Children's Party, Playing with Ball

1902
Silent
1m

What would a party be without balloons? The delight of these Edwardian children resonates across the years.

"Wouldn't this game be a lot easier if we didn't have to wear these stupid hats?" Although the outfits are different, the natural, delighted excitement of these well-to-do Edwardian children at a simple balloon is completely recognisable today. The game also provides the perfect distraction from the unfamiliar camera, helping to capture unselfconscious play.

The Passmore family films are some of the earliest home movies in existence, featuring Alfred Ernest Passmore (1867-1948) and his family at home and on holiday between 1902 and 1903.

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.