Miners Leaving Pendlebury Colliery (1901)
A black miner makes an intriguing addition to an already captivating film of coal workers up from their pit.
Showman Albert Sedgwick, conspicuously raffish in homburg and moustache, bestrides and controls this film. Sedgwick has 'planted' the poster board advertising the show in which it's to be screened - as well as, probably, the Afro-Caribbean man whose presence in Edwardian Lancashire so surprises us. And he is choreographing, right before our eyes, the procession of colliers for the camera.
This film was included in Tate Britain's 2013 retrospective of L.S. Lowry's art. Lowry had himself lived in Pendlebury - although he didn't move there until 1912, 11 years after this film was shot. It's not impossible that the artist may have seen this or other local films in his youth. In any case, it's hard not to think of Lowry's deeply personal paintings when contemplating Mitchell and Kenyon's highly commercial filmmaking. Both are at once innocent and artful, their gaze alternately warm and cold, capturing industrial and human worlds by casual observation and careful orchestration alike. In contrast to the dozens of 'factory gate' films arranged by Mitchell and Kenyon outside textile mills and engineering works, the producers shot just a handful of coalmining films. The inescapably massive presence of mining in Pendlebury lasted until the day its final local pit died, with its boots on, in 1990.
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Factory Gates
In 1895, at the very dawn of cinema, Louis and Auguste Lumière turned their camera on workers at their Lyon factory. By 1900, Blackburn-based Mitchell & Kenyon, among others, had turned that subject into a genre - even a business model.
They visited scores of workplaces - manufacturers, textile mills, steel plants, fisheries, dockyards - in the north west and far beyond, capturing as many workers' faces as they could on screen to lure them to their screenings. Though never meant to last, these films now stand as an astonishing and often moving record of their times.
99 videos in this collection
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Amos & Smith Boiler Works, Hull (1900)
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Co-operative Wholesale Society Clothing Factory in Manchester (c.1900)
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Congregation Leaving St Mary's Church, Dumfries (c.1901)
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Congregation Leaving St Mary's Dominican Church in Cork (1902)
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Congregation Leaving St Patrick's Church in Cork (1902)
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Congregation Leaving Wesleyan Chapel in Mansfield (c.1901)
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Congregation at Hanley Old Church (c.1901)
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Congregation at Preston Parish Church (c.1901)
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Creswell and Langwith Miners, Mansfield (1900)
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Crowd Entering St George's Hall, Bradford (1901)
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Darwen Factory Gate (1901)
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Darwen Street Scenes (1901)
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Demolition of a Mill Chimney in Leeds (1901)
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Dewsbury v Manningham (1901)
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Employees Leaving Baxter's Jute Works, Dundee (1901)
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Employees Leaving Brown's Atlas Works, Sheffield (1901)
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Employees Leaving Crossley's Works, Openshaw (1900)
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Employees Leaving Fowler's Ironworks, Leeds (1901)
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Employees Leaving Furness Railway Works, Barrow (1901)
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Employees Leaving Messrs Vickers, Sons & Maxim in Barrow (1901)
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Employees Leaving North Eastern Engine Works, Gateshead (1901)
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Employees Leaving Tangyes Engineering Works, Smethwick (1901)
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Employees Leaving Vickers, Sons & Maxim Works, Sheffield (1901)
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Employees Leaving Williamson's Factory, Lancaster (1901)
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Employees Leaving Yates, Haywood & Co. Foundry, Rotherham (1900)
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Employees Leaving a Factory (c.1901)
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Employees at Robey's Works, Lincoln (1900)
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Employees at Walker Engineering Works, Wigan (1900)
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Employees at White Cross & Co. Ltd Wire Works, Warrington (1900)
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Employees of Blundell's Paint Works, Hull (1901)
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Employees of Co-Operative Wholesale Society Printing Works, Longsight, Manchester (1901)
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Employees of Galloways Ltd. Boiler Works, Hyde Road, Manchester (1900)
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Employees of J & E Waters, Talbot Mills, Ellesmere St., Manchester (1900)
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Exit of Clerical and Factory Workers (c.1901)
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Factory Exit in Lincoln (1900)
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Factory Exit in Wigan (1901)
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Final of International Cup at Cork Regatta (1902)
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Fleet in the Tyne (1901)
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Funeral Procession in Edinburgh (1901)
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Great Northern Railway Works at Doncaster (1901)
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Halifax v Salford (1901)
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Howarth's Egerton Mill, Ordsall Lane, Salford (1900)
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Mill Workers Leaving Oldroyd & Sons Mill, Dewsbury (1900)
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Millhands of Cheetham's Bankwood Mills, Stalybridge (1900)
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Miners Leaving Pendlebury Colliery (1901)
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Operatives Leaving Messrs Pilkington Bros. Works, St Helens (1901)
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Operatives of Acme Spinning Company, Pendlebury (1901)
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Workers at St George's Colliery, Tyldesley (1901)
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Textile Workers Leaving a Factory (c.1901)
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Workers Brooks and Doxey, West Gorton Works, Manchester (1900)
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Workers Leaving Bamford's Works, Moseley (1900)
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Workers Leaving Butterley Ironworks, Ripley (1900)
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Workers Leaving Craven Ironworks, Ordsall Lane, Salford (1901)
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Workers Leaving Gossage's Soap Works, Widnes (1901)
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Workers Leaving Guest and Chrimes Brassworks, Rotherham (1901)
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Workers Leaving Haslam's Ltd., Colne (1900)
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Workers Leaving Nuttall's Brewery, Blackburn (1900)
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Workers Leaving T & W Lees of Stockport (1901)
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Workers Leaving a Factory (1900)
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Workers Leaving a Factory in Droylsden (1901)
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Workers Leaving a Factory in Leyland (c.1900)
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Workers at Berry's Blacking Works, Manchester (1901)
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Workers at Bradley Shed, Nelson, Lancashire (1900)
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Workers at Carr's Biscuit Works, Carlisle (1901)
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Workers at Dickens & Heywood, Middleton (1900)
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Workers at India Mills, Stockport (1900)
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Workers at Jesse Crossley & Sons Ironworks, Ripley (1900)
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Workers at Kynoch Ltd Lion Works, Birmingham (1901)
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Workers at Pilkington Glass Works, St Helens (1900)
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Workers at Ross & Hardy Paper Works (1901)
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Workers at Spring Bank Mill, Nelson (1900)
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Workers at Yates's Foundry, Blackburn (1900)
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Workforce Leaving Alfred Butterworth and Sons, Glebe Mills, Hollinwood (1901)
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Workforce Leaving Cartwright & Warner Hosiery Works, Loughborough (1900)
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Workpeople and Girls on Stoney Street, Nottingham (1900)
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Workforce Leaving Smith & Coventry Works, Ordsall Lane, Salford (c.1901)
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Workforce Leaving a Factory in the North of England (c.1900)
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Workforce at Horrocks Miller & Co. Preston (c.1901)
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Workforce of Brush Electric Co. Falcon Works, Loughborough (1900)
81
Workforce at Steel & Garland Priory Foundry, Worksop (1900)
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Workforce of Haslam's Ltd., Colne (1900)
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Workforce of Howarth's Ordsall Mill, Salford (1900)
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Workforce Leaving Salt's Works in Saltaire (1900)
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Workforce at Hornsby and Sons of Grantham (1900)
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Workforce of Ormerod's Mill, Great Moor Street, Bolton (1900)
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Workforce of Parkgate Iron and Steel Co., Rotherham (1901)
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Workforce of Pollock's Caledonian Cabinet Works, Beith (1901)
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Workforce of Scott & Co. Shipyard, Greenock (1901)
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Workmen Leaving Peacock's Works at Meal Time, Gorton, Manchester (1900)
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Workmen Leaving Platt's Works, Oldham (1900)
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Workpeople and Girls Leaving Thos. Adams Factory, Nottingham (1900)
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Workpeople from Messrs Mayall's Mills Emerging on Queen Street, Mossley (1900)
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Workpeople Leaving Dugdale's Paradise Mill, Blackburn (1900)
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Workpeople Leaving Fish's Waterfall Mill, Blackburn (1900)
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Workpeople Leaving For Dinner, Robinson's Iron Foundry, Rochdale (1901)
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Workpeople Leaving Hornby's Brookhouse Mill, Blackburn (1900)
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Workpeople Leaving Ordnance Mill, Blackburn (1900)
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