Year 1901 - 15

Part of BFI collection "Tales From the Shipyard".

If there ever was any footage of actual play in St Helens 6-3 victory over the previous season's Challenge Cup winners, it's now sadly lost. But at least these images of the happy home crowd survive. The seemingly ubiquitous twirling hat gesture presumably fell out of fashion as hats became less common - although a lack of headgear doesn't stop the boy in front of the fence from joining in.

Before the rise of trade unions and the arrival of the welfare state, membership of a mutual Friendly Society, such as the Oddfellows, provided some protection for families against illness and injury. The bowler-hatted and sash-wearing members of the St Helens order march past, but the young spectators, ushered out of view by an umbrella-prodding commissioner, are more interested in the camera.

Some factories are so much the centre of their town that they begin to define it. 'Pilks' wasn't yet the industrial giant it would become, but it was big enough that Mitchell and Kenyon's cameraman needed several different positions to capture just some of its workers outside the factory gates. The smaller children waiting for their families may before long have ended up working there themselves.

Lancashire's St Helens, in hooped shirts, visited Cheshire rivals Warrington for this early Edwardian game. As in other Mitchell and Kenyon rugby films, we can see here an early phase of the evolution of Northern Union rules: note the quickly-formed scrum after each tackle. Shots along the touchline show officials and spectators transfixed by the play, while others are distracted by the camera. The Northern Rugby Football Union, better known as Northern Union, was formed in 1895, when prominent Yorkshire and Lancashire clubs resigned from the Rugby Football Union in a dispute over compensation for players taking time off work. All the major differences between the two codes would be established by 1907.

The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York travelled to New Zealand in 1901 to thank New Zealanders for their contribution to the Boer War. Only a short fragment remains of a much longer film.

Northern Union footage.

Six scantily dressed women chat while freshening up. At the instigation of one of them, all get up and perform a brief choreography. This short, naughty scene was to be watched in private: it could only be seen through a Théoscope, a home cinema, dating back to the turn of the 20th century.

Another Edison short filmed at the Pan-American Exposition is pretty much the same film as ESQUIMAUX GAME OF SNAP-THE-WHIP with the only difference being the sport. Here we see a group of kids playing leap-frog.

Batley go down to Lancashire rivals Salford in the very first season of the Northern Rugby League.

A less-than-serious Leeds team take a four-goals-and-two-tries battering from Hunslet.

Larking about during Church Lads' Brigade drill and parade in Morecambe.

Evocative film of the passengers and crew of a ship docked at Liverpool.