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So I'm Professor Vanessa Toulmin and I'm a chair in Early Film and Popular Entertainment at the University of Sheffield. And for seven years, I was the co-curator

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of the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection for the BFI. So the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection is the third largest nonfiction collection from the early period of cinema from 1895

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to about 1906 in the world. It's a collection of 800 plus nitrate negatives. So that's really important because they're the camera negatives.

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So they're not second or third generation prints. It's the original negatives that the showman would-- or the filmmaker would actually use to print the prints from. So most films that you see belong

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to the early period of actually the actual prints, second or third generation. But the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection is actually the actual nitrate negatives

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known as camera negatives. And it was for many years completely lost. Nobody knew about it. But the discovery of it was described

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as the filmic equivalent of Tutankhamun's tomb. And then, in a way, it was, but I suppose I'd lived with it for so long. In many ways, it was like a burden for me.

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It was almost like, what do we do with this collection? How do we use it? But the actual discovery was eight years before it was unveiled to the public, which

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is like all great archival treasures. You don't tell people about the discovery because everybody wants to look at them. But it's not until you make it ready to the public.

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So yes, so when it was announced to the public, it really was seen as it is, the third largest film collection of nitrate negatives in the world from the silent-- from the early period.

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So when the collection was discovered, it was quite difficult to find out what was on the film. But we knew-- through the background of Mitchell and Kenyon--

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we knew where they'd come from. We knew the shop had been associated with them. But what was interesting is that the content of the film was primarily non-fiction, i.e., literally all of it

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was non-fiction. So it was actuality films. In the technical language of film history at the time, they were known as actualities based on the French actuality.

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And they were just shots of people walking down the street, factory gate films, football crowds. And the ultimate aspect was that it was local films. They were all scenes from the North of England.

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As we discover the collection, there was discovered Scottish films, Irish films, the Midlands, but they never went to the South East. And that was really interesting.

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So it's a very clear geographical spread of the films. And we also realised after seven years of contextualisation and research it was only about 10% of the output.

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So even though it was a huge amount of material, it was a very small percentage. But in the context of film from the time, it literally doubled the holdings of the BFI collection

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on early film with one collection for that period 1899 to 1901. And only a very small percentage of films from that period survive, which people don't realise.

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Materials such as film is very flammable. It's very fragile. And this wasn't documentary. This was literally throwaway ephemera

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that they would film the films, show them that night, and then, prints would go. But the negatives enabled their survival. But I suppose the importance of the collection

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is to show that early film was very much this everyday sequence. Early film was very much part of a very tight production. It was a business.

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It was an industry. It wasn't an auteur. It wasn't art. It was film finding it's language.

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So the language of film was being discovered through this material. So basically, the cook, the baker, the candlestick maker would get a camera, make a film, and show it.

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And it's a bit like the early days of the internet. All early days of innovation and technology have this explosion of people using them, then it becomes legitimate.

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So the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection shows the legitimization of film as an industry as a form of popular entertainment. But also, as filmic qualities of such rare quality that it's

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almost as if they were filmed yesterday. So it's free significance. It's a cultural significance, the visual impact, and also, the filmic significance because we can actually

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tell how the material was filmed because you've got the original negatives. So Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon were two businessmen from Blackburn

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who were brought together. Who had a company, which was made in-- one of them made slot machines, i.e., mechanical machines, and one of them was a photographer.

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So they came together, like many people did in the early 1890s, with the invention of cinema. People who came from what we call optical industry, like the magic lantern industry, people

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who came from the exhibition industry, and people who came from the photography industry came together. So they had a shop in Blackburn, which they set up.

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And they basically, very quickly, from 1897 started making films. The very first film that we know they made was the Queen Victoria films, which

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was the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, which every film maker in the country went down to London and filmed. And there's some wonderful shots in the BFI archive of that. Wonderful.

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Wonderful. But then, they started advertising from about 1899 local films. They also made what was known as Boer War reenactments.

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And these were the big huge interest in film became with the Boer War. So when the Boer War happened, the war going South with South Africa in 1899, you suddenly

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got an explosion of interest in films. And so, obviously, cameramen couldn't go and film the Boer War. So Mitchell and Kenyon made these reenactments,

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which were filmed in Blackburn, which are quite hilarious to modernise. But at the time, people thought this was really-- so it was a whole series of films.

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And they were the ones they were known for. So in the standard film history, Rachel Lowe's book on British film basically said they were a small, insignificant company

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from the North of England who were known for their rather amateurish Boer War films. So suddenly, but at the same time, they were producing. But they weren't advertising in the film journal.

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They were advertising in Sherman's. So the Sherman's Yearbook, which we have in the archive, and the Sherman's Press, had advertisements saying, these films are for sale.

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These films are for sale. Coming and buy the films, or you can rent-- you can buy them at 6 pounds a foot. So it tells you exactly how much they paid for the films

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and what they did. So Mitchell and Kenyon were buying the films-- were selling the films to the Sherman. But then, they were commissioning the films.

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So the Sherman would say, I'm going to sell and so we can commission the films. So they went overnight from a very small company in Blackburn to, by 1905, being one of the most significant film makers

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in the North of England. And then they disappeared. So the story of Mitchell and Kenyon is quite interesting. It's almost like they expanded absolutely dramatically,

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created this whole company, but they didn't get into the development of film other than being actualities. So they made fiction films that they were not as great.

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Some of them are great, but not as significant from an artistic viewpoint of a contemporaries. But they really just hit on one very clever trick, turning out these local films.

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And they did that all the way up. And then, by 1906, interest in the local had dramatically decreased. And I think if it had been a little bit longer

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and then they became part of the newsreel-- because some of the people who they made earlier newsreels in the North of England were former Mitchell and Kenyon cameramen.

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So there was a link there. But by 1906, they had reduced their production and this fiction films had reduced dramatically. And by 1909, they were only making sporadic films.

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So they had 10 years. 10 years where they were the premier film company in the North of England and probably one of the top five in the country.

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And then, they went through-- then in 1922, they went bankrupt as a company. One of them returned back to being an optician and having his camera shop.

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And it's very interesting that the last newspaper reference when they wrapped up was in 1922. And it's a racing report and that's how we dated it. So they, basically, for whatever reason, kept the negatives.

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So they were a flurry of activity for 10 years. Incredibly significant within a very small world of early film exhibition. But then, their name became lost other than these slightly

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derogatory-- divisory comments about their Boer War films. So yeah, so the significance was, at the time, prevalent. The Mitchell and Kenyon Collection was discovered, or rediscovered, in many ways,

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but the formal historical narrative and it really owes it to the late Peter Worden, who was the collector and local film historian from Blackburn who had literally dedicated his life to saving the collection.

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There's lots of stories about-- but basically, in simple terms, it was discovered in a shop in Blackburn. The collection was discovered by two men clearing the shop out who contacted Peter.

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He had been watching the shop for 20 years and knew the significance of what it was. And then, he basically arranged for these two workmen to drop off them in the original milk churns in which they

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were found. And they were packed in these big churns, which the BFI still have, which I think is wonderful. And within each churn was a layer of nitrate film

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with a layer of newspaper. And Peter used to be a jeweller and an optician. So he knew all about film. And, basically, then he stored them in his house in his garage

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at the bottom of his garden for five years. So it was like they were found on the way to a skip, he rescued them from going to a skip, he put them in his house, he put them in a fridge, which I remember

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him telling the technicians at the BFI he didn't actually plug it in. They were horrified. And then, it's like-- and as my former life

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as an archaeologist, to me, it was like an archaeological investigation. And then, in 1995, which is literally about six months after he found them, was the centenary of cinema.

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And he paid himself to get some prints made of it, but not done to the kind of archival standard which the BFI would later do to show people. And there wasn't much interest.

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And I think that's the aspect. It was like, how do we get this into the public's imagination, into the archive imagination, how do we get it as a major investment?

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So that's really where my story starts where I had a very good friendship with Peter. So it was the discovery of the films as actual artefacts of entertainment history which gave us

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a clue to understanding when-- how we could date the films. Because at the time, most of the material was undated. So there was little rolls of nitrate all packed away, which he lovingly took out of the milk churns, cleaned them,

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got his opticians tools, put them all-- labelled them all. And he labelled them 1 to 830 as they came out of the churns. So there was no rhyme or reason to it other than-- and he had this typed list which he held closely to him

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and he gave me a copy of that in 1997. And that's really when I had the eureka moment of how we could contextualise this material. But ultimately, the credit goes to Peter Worden--

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the late Peter Worden who the collection is named after. And then, I suppose the journey was getting the collection from his fridge, unplugged, of course, in Blackburn, to the wonderful archival setting of the BFI.

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So once we got the films-- the prints of the films, which was, actually, in the days a very camera VHS. So I had literally a series of VHS.

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I had Peter's original ones. He had done about 46 films. But I think what's important to understand how we got to that stage.

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And what we got to that stage was I was-- I had the list from Peter. I was doing some research. So my expertise in early film was always about exhibition--

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travelling exhibition, so the format of how film was presented. So there was this idea that films were-- what happens between the 1895 Lumiere to 1909, 1908, 1907,

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the creation of cinema. Where does film start and where does it go to? So it's an exhibition form. Film travels from place to place.

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So it can be shown in the music hall, it can be shown on the fairground, it can be shown in a concert hall. So I would describe early film as like a cuckoo in the nest.

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It laid its egg in lots of different nests, all the form of entertainment at the time. And then, became the predominant form of entertainment by 1910. So Mitchell and Kenyon were an important part of that journey.

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And so, I suppose discovering the relationship between Mitchell and Kenyon the company and the entertainment context of the time was where I came in. And I discovered that because on one of the--

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on the negatives was scratched the name of showman. So very important part of the Mitchell and Kenyon collection was the first 10 or-- 10 foot film or 3 foot of film that was basically what

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were called leaders. And this is the leaders on the film. So when you are scrolling the film, you kind of-- you get the leader.

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And it had scratched on the name of the showman or the location or the date. Sometimes all three, but very rarely, maybe 8% all three. And then, one of the films was Stalybridge

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and it said Stalybridge and it said Stalybridge 1901. And I was like, well, that's interesting. And I had in the archive a set of accounts for Stalybridge Fair from July--

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June, July 1901. And it said in the accounts when to see the workers of so-and-so factory on the fair leaving the show. I went to see Bioscope show, which is a fairground cinema

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show. And one of the films on display was local films, and it was the local factory. And I looked on the Mitchell and Kenyon list on Peter

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and there was the name of the factory. So suddenly, I had a location. I had a name of a factory. And from the archive account, I had the date.

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I literally think, bingo. So what we need to do is tie these films not into the standard film history of looking at people's places and stuff, actually,

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looking at those historical records. So these are the business records. So what we look at. So there was another film of Kemp--

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President Kemp. Well, I know he was a showman. He was based in a particular part of the country. He would only work in the area.

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So the films would only be that area. So bit by bit, I built-- I did a trial of a network of maybe 20 films and see if I could find out about them.

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And this is pre-internet days. I literally went to over 150 local libraries and I looked between 1899 and 1905. And I would have a month so OK the fair.

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And because I am a fairground historian, the fairground calendar is very set. So Nottingham Goose Fair only appears in October. Stalybridge Wakes is only in July, July the third.

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Whole fair is only in the first week in October, the Friday nearest the 11th to be precise. So you narrow down the dates. And then, if you've got a film of a pier,

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you know it's only going to be between May and September. So the entertainment calendar of the United Kingdom has been set for over 250 years and people don't realise that. So you could not-- you don't have to look.

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You think, I've got 10 years to look, maybe five years. And I've only got to look at a month each year. And that's what it was. And I had a research assistant and we had a research team

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and we got funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to do this large research project where I would run the team of researchers and the BFI would do the restoration and printing.

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And it was really unusual, at the time, to have that combination between the university and it was the National Fairground Archive would provide the contextual information.

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So what people want to know is a human interest story. Who is this person? What are they doing? Where was the film shown?

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And I could do that. So the BFI had the film and I had the contextual information, which I gathered on every single film of where it was filmed, who exhibited it,

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and who commissioned it. And a pattern emerges of a group of maybe 50 to 60 showmen who regularly go back. And then, you start to recognise, well,

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this has got to be a film by them because it's the same person who was in that film, but that's a lot later. The significance of the Mitchell and Kenyon is, in many ways, it shapes--

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changed the narrative of early British film. It has changed it from what was predominantly looked at in terms of the South of England and the South East and the Brighton School,

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which is still very important. But it showed there was pockets of film production all over the country. We tend to look at film in the way we are now that it's London

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Centric with South Eastern Centric or there's a centre. But there wasn't then. There was lots of different places operating. So of course, it's obviously why they would North of England.

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The North of England was the centre of entertainment. There was 150 fairs every week. There was musicals and variety theatres in every town. Popular entertainment in its modern form

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was at the heart of it created from the North of England and the working class holiday. And these were films for working class people. These were films to be shown on the fairground,

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in the music hall, in the variety theatre, on the seaside. So it was all linked to workers holidays. The other parts of the films are linked to more middle class

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concert halls and education. But the joyous righteous films-- riotous films of those early factory workers are capturing working class exuberance,

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working class at play. So it was linked to working class at play and working class holidays, and primarily, the North of England.

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I'm sure there were similar films on the South, but none kept or preserved in the same way. But Mitchell and Kenyon's main business was these local films, but they had not been known for that.

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They had been known for other films they made, fiction films and Boer War reenactments. Never known for this such quantity. And I think the significance of that-- it shaped film history

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into a narrative that non-fiction was equally as important as fiction. So people are always obsessed when the first editors or when the first lot shot is.

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It turned it away. It secondly showed that the role of the local exhibitor was as-- was really important in the development of cinema. And cinema as an exhibition, i.e., not cinema as film,

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but cinema as people going to the cinema. So you can create an object, you can create a material, you can create film. But if you don't have an audience,

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so the Mitchell and Kenyon films actually showed you the audience because they were filmed for people to come and see themselves on screen. So it's actually amazing.

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You're watching the film and you are actually seeing the audience who are going to be watching the film. Because that's what they did. And the showmen would advertise as, come and see yourselves

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on the screen. And that, in terms of the technology, is quite incredible because of what they had to do and we can talk about that.

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But what was really significant is it was the audience of early cinema that was being filmed to look at themselves later, sometimes within four hours.

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So in today's technology, you are used to go in your iPhone, taking a film, putting it online. Equivalent was what Mitchell and Kenyon were doing. They were making a film with an exhibitor,

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developing and printing it, DMP, and we've got some records of how they did that, and then, that night, they would say-- some of the descriptions were saying,

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cameras were seen filming at so-and-so and the film will be available tonight at the St. George's Hall. And in some of the films, they actually

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advertise the location. And one of my favourite films in the collection, it actually says the audience go into St. George's Hall in Bradford.

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And you're actually seeing the audience queuing up to see the film. It's just amazing. And it's a wonderful audience.

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It's children, it's women, it's mixed, it's-- and it's just fantastic. And then, they would do a prize that if you recognised yourself on screen, you'll get a prize.

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So it was almost like an audience participation. And there's lots and lots of descriptions in the newspapers, which obviously, report it the day after or two days after or sometimes a week later saying,

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so-and-so saw themselves on the screen or-- and that used to be seen as a ploy in early film. It was set up. But with Mitchell and Kenyon, it happened

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so often you know that, obviously, will you do today, don't you? You get yourself filmed and you watch the news that night to see if you're in the background.

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And when you watch the films, you see loads of kids just waving to the camera. And then, you realise, as you watch the Mitchell and Kenyon, it's actually deliberate.

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The showman is behind the camera waving and you can see the hats go up and you see the-- and you can see, actually, they're not real actualities, they're staged.

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All of the films are staged. And what's not in the centre of the camera is then becomes of interest because that's not staged. So another film where you see the audience who are then

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going to see the film is the film of Morecambe Bay Promenade from right down Morecambe Bay and it ends outside the Winter Gardens. And it actually has the cameraman

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in the top of the Winter Gardens waving their hats. It has the audience in front of the gates. And it actually has the posters. In that one frame, it shows you the whole business

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of early film exhibition, promotion, and production in that one frame. It's quite amazing. It's such a beautiful film.

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And it's a horse tram and it's a phantom ride. So you actually sound the-- you are actually seeing it from the viewpoint of the tram. And you go down Morecambe Bay.

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And what's really funny is there's two little boys who follow the tram. They follow the tram all the way down. And then, the film was found in four sections

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because the archive negatives are only 100 foot. So obviously, then, you join them together and you realise you've got a 4 minute film. But it was the boys running through the film that made us

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realise it was one film because they keep on appearing. And they're obviously two local kids who've just been enraptured by the camera. And at the end of the film, there's

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a fragment which we wouldn't have known, but is actually the Winter Gardens. And because I'm a Morecambe girl, I knew that was the Winter Gardens and that's my building.

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I basically knew it was the Winter Gardens, it was Morecambe. And then, I went to the Morecambe archives and I found the film show.

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And it was really advertised. They were there for like three weeks and massive thing. And then, it was advertised daily in the papers, Mr. A.D. Thomas will be filming in Morecambe tomorrow

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and come and see yourselves on screen at the Winter Gardens. And it was just every day. So I then realised that all the Morecambe films were from that time.

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So one identification led to of 10, 12 films all being associated. And then, you start to recognise the showman and you start to realise, this is also Morecambe.

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So that one film with those two little boys running up and down the promenade led to identifying 10 or 12 films and that was amazing. But it was so significant for me because then I realised--

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the emotional attachment of these films, because suddenly, it was my hometown. Suddenly I would see my hometown 100 years ago looking beautiful.

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And that's when I realised the significance of the local. 100 years ago was still the same today. That people today want to see their local town. And that's when I realised that the secret of the collection

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was really to unlock that local knowledge, that local power, and that local emotions. You can do lots of other contextualisation as a historian, but ultimately, placing the film back

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in its local context was the key to understanding the significance.