Mayor Entering His Carriage Near the Town Hall, Halifax (1902)

Halifax
1902
Silent
2m

A richly detailed snapshot of Edwardian street life in the West Yorkshire town.

We see a glimpse of Halifax's mayor, but the streets are where the action is in this wonderful record of life on the Edwardian pavement. A constant stream of human, animal and vehicle traffic passes before the camera, and the faces are sharp and clear despite a misty January day (snow is visible on the rooftops). A fascinated crowd, mostly children, gathers in front of the Grand Junction Hotel.

Look out for the sign advertising this film's screening - at Halifax's Victoria Hall from January 27th 1902 - and the dapper, top-hatted showman from the film's sponsor, Tweedale, rushing to get out of the way.

Street Life

Pavements thronging, traffic pressed nose to bumper (or tail): these astonishing films show Edwardian streets buzzing with life.

'Street scenes' were a staple of early filmmaking, and Mitchell & Kenyon's are particularly stunning, revealing in sharp detail how our ancestors behaved, dressed and moved in public, as well as how their towns and cities were organised.

These streets throng with human and other traffic. Motor cars were still a rarity, but the tide of vehicles never let up: horse-drawn carts, bicycles, omnibuses and trams (some of them electrified). They may miss the sounds and smells of the city, but these extraordinary images evoke a rapidly changing society: an urbanised, increasingly mobile, consumer Britain not so very different from our own.