A Visit to Fuzhou with the Bradford Dyers Association and Shanghai Views

From the collection of

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton collects, preserves, catalogues and provides public access to its collection of films and magic lantern slides. The collection charts the rise of screen culture in the region and the nation and captures many aspects of life, work and creativity in the South East from the late 19th century to the present day. It is available for research, screenings, creative re-use and commercial access.

A Visit to Fuzhou with the Bradford Dyers Association and Shanghai Views

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
Shanghai
1929-01-01
Silent
4m

The bustling waterways of rural Fouzhou contrast sharply with the frenetic pace of life in Shanghai, as seen in this atmospheric film from the late 1920s.

This amazing film starts by showing an assortment of traditional Chinese vessels, from large junks to small boats laden with goods for sale. Cruising along the river other boats get caught in our wake. Then we see street-scenes of Shanghai including mischievous children and a woman carrying a giant pot before seeing some magnificent views of the Bund. We also see exteriors of the BDA's Shanghai office where an employee is seen packing a traditional silk hat into a box.

William Simpson, who made this film, worked for the Bradford Dyers Association in Shanghai, at Number 1, The Bund. The BDA was first registered on the 3rd December 1989 and its purpose was to acquire the business of various firms in Bradford and Yorkshire who were engaged in the piece dyeing trade. After almost a century of acquisitions, the BDA were themselves bought out by Viyella in 1964. It is not clear when the BDA's Shanghai office was opened but it is known that they were exporting silks, cottons and woollens, dyed in Bradford, all over the world. By the time the Japanese Imperial Army occupied Shanghai in late 1937, William and his wife Charlotte had already left the city.

Shanghai - Pearl of the Orient

Western filmmakers captured the first moving images of one of the world's great cities. These remarkable films preserve a metropolis whose streets and waterways teem with life.

When cinema first came to China's shores, Shanghai was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. The new technology was exhibited at the city's Xu Gardens in August 1896 (just months after the Lumière Brothers' first demonstration in Paris), and the earliest ever filmed images of the city were captured - by Western filmmakers - soon after.

Some of the oldest surviving footage of Shanghai was shot by a British war correspondent, dispatched to China to cover the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. It captures the teeming multi-national traffic on the central Nanjing Lu thoroughfare, from gliding bicycles and rattling rickshaws, to a Sikh police detachment and German soldiers enjoying a cigarette. Shanghai's famous waterfront, the Bund, captivated numerous filmmakers in the 20s and 30s, and several films here show a remarkable thronging harbour life, with sampans clustering beneath the Bund's baroque temples of commerce and leisure.

Also featuring in this collection of newsreels, travelogues and home movies are scenes of the Japanese occupation of the city in 1937, and the death and destruction that followed. These are sombre, even harrowing scenes, but a crucial chapter in Shanghai's history.