Slade's Electro-Photo Marvel: Touring Film Exhibition in Late Victorian Britain
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ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Slade’s Electro-Photo Marvel: Touring film exhibition in late Victorian Britain https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40211/ Version: Full Version Citation: Cook, Patricia (2016) Slade’s Electro-Photo Marvel: Touring film exhibition in late Victorian Britain. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Slade’s Electro-Photo Marvel: Touring film exhibition in late Victorian Britain Patricia Cook Thesis submitted to BIRKBECK COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PhD) (VISUAL ARTS AND MEDIA) 1 Declaration of original work The work presented in this thesis is my own and has not been submitted for any other degree. All sources of information have been acknowledged. Signature Patricia Cook Date 9/11/2016 2 Acknowledgements Researching the life and times of William Slade and his tours with his daughter Mary has been an engrossing enterprise. Throughout Professor Ian Christie has been an encouraging and enlightening supervisor. His belief in the importance of the work kept me going even when the prospect of completion seemed remote. Simon Popple, whose chapter in Early Cinema, from Factory Gate to Dream Factory was the starting point for entry to the Slade material, provided a valued critique for the upgrade. Ed Merrill, the cartographer, contributed his skill to create custom-made maps which convey the full extent of Slade‟s travels. Crucially James Offer, Slade‟s great-grandson has lent his support to the project, enabling the tracking down of the Demenÿ-Chronophotographe and films. Many others have been important in working on this project. Naming them is my best means of thanking them for their contribution; the late Dave Berry, Bernard Bastide, Richard Brown, Jamie Beveridge, Malcolm Cook, Richard Crangle, Liz Drew, Frank Ferrie, Bryony Dixon, John Elliott, Tony Fletcher, Mark Fuller, Frank Gray, Trevor Griffiths, Michael Harvey, Ann-Rachael Harwood, Stephen Herbert, Janice Healey, Janet McBain, Luke McKernan, Laura Mulvey, Lynda Nead, Dorota Ostrowska, Clive Polden, Sue Rowbotham,Tony Shepherd, Vanessa Toulmin, Peter York, the late Dave Williams and Mary Woods. I would also like to express appreciation for the help of the Archives staff at Gloucestershire Archives, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, National Media Museum, Bradford, National Archives, National Archives of Scotland, and the Cinema Museum. I would also like to acknowledge the help of staff at the BFI Library, British Library, National Library of Scotland and the many local libraries and archives visited in the course of the 3 research. Finally, the work of Charles Musser in the field of early screen practice has been a source of inspiration in exploring the world of William Slade. Without the unwavering support of my husband Roger, the work could never have been completed. Together we retraced Slade‟s journeys aiming to discover as much as we could about exhibition of moving pictures in the late Victorian period. Barnes, our younger son, living in London, has been both hospitable and consistently encouraging despite the process lasting longer than we would have anticipated. Aidan, our older son, and his wife Sarah have also been supportive and looked after me on my many visits to Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield. Meanwhile they have produced two loving grandchildren, Alice and Dan, sister and brother to James and Lucy. 4 Abstract This thesis explores a little known period of early film exhibition in late Victorian Britain. Employing an historiographic approach to material not previously researched, principally the archive of William D. Slade a successful Cheltenham business man, a largely chronological study of Slade‟s activities has been undertaken. Beginning with his presentations of optical lantern exhibitions in the 1880s and 90s in Cheltenham and Worcester, Slade‟s experience as an amateur in magic lantern exhibition is explored as the background to the paradigm shift he made in December 1896. Immediately after purchasing a Demenÿ -Chronophotographe and films from the recently established Gaumont Company in Paris, Slade, accompanied by his daughter Mary, embarked on a new career as Slade‟s Kinematographical and Optical Entertainments and Concerts. During the first six months of 1897, he put on a series of entertainments in the south-west of England and Derbyshire. Investigating what was taking place in Cheltenham in 1897 revealed that the Borough Council commissioned Robert Paul to take film of the official visit of the Prince of Wales to the town in May 1897. The correspondence between Slade and Gaumont et Cie further disclosed that Léon Gaumont, in company with John Le Couteur of the Photographic Association in London, also came to Cheltenham to film this visit. This explained how Slade was able to exhibit film of the Prince of Wales‟ visit as part of the Cheltenham Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June 1897. Slade subsequently made these films a central feature of his nationwide touring entertainments. In August 1897, Slade entered into a contract with a theatrical agent, Edward Baring, which led to 28 weeks of touring as Slade‟s Electro-Photo Marvel six nights a week throughout England and Scotland, ending in March 1898. An in-depth study of the many exhibitions he presented revealed the wide variety of localities he visited, and furnished new understanding of the importance of the Diamond Jubilee films in attracting a diverse audience in many thriving towns of this period. William Slade, previously unknown, emerges as a significant figure in the diffusion of moving pictures beyond the cities and the music hall, into many different localities of provincial Britain and significantly extends the knowledge of exhibition practices in the two years immediately after the first exhibitions in London. 5 Table of Contents Declaration of original work………………………………………………………………...2 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………….3 Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………5 List of figures………………………………………………………………………………..9 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….......11 Chapter 1.The context of William Slade’s decision to become an itinerant exhibitor.22 Part 1: Lantern Exhibition in the 1880s and 90s……………………………………………23 Part 2: Slade‟s business and family background in Worcester and Cheltenham…………...29 Part 3: Slade and the Optical Magic Lantern……………………………………………….31 Part 4: The provincial town of Cheltenham, the Garden City, in 1896…………………….36 Part 5:„Animated Pictures‟ in London 1896………………………………………………..39 Part 6: Cheltenham: first animated photograph exhibition, November 1896………………42 Part 7: Slade‟s decision to become an itinerant exhibitor…………………………………..56 Chapter 2. ‘Our Slade and his Photos commands admiration’………………………...59 Part 1: The London launch of the Demenÿ-Chronophotographe, and Slade‟s purchase of films and equipment ………………………………………..…………61 Part 2: Slade‟s Kinematographical and Optical Entertainments: Jan-June 1897…………...72 Mary Slade…………………………………………………………………..76 Walter Booth……………………………………………………………… 79 Part 3: Slade‟s first exhibitions, January - March and May - June 1897……………………87 Stroud, Bristol and Cheltenham, Llanelly, the Peak district (Derbyshire), Matlock, Bakewell, Ashbourne and Ripley, Wirksworth, Ludlow, Worcester, Bideford, Exmouth, Exeter, Tiverton. Part 4: Slade‟s first six months of exhibition………………………………………………111 Chapter 3. Cheltenham in the Year of the Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee……….115 Part 1: Exhibition and Filming in Cheltenham; 1897 January – June……………………..115 Part 2: The Diamond Jubilee Celebrations in London and Cheltenham……………………124 6 Part 3: The Diamond Jubilee films in Cheltenham…………………………………………134 Part 4: Coda: Cheltenham August to December 1897……………………………………...146 Chapter 4. Entering a Partnership with Baring…………………………………………154 Part 1: The partnership……………………………………………………………………...155 Part 2: The Slade/Baring Tours August 1897 – March 1898……………………………….166 Chapter 5. Slade’s Electro-Photo Tours of England and Scotland…………………….179 Part 1: First Tour, England, 28 August – 16 December…………………………………….180 Case studies of places on the first tour:……………………………………..185 Ilfracombe, Dartmouth, Matlock, Oundle: Northamptonshire; 20 November, Week 13 Portland, Dorset: Royal Naval Training Ships, H.M.S. Minotaur and H.M.S. Boscawen, 3 & 4 December, Week 15 Review of Tour 1……………………………………………………………194 Part 2: Taking the Tour to Scotland: 26 December 1897 – 18 March 1898……………….196 Moving pictures in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, 1896 and 1897 Part 3: Second Tour, Scotland, December 1897 – March 1898……………………………205 Case studies of places on tour………………………………………………208 Troon, Ayr, Hawick, Galashiels, Haddington, Alloa, Forfar Review of the Scottish tour……………………………………………… 216 Chapter 6. ‘Our Slade and his photos’: Slade’s career as an itinerant exhibitor……..222 The decision to stop touring Slade and the early diffusion of film in Britain The legacy Itinerant exhibitors contemporary with Slade Finis 7 Appendices Appendix A: The correspondence, letters, invoices and receipts from Gaumont et Cie, to Slade, December 1896 – September 1897. Slade archive, nos. 1 – 32……………………………236 Appendix B:…………………………………………………………………………………………..250 i) Titles of Gaumont films purchased by Slade, December 1896. Slade archive no 6. ii): Gaumont