanese; the identification of these performers as Javanese in the 1907 Catalogue Général des Films Lumière looks correct at first. However, in the summer of 1896 the company of exotic performers installed at the Crystal Palace, later to tour the country, was from Burma, not Java:
As these advertisements in the Morning Post show, dancers and wrestlers were among the 'Burma in London' attractions. The 'football players' are in fact ball jugglers, the most famous of whom was Moung Toon. It is he, I suspect, whom we see in the Lumière film:
The Morning Post advertisements also show that playing at the same time at the same venue, following immediately on from the Burmese entertainment, was the Lumière Cinématographe, under the management of the Lumières' friend and agent, Félicien Trewey. He must have taken this opportunity to have the Burmese entertainers filmed; in October 1896 he was appearing at theatres in Wales with a programme of films that included Burmese jugglers:
(This programme features several more London-made views that I shall return to later in this post.)
The last London-made film in this first section is titled 'Boxing (Pedlar Palmer)'. Pedlar Palmer was at the time World Bantamweight Champion, and had also featured in boxing demonstrations on the London stage.
Trewey programmed this film at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in May 1896: (I haven't been able to find out anything about his opponent in the film, Tom Donovan of St James's.)
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None of these seven General Views is identified as a London film in the Fuerst catalogue. A second set, grouping 13 quite diverse subjects, is localised:
A Fire Call (no. 246), in French Alerte de pompiers, is a familiar subject for early cinematographic views. The 1907 Lumière catalogue, with over 1400 films, includes similar scenes in Lyon (no. 76), Paris (no. 778), Dublin (no. 711) and Belfast (no. 723). The specific location here is Southwark Fire Station:
The online version of the Lumière Catalogue states that 'another, non-catalogued view filmed at the same place represents the same subject'. No illustration of this view is given, and I have not found one elsewhere. In the book Cinema: the Beginnings and the Future (ed. Christopher Williams, 1996), John Barnes's essay 'Filming Scenes in the United Kingdom for the Cinématographe Lumière' is illustrated with an image captioned 'The London Fire Brigade at Southwark/Londres - Alerte de Pompiers, 1896':
But this doesn't look like Southwark and those don't look like firemen. It isn't at all clear what they are doing or where they are doing it.
Update 27th May 2020: The solution to this enigma was found for me by David Kastoryano, see here. These are Kansas City firemen and they are giving a demonstration at the Crystal Palace.
Update 27th May 2020: The solution to this enigma was found for me by David Kastoryano, see here. These are Kansas City firemen and they are giving a demonstration at the Crystal Palace.
The next item in the 1897 Fuerst catalogue combines two common subjects, bicycles and horses. Lady Cyclists and Cavaliers (Family Affair) is an odd translation for Cyclistes et cavaliers arrivant au cottage, not least because one of the two cyclists is clearly male:
This is one of two London views in the Lumière catalogue that I find particularly frustrating because their locations are still unknown. Trewey's October 1896 programme, reproduced above, lists the film as 'Meeting of Friends at Hampstead'. and the Warwick Trading Company catalogue for 1898 describes the film as 'an interesting scene in Hampstead', but I have looked long and hard without finding anything in Hampstead and environs that matches.
Update 27th May 2020: once again this problem has been solved by David Kastoryano, see here. The locationis Burgess Hill, N.W.2, by the Finchley Road.
Update 27th May 2020: once again this problem has been solved by David Kastoryano, see here. The locationis Burgess Hill, N.W.2, by the Finchley Road.
One set of clues I followed, without success, were the addresses of London-based associates of the Lumière brothers. Félicien Trewey lived at 68 Camden Road; Matt Raymond (supposed by some to have shot the film) lived in Alma Square, St John's Wood; Paul Lacroix, an operator sent out by the company, was staying in a hotel on Coventry Street; Harry Hitchins, manager of the Empire Theatre where the Cinématographe was on show, lived on Bedford Street in Covent Garden; Charles Dundas Slater, the Empire's front of house manager, lived on Piccadilly. Nothing at any of these addresses corresponded to the street in film 247.
Trewey himself is in the film, wearing a top hat. Next to him is, I think, his wife Jeanne, otherwise known as Miss Ixa, celebrated dancer and mime artist.
I can't definitely identify any of the other eleven people in the film, but the odd addition of a 'Family Affair' to the English title suggests that someone involved with the Fuerst catalogue knew who these people were.
Perhaps this was a gathering of the Fuerst clan. The brothers' business premises were on Philpot Lane, in the City, but they lived in South Hampstead, Joseph at 30 Belsize Road, with younger brother Alexander, and Jules at 23 Marlborough Place, where the younger brothers Max and Charles also lived. Their mother and sister, Regina and Henrietta (both widowed), lived nearby at 32 Carlton Hill. These last two addresses don't match the film, but I'm less sure about Belsize Road, much changed after WW2 bomb damage and '60s redevelopment - number 30 is no longer standing. I have found no pre-war photographs of this part of Belsize Road, so have no proof that this is the place in the film; the bend in the street matches the map but the shape of the buildings doesn't quite:
The other frustrating view is number 249, Street Dancing (Danseuses des rues):
The online Lumière Catalogue gives the location as Drury Lane. Nothing on or near Drury Lane now looks like this street - again, any suggestions are most welcome.
The Lumière Catalogue identifies the man with the open umbrella as Félicien Trewey and the man with the unopened umbrella as Jules Fuerst. I know that all Victorian men with moustaches look the same, but perhaps Jules Fuerst is also the cyclist in the 'Hampstead' film:
The Lumière Catalogue identifies the man with the open umbrella as Félicien Trewey and the man with the unopened umbrella as Jules Fuerst. I know that all Victorian men with moustaches look the same, but perhaps Jules Fuerst is also the cyclist in the 'Hampstead' film:
Street Dancing can be paired with number 252 in the catalogue, which in French has the slightly less offensive title Nègres dansant dans la rue.
(According to the Catalogue Lumière this film was programmed in New York as London Street Arabs Dancing and Singing, but it seems to me more likely that this title describes Danseuses ds rues.)
These white performers in blackface are on Rupert Street, a location easily identifiable from the name of the Solferino Restaurant visible behind them. The troupe appears again in film 250, in front of the Empire Theatre on Leicester Square, a short distance from Rupert Street:
Film 250, 'Entry of the Cinematograph ("outside Empire")', is the richest in detail of all the Lumière London films:
Firstly, of course, because it shows the venue at which the Lumière Cinématographe was playing, a reflexive trope repeated in film 275, showing the Entry of the Cinematograph in Vienna. As well as the Lumière Cinématographe notices, the advertised attractions at London's Empire Theatre of Varieties include two ballets, 'La Danse' and 'Faust':
The name on the poster on the balcony is Mlle Martha Irmler, one of the stars of La Danse:
The sandwich man looks at the camera but he is probably passing by chance, whereas the troupe of minstrels must have been there through association with the film being made, and their to-ing and fro-ing may be efforts to remain in front of camera, even at a distance. Most definitely aware of the camera is the group of six people who come forward from the theatre entrance and act up in front of it:
The second man from the right is Félicien Trewey, recognisable not least from his coat, the same he wore in film 247. A contemporary review identifies Charles Dundas Slater among the people in the crowd:
We can, I think, match this contemporary caricature (from L'Entr'acte, June 1st 1895) to the two men in the centre of the group:
However, this photograph of Dundas Slater, right, from a site dedicated to Harry Houdini, indicates that the labelling of the caricature is the wrong way round.
I haven't matched the two women in the group to anyone in other Lumière London films, and it may be that they are, as The Era's reviewer suggests, staff of the Empire Theatre. |
The sixth member of the group, elegant in top hat and boutonnière, reminds me of Jules Fuerst in film 249. Both like to be filmed smoking cigars. I first thought that the man in the Empire film had no moustache, which would rule out the identification, but on close scrutiny I'm inclined to think that was a trick of the light: |
But if the moustached man in film 250 is the moustached man in film 249, then the moustached man in film 249 can't be the moustached man in film 247 (my earlier tentative identification), because the moustached man in film 247 is too short to be the moustached man in film 250.
(I should stop there with the identifications.)
(I should stop there with the identifications.)
Numbers 253 to 255 in the Fuerst catalogue's first group are of familiar London landmarks - Tower Bridge, Westminster Bridge with the Houses of Parliament, and Piccadilly Circus:
The catalogue groups these as 'street scenes', along with a view labelled Regent Street. This last film is now lost, though an image from it survives:
From this we can see that the film has been wrongly labelled. This is not Regent Street but St Martin's Place, near the start of Charing Cross Road. The National Portrait Gallery is to the left.
Film 251 in the Fuerst catalogue is also wrongly labelled, insofar as this is not 'Hyde Park Corner' but somewhere within the park (Rotten Row, according to the Warwick Trading Company catalogue):
I have looked hard to see if any of these 'cavaliers' may be the same as those in the film supposed to be in Hampstead. It's possible, but the copy I have of that film is too rough to allow a positive identification. The woman to the left could be the woman dismounting, here:
Film 425 is correctly labelled as Hyde Park Corner. It is paired with a film showing Marble Arch. Both films could easily have been included among the London street scenes in the first group of localised views, but they end up in a ragbag selection of seventeen films from around the world, under the heading 'Various':
The remaining three views in that first group of thirteen are a royal procession and two military views, types recurrent in the Lumière London corpus, and in the company's output overall. Film 248 shows a moment from the wedding of Princess Maud to Prince Carl of Denmark on July 23rd 1896:
This shows the princess's coach on St James's Street, at the junction with Little St James's Street. Here is the same street six years later, decorated for the coronation of Princess Maud's father, Edward VII:
'Procession at the Wedding of Princess Maud' is a minor entry in a major genre. Later in the Fuerst catalogue comes a group of nine films related to Queen Victoria's Jubilee celebrations, shot by Jules Fuerst himself, according to John Barnes:
There are just two locations for these nine films. Despite what the catalogue says, the first is too leafy to be Paddington and must be somewhere near Hyde Park or Constitution Hill, Victoria's route from Paddington Station to Buckingham Palace on June 21st, the day before the main event. The second location is on the route of the next day's procession:
This is somewhere between points 11 and 12 on the Map of the Route, on Borough Road looking south down Lancaster Street. All buildings in shot are now gone and the site is now occupied by London South Bank University. This photograph, right, shows the buildings just out of frame in the Lumière film, including the Borough Polytechnic Institute, out of which London South Bank University evolved. |
Though the buildings in shot have gone, still there is the pub across the road in which, by my calculations, Jules Fuerst placed his camera:
For an illuminating account of the Jubilee procession as filmed by various companies, including Lumière, see Luke McKernan, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
The last type of view in those thirteen grouped under 'England' has its own sub-heading, 'Military Views'. The same sub-heading is used in the Fuerst catalogue in sections devoted to France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The location of number 258 is hard to make out. Perhaps this is the film that, apparently, came out so badly that Trewey billed it as 'London in the fog'. This must be an habitual parading place of Horse Guards such as Buckingham Palace:
Saint James's Palace, the location of film 257, is easier to recognise:
The Fuerst catalogue gives the title 'Guards (changing Guard at St James' Palace)'. According to the reviewer in The Era, this was a familiar and popular subject:
Strangely, the French catalogue and later filmographies call the film 'Garde montante au palais de Buckingham'. The English catalogue published by Philipp Wolff in 1987, with 358 of the same films as the Fuerst catalogue, also misidentifies the location as Buckingham Palace.
Numbers 520 to 525 in the Fuerst catalogue are a further set of military views. The first of these is the countershot to film 257; 521-525 are in Hyde Park and in front of Wellington Barracks: |
These five sets of London subjects (Zoo scenes, 'England' films, two London films under 'Various', 'Diamond Jubilee Subjects', 'English Military Views') are all films that featured in the Lumière company's French catalogues. Most would be seen by audiences around the world, but the last London film in the Fuerst catalogue, indeed the last of all in the catalogue, is one of a group that didn't find their way back to Lyon and into the home-produced lists. Probably shot by Jules Fuerst, they are headed 'Special Subjects', which must mean subjects of specialised local interest. The first five seem rather dull (the queen inspecting a military review at Aldershot, and two races at the Henley Regatta), but the last, 'A Cycle Race at the Wood Green Track', is of considerable local interest (to me, at least). No image from the film survives, but here is a photograph of an event at this short-lived but spectacular North London venue:
Fuerst's missing film is, to my knowledge, the first to be made in a part of London that would soon, after Robert Paul's establishment of a factory and studio at Muswell Hill, become a centre of cinematographic production.
The 1907 Catalogue générale des films Lumière adds more than 800 films to the 600 or so in the Fuerst catalogue of 1897. Among these new films are three groups of London-made films. The two sets of royal subjects, Victoria's funeral in 1901 (9 films) and Edward's coronation in 1902 (14 films) are low on topographical interest, and I haven't yet made the effort to localise these views:
Much more interesting are films 695 to 699, the five 'London' films in the group of English Views. The first four are all aquatic, one view of a rowing boat on the lake in Saint James's Park, two views of paddle steamers on the Thames and one view from a boat of the Houses of Parliament:
In the 2007 book London: City of Disappearances, Patrick Keiller identifies the place from which the paddle-steamer films were shot:
There don't appear to be any more London-made films in the 1907 Lumière catalogue, but in his book Auguste et Louis Lumière: les 1000 premiers films Jacques Rittaud-Hutinet lists a number of non-catalogued films that are London subjects. None of these is illustrated, and presumably their existence is only known through newspaper reports of Lumière programmes. I suspect that some of these are catalogued films going by different names. These are the eight London films he lists, with the dates of first reported screenings:
- Londres, relève de la garde royale au palais de la reine, Angleterre (20.5.1896)
- Trafalgar Square, Londres (24.5.1896)
- Londres, le pont de Luggate (24.5.1896)
- Londres: danseur écossais (8.7.1896)
- Londres, une rue (4.7.1896)
- Londres, les lutteurs (1.8.1896)
- Angleterre: le pompier (22.8.1896)
- Londres, la garde la reine Victoria (24.1.1897)
I would guess that the first and last of these are alternatively titled familiar films - numbers 257, 258 or 520, probably. 'Les lutteurs' could be the boxing film, number 16. 'Une rue' could be any of the more precisely localised street scenes in the catalogue, and 'Le pompier' could be the Southwark film of firemen. That leaves the Scottish dancer and the films of Trafalgar Square and Ludgate Bridge.
This programme announcement from a Lyon journal in May 1896 must be Rittaud-Hutinet's source for the 'Luggate' reference. It is interesting to note that three of the six view in this programme are London subjects. No existing Lumière film shows Ludgate Bridge or Trafalgar Square. The former must be the film shown under the title Ludgate Circus the same month at the Polytechnic Institution on Regent Street:
A film made in Trafalgar Square was part of a programme at the Empire in November 1896:
The detailed description of the seventh film in this programme is unusual. It is tempting to match this film to the Trafalgar Square film that played in Lyon in May or to the Scottish dancer film that played in Arras in July 1896, but since the Scottish piper and dancer were being obstructive in Trafalgar Square on November 9th 1896 (Lord Mayor's Day), it can't be either of those.
If I am right to discount five of Rittaud-Hutinet's eight non-catalogued films as duplicates, I make that a total of sixty-eight London Lumière films. Thirty-two of those show soldiers parading or royalty being carriaged about, which leaves thirty-six genuinely interesting subjects. I like the two river-boat films, but I think the best are those that show everyday life on the streets of London. And my favourite is the for which I cannot identify the street:
references
The Fuerst catalogue was republished in the collection Victorian Film Catalogues, a wonderful resource for the study of this period, available from The Projection Box.
Also invaluable is the online Catalogue Lumière, from which I have taken most of the stills in this post. Other images were found on the CNC's page listing its restorations of Lumière films.
See also:
John Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894-1901, vol. 2 (1996)
Bernard Chardère, Lumières sur Lumière (Lyon: Institut Lumière/Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1987)
Jacques Rittaud-Hutinet, Auguste et Louis Lumière, les 1000 premiers films (Paris: Philippe Sers, 1990)
Iain Sinclair, London: City of Disappearances (London: Penguin, 2007)
Christopher Williams, Cinema: the Beginnings and the Future (London: University of Westminster Press, 1996)
My thanks to Luke McKernan, Stephen Herbert, Marianne Colloms and Dick Weindling.
The Fuerst catalogue was republished in the collection Victorian Film Catalogues, a wonderful resource for the study of this period, available from The Projection Box.
Also invaluable is the online Catalogue Lumière, from which I have taken most of the stills in this post. Other images were found on the CNC's page listing its restorations of Lumière films.
See also:
John Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894-1901, vol. 2 (1996)
Bernard Chardère, Lumières sur Lumière (Lyon: Institut Lumière/Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1987)
Jacques Rittaud-Hutinet, Auguste et Louis Lumière, les 1000 premiers films (Paris: Philippe Sers, 1990)
Iain Sinclair, London: City of Disappearances (London: Penguin, 2007)
Christopher Williams, Cinema: the Beginnings and the Future (London: University of Westminster Press, 1996)
My thanks to Luke McKernan, Stephen Herbert, Marianne Colloms and Dick Weindling.