Workforce of Brush Electric Co. Falcon Works, Loughborough (1900)

A well-staged exit of workers from a Leicestershire manufacturer for the transport industry.

Filmed in November 1900, this footage was shown at that month's Loughborough town fair. (On the same trip, Mitchell and Kenyon filmed the Cartwright & Warner hosiery works.) Among the duo's 'factory gate' films, this one stands out for its composition, and for the relatively wealthy, well-dressed, well-behaved male crowd steadily snaking past the gate. Note also the profusion of bicycles.

Most of the factories filmed by Mitchell and Kenyon in the early 1900s are long gone, but the Falcon Works site is still in operation today. It remains in the hands of what is now Brush Electrical Machines Ltd, although the company has passed through many owners since its early 20th century days, and now employs several hundred workers where it once had several thousand.