Jamaica Street Glasgow (1901)

Glasgow
1901
Silent
2m

A flood of pedestrians and horse-drawn traffic in Edwardian Glasgow.

Jamaica Street was and still is one of Glasgow's busiest thoroughfares, and that's probably why Mitchell and Kenyon took their camera there in April 1901. Showman AD Thomas, who distributed this film, claimed that some 8,000 people saw it screened at the city's Grand Circus. Many of those will have been among the flood of workers in the concluding shot, apparently taken in another street.

The film illustrates a world in flux: many of the horse-drawn buses and carriages seen here would be replaced by electric trams a year later, in 1902. The traffic is almost nose-to-tail, but seems very orderly all the same.

The Victorian World

Vivid portraits of everyday Victorian life, thanks to the first generation of filmmakers to take to Britain’s streets.

Some of the most fascinating of early films are those which are content to watch the world go by. Numerous filmmakers parked their cameras on street corners, in parks, on seaside promenades or outside workplaces or churches to capture fleeting moments of everyday life.

In their own day, these films held a mirror up to Victorian society. Today, these images of our ancestors – relaxed, smiling and laughing, gazing at us through the camera lens - are a gift of moving history. The offer us extraordinary insights into a lost world, more vivid than any still photograph or written account.