Loreburn School, Dumfries (c.1901)

Dumfries
1901
Silent
1m

Dumfries schoolchildren take their turn in the spotlight.

One of three films shot for Mitchell and Kenyon - possibly all on the same visit - in the market town of Dumfries, this charming item captures children, the youngest around five, from a local school. Despite miserable weather, the children's smiles are wide, and the cameraman crams as many as possible into the frame, in the hope of encouraging local parents to see their offspring on screen later.

The strict formality of the Edwardian education system is reflected in the separate lines of well-behaved young boys and girls. At one point the film's showman sponsor is seen throwing something - probably sweets or pennies - into the throng to provoke a good-natured scramble. This kind of technique was often employed by the filmmakers to generate excitement and entertainment for the audience. It certainly brings some energy to what might otherwise have been a slightly stiff scene.

Mitchell & Kenyon's Edwardian Britain

A miraculous journey around Britain at the dawn of the 20th Century, courtesy of filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon.

Welcome to a lost world. These amazing films, lost for at least 80 years, offer something close to time travel. Miraculously discovered in a Blackburn basement in 1994, the films give us stunning images of ordinary life in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

The films' rediscovery rewrote the story of early film. Blackburn-based duo Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, we now know, belonged to a thriving local, non-fiction filmmaking scene. Touring northern and central England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, they made films for fairground operators and other showmen to screen to paying audiences, offering punters the chance to 'see yourself as others see you'. Factory workers, churchgoers and schoolchildren, sportsmen and spectators - these relaxed Edwardians laugh, grin and point at the camera. Film brings them all back to life, as no painting or photograph ever could.

Digitisation of this collection was funded by The National Lottery.