Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 21577 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
JARROW CARNIVAL | c.1926 | 1923-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 35mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 13 mins 14 secs Genre: Local Topical Subject: Urban Life |
Summary A local topical film of the Jarrow Carnival, showing an amazing variety of costumes and bands, filmed from two different vantage points. |
Description
A local topical film of the Jarrow Carnival, showing an amazing variety of costumes and bands, filmed from two different vantage points.
Title: In Aid of the Mayor's Distress Fund
The film begins showing the mayor in his carriage, smiling and doffing his hat to the camera. A line of men and women pose for the camera, all wearing white rosettes.
The film cuts to a carnival procession, mainly composed of decorated horse drawn carts, some having displays for various organisations, such...
A local topical film of the Jarrow Carnival, showing an amazing variety of costumes and bands, filmed from two different vantage points.
Title: In Aid of the Mayor's Distress Fund
The film begins showing the mayor in his carriage, smiling and doffing his hat to the camera. A line of men and women pose for the camera, all wearing white rosettes.
The film cuts to a carnival procession, mainly composed of decorated horse drawn carts, some having displays for various organisations, such as the “Mustard Club”. There is also a charabanc transporting a band. This is followed by a large wagon advertising Cremone Dairy Cream, with a cow on board. There are many large groups all wearing fancy costumes, possibly each representing a colliery in the area around Jarrow, playing musical instruments of various kinds, such as bugles. There are banners associted with the bands, including: “Jarrow Burnside Juvenile Jazz Band”, “J. Springfield C C Jazz band”, “Stephenson Street Jazz band, South Shields”, and “The Jarrow Congas Tennis Club”, which has the club playing tennis in a light hearted way as they move along.
The carnival is then filmed again from a different street, a wide variety of costumes on display, many of the participants have blackened faces, some men are dressed as women, with a lot of clowning. A decorated motorcycle and sidecar goes past for “The Rum Runners”. There are more banners for various bands: “Tyneside Sports Club Jazz Band South Shields”, "Milburn Toffs Jazz band, North Shields”, "Newcastle on Tyne, Kenwell Marine Band”, “South Shields H S Edwards Street Open Air School for Scandal” – followed by children larking about and mock fighting – “”The Tin Can Fusiliers, Low Lights, North Shields”, and “Tyne dock Belle Vue Cycling Club”. The St John Ambulance bring up the rear, followed by spectators. The film ends as it began with the Lord Mayor.
Context
A snapshot of the resourcefulness and imagination of the working class communities of a famous northern town. This Jarrow Carnival of 1923 is an amazing spectacle, even by the entertaining standards of northern carnivals of the time. Both the bewildering variety of fancy dress and themed costumes, and the incredible number of jazz bands, reveal the diverse influences of the British Empire and Afro-American jazz alike.
Jarrow is, of course, much better known for the Crusade of 1936, when 200...
A snapshot of the resourcefulness and imagination of the working class communities of a famous northern town. This Jarrow Carnival of 1923 is an amazing spectacle, even by the entertaining standards of northern carnivals of the time. Both the bewildering variety of fancy dress and themed costumes, and the incredible number of jazz bands, reveal the diverse influences of the British Empire and Afro-American jazz alike.
Jarrow is, of course, much better known for the Crusade of 1936, when 200 men from the town marched 300 miles to London in protest against unemployment. This march, supported by the borough council, achieved a legendary status that the many hunger marches organised by the more radical National Unemployed Workers' Movement have not. This carnival took place just before the sharp decline in orders for the main local employers, Palmers Ship Yard, which eventually went bust in 1933. Charity raising carnivals like this were common in northern towns at the time – and continue to be – and show little to suggest any association with the religious events of Easter or Whitsun, but perhaps a connection with Mayday. |