Solar Eclipse
- 1900
Climax of the big race
The sky was reportedly 'black with hats' as the Prince of Wales' horse, Diamond Jubilee, thundered home by half a length. The popular annual fixture of the Epsom Derby, the great Londoner's day out, was covered religiously by the cameras of early film companies. This somewhat blurry image is taken from a position just beyond the finish line as the horses are slowing down and the punters are invading the course in customary fashion.
It was a lucky filmmaker who managed to be on hand to capture real 'hard news', as in the disastrous launch of HMS Albion. The second Boer War, the biggest international story of the late-Victorian era, lured several cameramen to South Africa. Others responded to audience demand for moving pictures of such events by dramatising them for the camera.