Mitchell & Kenyon

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

A flood of Lancashire cotton workers and their children at the end of another shift.

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

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

A temperance society decries the demon drink on the streets of Edwardian Manchester.

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

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

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.

One long traveling shot through a sea front lined with tourists, workers, and sundry others.

This film is part of the Mitchell and Kenyon collection - an amazing visual record of everyday life in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century.

This film is part of the Mitchell and Kenyon collection - an amazing visual record of everyday life in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The biggest English comedy hit of the year. The scene is laid on an English estate at the edge of a pond. A couple of laborers discover, protruding from the water a pair of female legs. They hasten to the rescue, secure a bench and a long plank so as to get out over the water to the point where the legs are sticking up. Just as they complete their preparations a policeman runs up and insists on going out to the rescue of the female in distress.

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.

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

Two Boers shoot and rob a sentry.

All the fun of the Whitsuntide Fair in Edwardian Preston.

Lancashire children perform physical education exercises in (almost) perfect unison.

Edwardian workers react to the camera at one of Rotherham's major employers.

Yet another factory gate exit film from Mitchell and Kenyon.

It is a dramatic film, with its colossal explosion and smouldering remains. Within seconds of the chimney's collapse, crowds swarm in to inspect the site; issues of the crowd's health and safety are clearly not a concern, as people smile, wave and salute the camera.