The Military Tournament at Batley Football Ground (1902)

Batley
1902
Silent
4m

A display of strength and skill in a Lancashire military tournament.

The sizeable Edwardian audience gathered in the stands are treated to various feats of strength and skill, including men vaulting over a horse and forming human pyramids, with a clown adding a bit of mischief. Mitchell and Kenyon's camera also records men on horseback severing suspended ropes with their swords and performing a type of jousting.

A display of strength and skill in a Lancashire military tournament.

M&K 586: Members of the Lancashire military seen in Batley Football Ground, observed by spectators. Men can be seen jumping over a pole vault. Another shot of horse mounted soliders practicing cavalry charging with a static quintain. Another shot back in the stadium of men performing acrobatics for the crowd. Another shot of a man in protective gear charging at a soldier on a mounted horse with a stake.

M&K 587: More of man charing at the horse with stake. Shot of a band in fancy dress, passing the static quintain. Shot of mounted soldiers attacting on another with weapons.

Back from the War

Britain's troops return from war in South Africa to a rapturous welcome - despite more ambivalent public attitudes to the Boer War itself.

A few adventurous film companies journeyed to South Africa to capture (mostly heavily sanitised) film documents of the Second Boer War (1899-1902). Mitchell and Kenyon, like most others, stayed at home, choosing instead to film reconstructed or dramatised war stories. But as they visited towns and cities across the North, M&K also captured the jubilation that greeted homecoming troops.

There's no sign here of public misgivings about what had been a brutal and hard-won war, nor any hint of disrespect for the military commanders who appear in several films. Instead, the overwhelming focus is the ranks of ordinary soldiers, and the collective joy and relief for their safe return.