This is one of many films made by Sheffield Photo Company, an important early professional film company. It was set up by Frank Mottershaw in Norfolk Street, Sheffield. He started out, as many then did, in photography in Castle Street in 1882, later moving to Fargate. On 31st May 1905 he filmed the opening of the University of Sheffield by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra – among the collection held with the YFA. He started making films in 1902 in a studio he built in Hanover Street, with...

This is one of many films made by Sheffield Photo Company, an important early professional film company. It was set up by Frank Mottershaw in Norfolk Street, Sheffield. He started out, as many then did, in photography in Castle Street in 1882, later moving to Fargate. On 31st May 1905 he filmed the opening of the University of Sheffield by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra – among the collection held with the YFA. He started making films in 1902 in a studio he built in Hanover Street, with his camera operator Leonard Shaw. Frank Mottershaw was one of many early filmmakers who had taken advantage of the new technology to sell to fairground showmen, or show the films himself, often the same day that they were shot. As Geoff Mellor writes, Frank Mottershaw “would set out from his Sheffield home with his cinematograph equipment loaded onto a horse-drawn carriage to give film shows at the fairs.” (Mellor, p 7)  

 

Sheffield Photo Company was later taken over by his son, Frank Storm Mottershaw, who had worked also for that other famous early film pioneer, R.W. Paul. The company remains in the family – see the Context for Books in Hand (1956) and Drive with Clare (1963-66), for more on Frank Mottershaw jnr. and the later films.

 

Many of the films that the Sheffield Photo Company made at this time are comedies, such as An Eccentric Burglary, made in the same year and also on YFA Online. This was common of the early film pioneers, and can be compared with their fellow filmmakers, the Bamforth Company, working not far away in Holmfirth. In fact it might be thought that Sheffield Photo Company picked up where Bamforth left off, as most of their films seem to have been made during the years when Bamforth ceased making films, between 1903 and 1913. Neverthelss, Bamforth did make Some Twins, which may have been made in the same year as Mixed Babies. An earlier film, A Daring Daylight Burglary of 1903 has been considered to have helped launch the chase movie – see the Context for An Eccentric Burglary (1905).  As the film companies developed they gradually branched out into other film genres, with Frank Mottershaw making a silent cowboy film in 1908, An Indian’s Romance.

 

One of the comedic elements in the film is the character of the policeman, always a target for fun, as in Cecil Hepworth's earlier The Exploding Motorcar of 1900. The police, of course, also turn up in the chase films, often appearing rather incompetent – shades of the keystone cops.  For more on early comedy see the Context forWomen’s Rights (1899) and Winky Causes a Small-Pox Panic (1914).

 

It isn’t clear where this film was shot – hopefully somebody might recognise it. According to the excellent Burnt Retina website, A Daring Daylight Burglary was shot in Banner Cross, and around the Whiteley Woods area (References).  It may be that this was filmed in the same area, though it looks a bit like Fulwood.

 

References

 

Robert Benfield, Bijou Kinema, A History of Cinema in Yorkshire, Sheffield City Polytechnic, 1976.

Denis Gifford, The British film catalogue, 3rd edition, Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001

Racheal Low, History of British Film, 1896 – 1906, Vol. 1, Routledge 1997 (1948). 

Stephen Herbert and Luke McKernan, Who's Who of Victorian Cinema (London: BFI Publishing, 1996)

Geoff Mellor, Picture Pioneers: the story of the Northern Cinema 1896-1971, Frank Graham, Newcastle, 1971.

Burnt Retina, ‘Finding Four Lions in Sheffield’