New­ly restored col­lec­tion of British Vic­to­ri­an film brings his­to­ry to life

One of the high­lights of last year’s BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val was the gala pre­sen­ta­tion of The Great Vic­to­ri­an Mov­ing Pic­ture Show at BFI IMAX, a spec­tac­u­lar vari­ety show of large-for­mat movies, com­ic skits, doc­u­men­tary and news­reel footage. The films, most run­ning at just a few sec­onds, pro­vid­ed a win­dow to anoth­er world, a time when cin­e­ma was still emerg­ing as an artis­tic medium.

Now, in antic­i­pa­tion of Queen Victoria’s bicen­te­nary, the BFI’s vast col­lec­tion of British Vic­to­ri­an Film is being made avail­able to watch for free online via the BFI Play­er. The archive com­pris­es 700 films made between 1895 and 1901, with some 500 films hav­ing been new­ly digi­tised from orig­i­nal source mate­ri­als. 4K dig­i­tal restora­tions of incred­i­bly rare 68mm films – at almost four times the image size of reg­u­lar 35mm film – bring the Vic­to­ri­an world to life in breath­tak­ing high-def­i­n­i­tion clarity.

Var­i­ous aspects of the Vic­to­ri­an age are rep­re­sent­ed in the col­lec­tion, from bustling street scenes to snap­shots of child play­ing to clips of sev­er­al pop­u­lar enter­tain­ers of the day, while sev­er­al films, includ­ing Pel­i­cans at the Zoo (1898) and Spi­ders on a Web (1900), depict ani­mal life. On a more som­bre but no less cap­ti­vat­ing note, the col­lec­tion also con­tains reportage footage from the Boer War as well as UK-filmed recon­struc­tions of inter­na­tion­al sto­ries like the Box­er Rebellion.

Most aston­ish­ing of all is Scenes at Bal­moral (1896), which shows Queen Vic­to­ria her­self on the occa­sion of a vis­it by the Tsar Nicholas II to the roy­al res­i­dence – the ear­li­est known mov­ing image of a British monarch. There are appear­ance from a host of oth­er Vic­to­ri­an celebri­ties, such as Edward VII, The Duke of York, Kaiser Wil­helm II, Pope Leo XIII and Eng­lish crick­et­ing leg­end WG Grace and Prince Ran­jitsin­hji. Oth­er sport­ing occa­sions include the 1899 Oxford and Cam­bridge Boat Race and sev­er­al ear­ly foot­ball matches.

In chron­i­cling both major his­toric events and every­day occur­rences in Britain in the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th cen­turies, the col­lec­tion chal­lenges pre­con­cep­tions of Vic­to­ri­ans as aus­tere, stuffy peo­ple. It’s an invalu­able his­to­ry les­son and a hum­bling reminder that we are not so dis­sim­i­lar from our forebears. 

Explain­ing the impor­tance of pre­serv­ing this cul­tur­al lega­cy, BFI silent film cura­tor Bry­ony Dixon, who over­saw the painstak­ing restora­tion process, says ​“Ear­ly British film is a lega­cy to be proud of, these rare mov­ing pic­tures doc­u­ment the last years of Queen Victoria’s long reign with a vivid­ness that no oth­er kind of his­tor­i­cal arte­fact can bring. These incred­i­bly rare, frag­ile film frag­ments speak vol­umes, adding colour and tex­ture to our under­stand­ing of the Vic­to­ri­ans vibrant and rapid­ly pro­gress­ing world.”

The BFI’s col­lec­tion of British Vic­to­ri­an Film is avail­able for free on BFI Play­er from 13 May. The online col­lec­tion is com­ple­ment­ed by a Vic­to­ri­an Film Week­ender pro­gramme of screen­ings and events at BFI South­bank (9−12 May). Dis­cov­er more at play​er​.bfi​.org​.uk