This film has a particular interest as it was made by the world renowned Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Encyclopaedia Britannica started making films in 1929, although the company didn’t set up a proper film unit until 1943. These were to complement the Encyclopaedia as a written resource. The company made a great many films, especially during the 1940s and 1950s, some of which have been listed at the Internet Movie database (imdb), and some are held with the Prelinger Archives in New York –...

This film has a particular interest as it was made by the world renowned Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Encyclopaedia Britannica started making films in 1929, although the company didn’t set up a proper film unit until 1943. These were to complement the Encyclopaedia as a written resource. The company made a great many films, especially during the 1940s and 1950s, some of which have been listed at the Internet Movie database (imdb), and some are held with the Prelinger Archives in New York – many of these can be viewed online (see References).  

The film was made by quite a famous explorer, writer, photographer and filmmaker from Portland Oregon, Amos Burg. He started making his own films in the late1920s about his adventures, starting with a canoe journey down the Yukon River, Alaska Wilds', writing up many of his exploits for National Geographic Magazine. He went on to make classroom films for ERPI (Western Electric, Electrical Research Products Inc) and Encyclopaedia Britannica, which took him throughout the western United States, Central and South America, Alaska, Europe, and Asia.  Between 1947 and 1950 he made a series of 30 films for Encyclopedia Britannica.  From 1955 until 1974 he continued making films for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, establishing the department's Information and Education Section, and making the Alaska Centennial film, Juneau, Alaska's Capital City.  According to Maurice Ward, who was 'Tommy', one reason that Burg chose Whitby was because of its association with Captain Cook, who he admired, and he named his own boat 'Endeavour' after that of Cook's.

Burg even worked as a spy for the US in Argentina during the Second World War.  His life was put together into a film in 1992, The Journey of Amos Burg. He got some help from Harold S. Kemp, one time Professor of Geography at Harvard University, as a consultant.

York was chosen as an interesting average city. Burg was directed to Derwent Primary School as a new modern school at the time. The shots of the classroom are in this school, whilst the cricket scenes are in the playing fields of Nunthorpe Grammar School (conjoining with Mill Mount Girls' Grammar School to become Millthorpe Comprehensive School in 1985). ‘Tommy’ and ‘Joan’ are in fact cousins: Maurice, who attended Nunthorpe, and Nona, who attended Derwent. ‘Frank’, David Tuthill, was also at Nunthorpe. Although the family was a railway family, the father, Harry Hodgson, was in fact a controller, not an engine driver.

The family lived at 25, Millfield Lane, where the interior shots are.  But those for the grandparents' house is actually of a house in another village belonging to Mr and Mrs Longbottom, as they had no electricity (using gas) or running water. Another sleight-of-hand is that the grandparents’ house, a railway cottage (he was a signalman) on Lumby Lane, Fryston, not at Whitby. Also, ‘Spot’ the dog (no, not the one on the Woodentops), was acquired from York Dog’s Home specially for the film – although they did keep it, renamed ‘Judy’ (it was female).

As well as making educational films, the films made by Encyclopaedia Britannica were often public information films, although it is unclear whether there was any direct governmental influence. For example, just after World War Two, one film was made on what to do in the event of an atomic bomb attack. The films reflect the conventional values and attitudes of the time; so there are films on etiquette and how teenagers ought to behave – often adopting a rather sanctimonious tone that may seem rather dated and amusing today. They were directed at primary and intermediate level students in US schools.

English Children aims to show the life of a typical English family at that time. The running commentary that accompanies the film is designed to explain English customs to US school children, with the focus on children. The film was the basis for a book titled English Children, published in 1951 by Row-Peterson and written by Mabel O'Donnell and Elizabeth Bloss, who between them published a series of short books on children from different countries aimed at a young readership.  the film came with detailed notes and suggestions for the teacher (a copy of these is held with the YFA).

Although the film is highly selective in what aspects of family life it focuses on, for these at least it gives a fairly accurate representation. Engine drivers have always been the elite among railway workers – this has certainly always been a common self-perception – and were relatively well-paid. There is no way of knowing how much the filmmakers might have presented an idealised view of the family from York, the children  are presented as being quite talented and went to good schools, Derwent Primary and Bootham Senior – both of which are still doing well. 

Much of what is seen in the film has remained remarkably little changed, especially the views over York and Whitby. The film shows the boys looking down from the City Walls on to the old railway station which went out of use soon after the film was made in the 1950s, and was demolished in 1966. This is around the same time that the railway line to Whitby, the North York Moors Railway, was closed under the Beeching cuts in 1964, although part of it was re-opened in 1973 for pleasure rides (see Opening of the North York Moors Railway, also on YFA Online). Gone too are the composite carriages that the family ride in on their railway journey. There has also been a diminishment of games such as marbles and skipping, as seen in the film; although there are moves to reintroduce some of these traditional games back into the playground.

Also to be seen from the City Walls is the cooling tower of the old power station, where now stands Halfords and Staples. In fact just after this film was made, on 27th October, 1949, there was a massive explosion in one of the large boilers, throwing huge pieces of the boiler, weighing up to 25 tons, over 300 feet. As it happened at night, amazingly only one person was killed. All that is left now of the power station is the chimney, now a listed building. 

Of equal interest to the film itself are the makers of the film, Encyclopaedia Britannica. The idea of an encyclopaedia goes back to the English Chambers’ Cyclopaedia of 1728. An Englishman, John Mills, was preparing a French translation of this, which he finished in 1745, and from this a few people developed the idea of doing a new French version, eventually under the direction of Diderot.  This was published in parts – subject to much government suppression – from 1751 through to 1772. The Encyclopaedia Britannica indirectly grew out of this through its influence on the Scottish Enlightenment in Edinburgh. Colin Macfarquhar, a printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver, together with the scholar William Smellie as editor, started the project which resulted in the first 3 volume edition in 1771. The company that they formed eventually came under the ownership of two Americans, Horace Hooper and Walter Jackson, in 1901, and moved to Chicago in the 1930s.

The Company was given a gift of 250 silent films from Eastman Teaching, part of Eastman Kodak Company, in the 1920's, encouraging the setting up of a filmmaking unit. This sought to be as objective as the printed encyclopaedia. Even so, being a business rather than a strictly educational organisation, there were bound to be other influences on the content. The chairman of the board and publisher at that time, between 1943-1973, was William Benton, a Democrat Senator from 1949-53.  William Benton went on to establish the Benton Foundation at the University of Chicago, supporting liberal and left-leaning campaigns. 

The President of Encyclopaedia Britannica Films between 1946 and 1951 was the educational television pioneer, Cyril Scott Fletcher. The film unit attracted many leading filmmakers, like Fred Goodich and Stan Croner, who had enough leeway to make films that reflected their own interests, such as urban living and ecology.  By 1970 over 1,280 films had been produced.   These films should not be confused with those of another film company called ‘Britannia Films’, who were associated with Pathe films, and began making films much earlier.

The Encyclopaedia has come under a good deal of criticism for bias over the years; for example the racism to be found in some entries of the 11th edition (1911). But the Encyclopaedia wasn’t scared of treading on toes, including the strong tobacco lobby, as evidenced by its anti-smoking film of 1980, The Tobacco Problem: What Do You Think?; a stance that was implicit even in the much earlier Tobacco and the Human Body of 1954. With so many contributors and editors, the Encyclopaedia could hardly follow any particular line, and many of the films still retain an educational, as well as a historical, value.

(With special thanks to  Maurice Ward and his sister Mrs Valerie Clay, and to Encyclopaedia Britannica Customer Services]

References

Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, Yorkshire Album: photographs of everyday life 1900—1950, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1988. (this has a fine photo of the old railway line).
Amos Burg

A selection of other films made by Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Internet Movie database provides a (incomplete) list of Encyclopaedia Britannica films:

A history of Encyclopaedia Britannica on their own website:

Prelinger Archives

Further Information

 

Van Wilson, The Best Years Of Our Lives?: Secondary Education In York 1900-1985, York Archaeological Trust, 2010