Preston Monday Market (1906)

Preston
1906
Silent
1m

The cheerful hustle and bustle of a crowded market in Edwardian Preston.

The camera pans slowly across a crowded marketplace, providing intriguing glimpses of the diverse wares on offer in the early years of the 20th century. One young lad, fascinated by the filming, attempts to appear disinterested, yet does his best to stay in shot for as long as possible. His ploy apparently discovered, he breaks into a beaming smile and waves at the camera.

Note: The film focuses on the the shoppers, there are no clear shots of the goods on the stalls or people buying them.

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.