Solar Eclipse
- 1900
A Cumbrian fire brigade demonstrates its readiness
Small this country town fire station may be, but it can still muster a fair number of firemen.
This is a more modest 'fire turn out film' than some of the very dramatic examples of this surprisingly popular early film genre. This one was made by pioneer filmmaker William Henry Youdale, so this may have been filmed in his home town of Cockermouth.
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.