An Outing on the Thames

From the collection of

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

An Outing on the Thames

Media Archive for Central England
Henley-on-Thames
1933-01-01
Silent
8m

An interwar outing on the River Thames with a reminder of the Great Western Railway's influence in Birmingham.

An outing from the Midlands to Henley on Thames to enjoy the rowing and then continuing along the river passing sights in the City of London before ending at the River Crouch at Burnham. The starting point is the long lost Birmingham Snow Hill railway station with steam power of the Great Western Railway to the fore. Also look out for a trip on the fondly remembered Salter Brothers' steamer, purveyors of pleasure cruises on the Thames since Victorian times.

The film-maker, W.H. Williams, was from Wootton Wawen in Warwickshire.

Pioneers of Personal Film

At the dawn of the cinema age, these trailblazing early adopters brought filmmaking technology into the home.

Home moviemaking is older than the first cinemas: we've been filming ourselves for well over a hundred years. The birth of the cinematograph in 1895 inspired a plethora of inventions pitched at the domestic market: Kinoras, Kammatographs, Pictorialographs, Birtacs and Biokams - all cameras designed for amateurs and enthusiasts to film and project in the home. This collection celebrates the earliest home movies preserved in Britain, and bears witness to the dawn of the amateur's long-standing fascination with family, travel and community. "The object in introducing this apparatus is to endeavour to popularize this extremely fascinating branch of photography.... [I have] always looked forward to the time when animated photography would be within the reach of every one" - filmmaker/inventor Birt Acres, on his Birtac camera, 1898.