Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 4893 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| MILITARY RACE | 1916 | 1916-04-29 |
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Details
Original Format: 35mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 6 mins 9 secs Credits: Debenham & Co. Subject: Wartime Sport |
| Summary This film, made by Debenham & Co., documents a military race at the Beverley Racecourse on Saturday, 29th April, 1916. The cross-country race was organized by the Northern Command Cross-Country Association and included 435 starters. Upwards of 250 men finished the 6.5 mile race including winner Lance Corporal Chapell. |
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Description
This film, made by Debenham & Co., documents a military race at the Beverley Racecourse on Saturday, 29th April, 1916. The cross-country race was organized by the Northern Command Cross-Country Association and included 435 starters. Upwards of 250 men finished the 6.5 mile race including winner Lance Corporal Chapell.
Title – An Ideal Method of keeping our Men fit. Cine Film By Debenham & Co., York
Title – Promoted by the Officers in Command
Title – and enthusiastically and...
This film, made by Debenham & Co., documents a military race at the Beverley Racecourse on Saturday, 29th April, 1916. The cross-country race was organized by the Northern Command Cross-Country Association and included 435 starters. Upwards of 250 men finished the 6.5 mile race including winner Lance Corporal Chapell.
Title – An Ideal Method of keeping our Men fit. Cine Film By Debenham & Co., York
Title – Promoted by the Officers in Command
Title – and enthusiastically and keenly contested.
Title – Some of the competing Teams.
Men who make up the competing teams are gathered together, posing for the camera. Most of them are standing, but there are a few seated in front of the crowd. All the contestants wear numbers pinned to their chests, and they are all dressed in t-shirts and shorts.
Next, three officers are standing together. There are other officers on horseback in the background. Two women are present, one of which holds a dog on a leash. Following this is more footage of some of the men waiting to compete, some of whom lay on the grass in front of the crowd.
All the runners are lined up for the start of the race, and the line is many men deep. There is a man who wears a flat cap and stands at the side-line where he speaks to one of the runners. From a slightly elevated shot, the men can be seen waiting to race.
Title – The Start.
The officers clear the field, and after a few hesitant false starts from the men at the far side of the line, the race officially begins.
Title – 1st Lap. Lc. Cpl. Chapell leading.
There is a shot along the long edge of the track. A row of hedges can be seen in the background as the leader of the race is first to pass the camera. The race is led by a few individual runners, and larger groups of runners follow as the race continues.
Spectators stand behind a rope at the finish line. There are officers and other troops as well as civilians including women and children watching the race take place. Other spectators are shown standing behind a mental fence and wooden barriers. One of the women spectators holds a box with Cottage Hospital written on the side. There is a panning shot of the spectators, and all of the men and women are wearing hats.
At the end of the race, Lance Corporal Chapell, wearing number 1, is the first to cross. There is a policeman waiting at the finish line who is able to run out of the way just in time. Three other men can be identified crossing the finish line next, and they were the following numbers in their chests: 4, 124, and 8. Larger groups of runners cross the finish line before the film ends abruptly.
Context
This film is part of a large collection made by filmmakers Debenhams & Co. held with the YFA. Debenhams was established by Ernest Symmons in York before moving to Beverley just prior to the First World War. As well as this film they made several other films during the First World War, some of which are listed by Peter Robinson in his book on Ernest Symmons.
The event was under patronage of Maj. General H.M. Lawson, Major-General J.A. Ferrier, C.B. D.S.O, commanding Humber Garrison,...
This film is part of a large collection made by filmmakers Debenhams & Co. held with the YFA. Debenhams was established by Ernest Symmons in York before moving to Beverley just prior to the First World War. As well as this film they made several other films during the First World War, some of which are listed by Peter Robinson in his book on Ernest Symmons.
The event was under patronage of Maj. General H.M. Lawson, Major-General J.A. Ferrier, C.B. D.S.O, commanding Humber Garrison, and Colonel W. Smithson, D.S.O, commanding 18th Mounted Brigade, and was open to company teams representing units stationed in the Humber Garrison, and including the 18th Mounted Brigade at Beverley. The entries numbered 32 teams of 15 men each, and 29 teams turned out: 3rd Manchester Regt., 4th Manchester Regt., 2/5th Sherwood Foresters, 2nd K.O.Y.L.I, 3rd Leicesters, 3rd Lancs. Fusiliers, 3rd East Yorks. Regt., 29th Res. Northumberland Fusiliers Tyneside Scottish, 2/1st Yorkshire Hussars, 2/1st Yorkshire Dragoons, 2/1st East Riding Yeomanry, Machine gun Section 18th Mounted Brigade, and 5th East Yorks. Cyclists. They would probably have connected to Beverley Aerodrome, which was situated on land taken from Mount Pleasant Farm lying within the parish of Bishop Burton and part of the racecourse on the north side of the York road. It was opened in March 1916 with two squadrons, 33 and 47. By this time the war was changing in character, with aerial warfare much more to the fore. [The information here has been provided by Bryn Jones, who, with Peter Baker, has written a series of articles on Beverley Aerodrome, focusing on the 17 men who died in air accidents in World War I in Beverley, commemorated on a plaque in Bishop Burton Church (see References).] Other films made by Debenhams during the First World War include the 5th Battalion York and Lancaster aka Barnsley Battalion and Farewell Send-Off To The Darton Recruits, held at the Imperial War Museum. This latter records the festive departure to war of soldiers recruited from the colliery town of Darton, Yorkshire, featuring the band of the 1st Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment. In November of 1916 film was taken of volunteers in Beverley. Another film they made during the First World War, A Scrap Of Paper, also based in Hull, was specifically to raise money for the dependents of war casualties, and was probably made two or three years later. For more information on Debenhams see the Context for King George And Queen Visit Hull (1941). During the Second Boer War in South Africa, in 1899-1902, it was found by the Army Medical Corps that 80% of the troops in the British Army were physically unfit to fight, and in some towns as many as nine out of ten recruits were rejected as unfit. This led to the setting up of a specially appointed Committee on Physical Deterioration in 1903. Although the recommendations that came out of this related mostly to dealing with social conditions and schooling, the need for physical fitness would not have gone unheeded in the army. The Army Gymnastic Staff had already been formed as early as 1860. Coincidently, it was renamed the Army Physical Training Staff in 1918. In the autumn of 1917 the British Army was losing 76,000 troops each month, double the rate of enlistments. As a result the Military Service (no.2) Act came into force in April 1918 allowing the conscription of men between 41 and 50. This pushed up enlistment to 80,000 for May and June. Even here only 36% of men examined were suitable for full military duties, and 40% were either totally unfit or were classified as unable to undergo physical exertion. Even though with conscription new recruits had to bring proof of their age with them, still many new recruits were boys: almost half the infantry was nineteen or younger. Among the interesting aspects of the film the low number of men with moustaches is worth commenting on as it was only in October 1916 that an Army Order, issued by Lieutenant-General Sir Nevil Macready, Adjutant-General to the Forces, finally abolished the rule that made wearing a moustache compulsory – although they are scarce too in 5th Battalion York and Lancaster aka Barnsley Battalion. Also of note is that some are clearly wearing plimsolls, which had been developed in the 1830s by the Liverpool Rubber Company. Cameron Kippen states that: “Plimsolls were openly worn by adults and children in the pursuit of sport. Soon the Services used them and ordered plimsolls in the tens of thousands all coloured to suit the army, navy and airforce. Service plimsolls became a popular demob souvenir.” A recent investigation carried out by the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine and the BMJ (featured on a BBC Panorama programme) was unable to find good quality evidence to support claims that special trainers reduce injury – and so the lowly plimsoll may yet make a comeback. Running is closely associated with the carrying of the Olympic Torch, of which much has been made of for the London Olympics. Yet, as Guy Walters points out, “the torch can be seen more as a political symbol than a sporting one.” It was dreamt up by the secretary-general of the organising committee for the 1936 Games in Berlin, Carl Diem. The torch left Athens to travel the 3,187 kilometres to Berlin, using 3,331 runners, and as it got closer to Germany, “it became a magnet for Nazis and their sympathisers”. Of course, the London Torch Relay couldn’t be accused of that, although there is always the alternative Endurancelife Real Relay. This has got sadly neglected among all the hype for the official one, but this one showed the dedication of 670+ runners from across the British Isles who completed the same 8000 mile journey, each running 10 miles non-stop through the day and night. Although the war was to end quite soon, Armistice Day was November 11th, there was still a lot of fighting ahead, with the turning point coming in August. So the question remains as to what happened to the soldiers seen in this film. References David Chandler (editor), The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army, Oxford University Press, 1994. Peter H Robinson, The Home of Beautiful Pictures - the Story of the Playhouse Cinema, Beverley, Hutton Press, 1984. Beverley Aerodrome and Bishop Burton Articles Facial hair in the military Cameron Kippen, ‘Brief History of the Plimsoll: The Grandfather of Sport Shoes’ Guy Walters, A torch the Nazis lit, the Guardian The Endurancelife Real Relay |
