Teaching and Learning - Online Articles

The History of Cinema Exhibition in Exeter 1895 - 1918

Alex Rankin

(The text of this dissertation is copyright Alex Rankin, 2001. No part of it may be reproduced without the permission of the author.)

Chapter One:

Earliest Beginnings to the Boer War (1896–1900)

The cinema begins with the machine, and with the men from the circuses and music halls who saw it as a profitable addition to the clowns and acrobats of the traditional show.(6)

The Lumière presentation in London in February 1896 was given a full review in the Exeter Evening Post, the account giving not only a detailed overview of the mechanical processes involved, but also pointing out the potential importance of the ability to record events of political, social and sporting interest. This presentation, and Paul’s of the same day, quickly led to the large music halls in London seeking out their own projection equipment to allow them to show these “living pictures” as a regular variety turn. R. W. Paul perhaps led the way in this field and the popularity of his machines soon meant that it was not only in London that such entertainment could be seen:

From July onwards [1896]... independent exhibitors of Paul’s Theatrograph began to infiltrate the provinces and by the end of the year hardly a major town in the kingdom had not been visited.(7)

The Theatrograph first reached Exeter in October 1896. The show, which was brought to the city by Mr John D. Ablett (presumably one of the independent exhibitors), played the Victoria Hall for three nights and also featured the support of the “Star Vaudeville Company”. The coverage given to the show by the local press was extensive in comparison to the entertainment reviews they normally carried and much of the focus of the Evening Post’s opening-night review concentrated on the mechanical processes behind the filming and projection of moving pictures:

The theatrograph which Mr John D. Ablett has brought for three nights is, if the illustration may be pardoned, a sort of pictorial phonograph.... A series of photographs of a moving scene in actual life are taken in rapid succession – say 800 or 900 in a minute – on a long film, and this film, when the photographs are developed is placed in the theatrograph and the pictures, passing quickly before a strong light, are projected onto the screen, after the fashion of a magic lantern...(8)

Reviews like these tie in well with the concept that early audiences were “attracted by the technology rather than the actual material being exhibited”.(9) The fascination with these processes, however, did not prevent a review of the pictures themselves:

Twelve scenes were shown, the most successful artistically being undoubtedly that of breaking of incoming waves.... The series which met with the heartiest reception, however, was that depicting the finish of this year’s Derby.(10)

This scene of the breaking of incoming waves could have been one of a number of sea scenes from Paul’s catalogue, whilst the Derby finish was undoubtedly the film of the Prince of Wales’ horse that had caused such a stir when it was shown at the Alhambra Theatre on the day after the race. Whilst no mention is made of the remaining ten scenes that Ablett put on, it would be safe to assume they were also films by Paul, or Birt Acres,(11) which had been shown at the Alhambra Theatre and on other province tours. Such titles that had proved popular included Shoeblack Working in a London Street (which in some catalogues appears as a hand coloured film) and An Engineer Working in a Shop.(12) That actualities like these caused such excitement despite their seemingly ordinary subject matter was by no means limited to provincial cities like Exeter. Whilst a certain fascination with seeing the capital would be expected, the real attraction came from the sheer fact that what they saw was true to life, an attraction that permeated the whole of Victorian society:

... the public demand absolute exactitude, they delight in photographic accuracy, and are satisfied if the thing produced exactly resembles the original without stopping to think whether the original was worth reproduction.(13)

The three-night run at the Victoria Hall was so well received that on the last night it was announced that “a return visit would probably be made in the course of a few weeks”.(14) Ablett’s show later performed at the Amity Hall in Poole in mid-November,(15) suggesting that some time after leaving Exeter he travelled east along the South Coast. The time gap between the Exeter shows and those in Poole would allow for his tour, on leaving Exeter, to travel further south, perhaps to Plymouth, before heading back along the coast. This return leg of the tour would see him travel back through Exeter on his way east and would account for his proposed return to the Victoria Hall. However, this never happened. Whilst it is possible that success away from Exeter proved more economically beneficial than a return to the city, a more likely explanation lies in the performances provided at the Victoria Hall just days after Ablett left. Poole’s Myriorama, a collection of panoramic and dioramic displays, often with a travel theme, had been a regular visitor to the city since its creation in 1837.(16) In 1897 it opened its doors at the Victoria Hall the Monday after Ablett moved on. As usual it was a highly successful show earning excellent reviews in the press and the run was twice extended due to high audience figures. If Ablett did indeed return in anticipation of performing again, he would have found one of his machine’s predecessors doing far better business than he could hope to achieve. Seemingly, the new moving pictures were not going to simply trump the established entertainments with which they now competed.

With Ablett gone, Exeter had to wait eight months before the next moving pictures arrived. When they did, in the form of “Slade’s Automated Pictures and Entertainment”, the interest they received was negligible. The show was provided at the Victoria Hall, but this time apparently failed to achieve a full house in the beginning of the week, a situation not helped by the Western Times seemingly ignoring the show and the Evening Post only providing a lack-lustre report. Indeed, the report of the opening night chose to focus not on the animated pictures themselves, but rather on the variety that was provided as a support act. This change of attitude towards moving pictures comes as something of a surprise after the attention directed towards Ablett. The decline in films’ popularity over this time period was, however, not limited to Exeter:

By 1897, the general public had grown accustomed to seeing films and there was not the same amount of attention paid to them in the press as had been the case during the previous year when they were still very much of a novelty.(17)

This explanation for the general decline, however, does not seem to fit in with the Exeter situation. Certainly in London, and perhaps in other industrial cities, where most of the large Variety Theatres had by now equipped themselves with permanent projection equipment, the public would indeed have stopped seeing films as a novelty turn. In Exeter, though, the situation was obviously different since the majority of the local population had probably not even seen any films, let alone become accustomed to seeing them. Instead, the reasons behind Slade’s struggle to find a full audience after Ablett’s success could possibly lie with the disastrous fire at the Paris Bazàr de la Charité in May of that year. The event was one of the most fashionable of the time and with over one hundred people killed,(18) many of them from the upper-classes, it made not only national newspapers, but provincial ones too. The Exeter Evening Post extensively covered the story and plainly explained how the disaster had occurred:

M. Dieudonne, secretary to the Baron de Mackan, president of the bazaar, states in an interview this morning that it was the lamp of the kinematograph that set the place on fire.(19)

With detailed accounts, and in some cases pictures, documenting the disaster it is not surprising that film entrepreneurs, including Paul, noticed a slump in attendances:

An event of 1897... which had serious repercussions, was the disaster at a Charity Bazaar at Paris, when 73 [sic] lives were lost in a fire at a kinematograph booth... This sad event caused a widespread fear of similar disasters.(20)

Slade, then, arrived in Exeter exactly one month after the Paris fire. If national patrons were concerned, then it is hardly surprising that those in Exeter, with the devastating Theatre Royal fire of 1887 (which killed one hundred and sixty-eight people) still a common talking point, were not overly keen to cram themselves into the hall to watch his automated pictures. Not only did the Paris fire generally scare the public, but it also seems to have created something of a class barrier to the cinema:

It now seems that the notorious fire at the Charity Bazaar... did for a time help differentiate the cinema audience and that... as a result of this fire ‘prejudicial feeling arose to impair seriously the status of the screen in the mind of the upper classes and their followers.’(21)

With the local papers, for the time being at least, following the nationals’ trend of reserved aloofness, the fear surrounding moving pictures that was presumably present in the city was almost impossible to allay and consequently Slade’s business suffered.

If exhibition in Exeter at this time was not particularly significant to the rest of the country, one event in September 1897 certainly was. Although the details are not clear, it appears that William Haggar bought his first projection equipment in the city. Haggar was a travelling showman, especially well known in Wales, who also made his own films for exhibition. The information regarding his purchase comes from a biography written by his daughter:

... he set to work, first to find a Kinematograph machine. He could not find one in London but heard that there was one in Exeter, so he went there to buy it. Then he went to London to buy what films he could…(22)

Doubts are potentially raised about the reliability of this information through a manuscript that is held with the biography in the Special Collections room of the British Film Institute. This manuscript contains virtually the same information as the book (and is possibly the draft of the finished work) but adds that the advertisement for this first purchase was seen in a copy of Focus. This cannot be correct since Focus, a journal dealing with all variety of photography, was not first published until 1903.(23)

Obviously details had been ‘mis-remembered’ in the fifty or so years between the event and the writing of the biography. However, since Richards mentions Exeter on a number of occasions it seems fair to suspect that this was indeed where her father purchased the equipment. Certainly there was one magic lantern equipment dealer and two photographic shops in the City(24) and it is possible that one of them acted as an agent for Wrench and Sons, this being the company that produced Haggar’s machine. That he immediately went to London to buy films would also account for the popular belief that he purchased his equipment in the capital, this journey possibly even being recorded by the manufacturer. Whatever the actual events and the contribution by Exeter, Haggar, after a few early problems, went on to be one of the most important early British film pioneers. That the machine was available in Exeter suggests that at least a number of people in the city thought that the moving image had potential. The fact that it was available, however, whilst those in London were sold out as quickly as they were produced, could be taken to indicate that for the majority in Devon, the living pictures were best left alone.

Haggar's fairground bioscope show. The ornate façade here is
typical of fairground shows. (EXEBD 86927)

With the national audience apparently growing tired of moving pictures, the embryonic industry needed a change of fortune to ensure continued business success. The saviour came in the form of the Diamond Jubilee. The preparations that went into the celebrations for the Jubilee were extensive on a nationwide scale but for the filmmakers the focus of attention was the procession – held on the 22nd June – itself. Reports of the time indicate that there were at least eighteen film companies, with up to six cameras each, sited at various points along the procession route.(25) The end result was a large quantity of films on a subject that had been at the centre of the public’s consciousness for many months and showmen across the country ensured that their programmes contained these views. The showmen who came to Exeter towards the end of 1897 and in early 1898 were no exception. However, with the popularity of the moving image in question, those showmen no longer focused the public’s attention chiefly on the “Living Pictures”, but rather copied the London Variety Theatres and used them as another ‘turn’ in an entertainment programme. Frequently, this meant that the films would occupy the lowest billing in what has become known as the “chaser” slot. Popular opinion has it that the chaser turn was used to encourage people to leave the theatre, the idea being that the act was so bad few people would want to stay for it. Robert Allen disputes this idea, claiming that it would be a waste of money for a showman to use a chaser when he could turn on the house lights for free.(26) Charles Musser also disagrees with the fact that bad acts chased people out of the theatre, claiming instead that it was usual for people to leave early and would do so no matter what the last act. As a result, showmen put the less popular acts in this slot so as not to “waste” a better performer.(27) That films were a purely visual medium was also key to this end position since the noise of people leaving would prevent the audience hearing, and therefore appreciating, other types of act. Since films had not been doing well, and of course were relatively cheap to operate, they fell into this chaser slot. With many of the showmen providing similar films to each other it seems likely that large numbers of the audience would indeed leave during the films, believing that they had already seen what the cinematographe act had to offer. Similarly, showmen like the Poole family – who were to add a cinematographe to their show in 1897 – who changed their dioramas regularly during their run, but often kept the films the same, would probably find that people who had come to the show for a second time would not be bothered about staying to see all the films. Thus in Exeter, moving pictures would, for the time being, rarely receive the attention that they perhaps deserved.

When Poole’s Myriorama returned to Exeter in November the cinematographe had been established in their act. Whilst the Dioramas were the obvious ‘feature’ attraction, the high standard of the Poole’s entertainment business seems to have extended to their venture into moving pictures, a fact that accounts for the press’s rare excitement:

As an adjunct to the larger scenes, the films shown by means of the cinematographe are sure of a welcome, and the audience last night testified to the pleasure they afforded to the audience. We have seen nothing so fine as the rough sea at Illfracombe; it is really magnificent. The Diamond Jubilee Procession formed the finale of the animated pictures.(28)

Indeed, one journalist at the Western Times was so impressed that he considered the support act alone enough incentive to attend the show:

But apart from the panorama...there is the cinematographe. Those of our readers who have not yet seen the animated pictures produced by this instrument should not miss visiting the Hall during Messrs. Poole’s visit, if only to see the marvellous invention at work.... The pictures from Messrs. Poole’s cinematographe are devoid of flicker, and are perfectly clear.(29)

Poole’s entertainment managed to fill the Victoria Hall for nearly a month, something that the smaller film shows on their own could clearly not manage. Despite this long run, another Diorama show came to the Victoria Hall in January the following year. Once again the press concentrated on the main part of the show, especially given that the dioramas were changed nightly, but they did concede that they possessed a “most attractive set of films”.(30) Seemingly, with the help of traditional entertainments, and the ‘must see’ spectacle of the Jubilee, the moving pictures were beginning to win the public’s trust again. As if to confirm this, the annual Exeter exhibition of February 1898 included, amongst its “competitions in washing, cooking and doll dressing and demonstrations in cookery and laundry”(31) the chance to see a cinematographe machine. Presumably this gave patrons – at the extra cost of three pence – the chance to not only watch some films, but to also look over the projection equipment itself. It appears therefore that, whilst the public with regular access to moving pictures had become bored with the whole entertainment, in Exeter the films were still a cause for (cautious) fascination.

Barnstaple Fair, 1907. Hancock's fair was the first to bring moving pictures to
Exeter. Although this picture was taken some years after it first arrived, the
principal of the bright, well-decorated front leading through to the screening
tent remains the same. (EXEBD 61740)

Exeter was not visited by moving pictures again until the autumn. When they arrived this time, it was not in the form of variety entertainment, but rather with Hancock’s Gigantic Carnival. Hancock’s had dominated the West Country fairground scene for a number of years and, in a similar fashion to many of the big fairs, were quick to spot the potential of moving pictures in their business. During 1898 they initially travelled with their exhibition under the name of “Edison’s Electric Biograph”(32) but by September, when they reached Exeter, it had become “Hancock’s Electrical BIOGRAPH of ‘LIVING PICTURES’”(33). For many people, shows like these, when contained within a fair, were key to the development of cinema:

The new toy, a passing fancy in the music-halls, became a firmly established feature of the fairgrounds. It was they who bridged the gap between the music-hall days and the later, more respectable picture palaces.(34)

In Exeter, however, and presumably in other small cities and towns, this role is not so prominent. Whilst in places with an established variety theatre patrons could grow bored with the permanent ‘moving pictures turn’, the cinematographes that came to the Exeter halls did so under the same sort of conditions as the fairs. Thus patrons did not have time to consider them “passing fancies” as they were only in town for a relatively short period of time. This is not to say that the fairs did not still have important roles to play, for fairs would offer the opportunity for larger numbers of people to see the shows, and at cheaper prices too. Seemingly, then, the fairs in places like Exeter would have served as a form of advertising for the showmen who would come to venues like the Victoria Hall; having seen what was on offer they would perhaps be more tempted to go and see future film presentations. Despite the potential popularisation of films by Hancock’s fair, the next showman to arrive seems to have struggled to gain due attention. The particular showman was not named, but he was evidently an agent for David Devant (one of the first independent exhibitors of Paul’s Theatrograph and a widely renowned magician) since his name appears on the advertising. Certainly Devant had, at various times, three companies running in the provinces but their success, if the Exeter incident is anything to go by, was initially limited. This particular show seemed to have very little in the way of variety support and consisted almost entirely of “40 Up-to-date Pictures” including “Turn out of the London fire brigade”, “The Albion disaster” and “The phantom ride”.(35) In response to this, The Evening Post chose to not even bother with a formal review. The Western Times was far more generous, proclaiming it a valuable and enjoyable form of entertainment:

It deserves the support of all classes because it is a pleasant mode of conveying to young and old alike, valuable geographical, historical, and other information.(36)

The word “deserves” in this review, and the implications in the Evening Post’s brief mention of the show, seems to indicate that, despite the Western Times’ enthusiasm, the Royal Public Rooms where it was being held were less than full. Perhaps what is more important, however, is that the paper was urging all classes to attend the show despite the popular convictions of some modem scholars that early cinema was predominantly a working class entertainment. Coming from an established paper in a middle class dominated city this certainly suggests that, in Exeter at least, early cinema could potentially attract an audience from diverse backgrounds.

The Devant company’s lack of success indicates that offering a selection of nondescript films for viewing was no longer enough to attract large numbers of patrons. Indeed, an issue of The Photogram of the previous year carried a warning to this effect:

As the novelty of the subject wears away, it will be necessary to replace many of the films which audiences are now willing to tolerate, with new pictures having distinct value, either (a) for great technical or pictorial merit, or (b) for the interest of the subject.(37)

Poole’s obviously already understood this notion since their 1898 tour, like those before them, brought in good reviews, this time for their films as well as their more important panoramas. More impressively though, the Devant company seems to have learnt from their mistakes and returned to Exeter with a new tour in the first week of January 1899. This time they toured with a complete selection of variety, and the “first and finest animated photos” were placed lowest on the billing. However, the changes that had been made ensured a completely different response to their earlier tour. Indeed, the press were so taken by the films that they gave the largest part of the review over to them and, despite the way the billing was laid out in advertisements, reviewed them before mentioning the variety. The changes that had been made to the programme were almost directly linked to the ideas that had appeared in The Photogram; the films were more interesting and featured unusual technical ideas:

He [Devant] puts on an excellent and entirely new series of animated photos, the most interesting being those connected with the late Soudan [sic] campaign. Other films are in turn novel, amusing and striking, and some of them are rendered more realistic by the imitation of the sounds accompanying the originals. Thus in a duel scene, there is the clash of swords, in a coast scene the swish of water, in a railway scene the rattle of trains, and so forth.(38)

With the focus coming round to centre increasingly on films of interest (the “Soudan” campaign here topping the film list), showmen were quick to advertise that what they had to offer was worth seeing. Poole’s, who were back in Exeter in November 1899, seem to have found that changing their equipment’s name helped do this. Thus, what had previously been the plain “Cinematographe” in 1897 and 1898 became the “Eventograph” in 1899, the name presumably to infer that what it would show would be events of importance. Likewise, the advertisements for this particular Poole’s tour included, for the first time, the details of specific films. With the Boer war having started only the month before, this initially meant that the top film was “General Buller’s Departure”,(39) although by the last week of the three-week run this had been ousted by a film of the “Fitzimmons and Jeffries prize fight”.(40) These films show that the Pooles had access to the latest film material and that they were prepared to buy it in order to ensure their continued success.(41)

[Back to top]

[Next - Chapter Two]

[Back to Contents]

[View Online Article: A Report For SCREEN by Duncan Petrie]