Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 3685 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
OPENING OF THE ELECTRIC TRAMWAY INTO ELLAND | 1914 | 1914-01-14 |
Details
Original Format: 35mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 6 mins 06 secs Subject: Wartime Transport Early Cinema Architecture |
Summary Made exclusively for the Central Picture House in Elland, this film features events and local faces of Elland, a small market town in West Yorkshire. The film documents the first electric tram to arrive in Elland, part of the Huddersfield transport which was extended from Birchencliffe to Elland in 1914. |
Description
Made exclusively for the Central Picture House in Elland, this film features events and local faces of Elland, a small market town in West Yorkshire. The film documents the first electric tram to arrive in Elland, part of the Huddersfield transport which was extended from Birchencliffe to Elland in 1914.
Title – An Exclusive Films Release
Title – Opening of The Electric Tramway into Elland (U) Cert BFL Flilms.
The film opens on 14 January 1914 in the crowded streets of Elland town centre...
Made exclusively for the Central Picture House in Elland, this film features events and local faces of Elland, a small market town in West Yorkshire. The film documents the first electric tram to arrive in Elland, part of the Huddersfield transport which was extended from Birchencliffe to Elland in 1914.
Title – An Exclusive Films Release
Title – Opening of The Electric Tramway into Elland (U) Cert BFL Flilms.
The film opens on 14 January 1914 in the crowded streets of Elland town centre on a rainy day, and many members of the crowd shield themselves under umbrellas. There are a few horses and carts which can be seen in the background. Some men and women stand by a large wall plastered with advertisements which include: Altham’s Tea, A Waltz Dream, and Free Cooker for You - £1575 in Cash Prizes. The tram arrives and makes its way down the road, parting the crowd as it does so. The double-decker tram, decorated with bunting for the special occasion, stops in the town centre. The crowd tightly packs in right up to the side of the tram, children in front, and men and women further behind. Councillor Samuel Lumb, the Chairman of Elland Urban District Council, makes a speech from the driver’s platform, asking the crowd to give three cheers to the Mayor of Huddersfield, asking the crowd to give three cheers to the Mayor of Huddersfield. There are a few photographers which can be seen close to the tram. The crowd offers three cheers before the councilmen of Elland pose for the camera a long a brick wall. The men are all dressed in hats and overcoats, and the camera plans along the line of men. Towards the end of the group, there are a few women and finally a car with a chauffeur waiting.
Title – Young Elland.
The town’s children are gathered together in a group and pose on the steps of the Central Picture House. A man helping to organize the children tips his hat to the camera. The cameraman takes a panning shot of all the children in front of the cinema, and as he does, the children take off their hats and cheer. Afterwards, they slowly make their way through the entrance of the cinema.
Context
At last modernity hits Elland, some 13 years after Leeds, as its residents turn out on a rainy day to witness the arrival of their first electric tram, with a rousing speech from the local council chairman and mill owner. Having cheered on the tram, a large group of children, in cloth caps and bonnets, then congregate outside the Picture House cinema, with a mixture of boisterousness and bewilderment, to view the proceedings all again from the silver screen.
Just up the road, Leeds was the...
At last modernity hits Elland, some 13 years after Leeds, as its residents turn out on a rainy day to witness the arrival of their first electric tram, with a rousing speech from the local council chairman and mill owner. Having cheered on the tram, a large group of children, in cloth caps and bonnets, then congregate outside the Picture House cinema, with a mixture of boisterousness and bewilderment, to view the proceedings all again from the silver screen.
Just up the road, Leeds was the first city in Europe to introduce an overhead electric service, in 1891. In 1899 Tramway No.7 opened, finally arriving from Birchencliffe in 1914. The speaker is Councillor Samuel Lumb, the Chairman of Elland Urban District Council and woollen manufacturer, getting three cheers for the Mayor of Huddersfield, to which it was heading. Lumb’s Perseverance Mill can also be seen in the background. This film would have been one of many local shorts to be shown at the Central Picture House on Coronation Street, which opened 14 months previously. This is, amazingly, structurally unchanged and still going thanks to its revival (now the Rex) by Charles Morris and Peter Berry, in 1988. |