Audley Range School, Blackburn (c.1905)

Lancashire children perform physical education exercises in (almost) perfect unison.

These straight-faced boys and girls are doing something akin to calisthenics, an exercise regime favoured by the armed forces to promote discipline and cohesion as much as physical strength. More than similar examples in the Mitchell and Kenyon collection, this film demonstrates how Edwardian schooling was adopting some militaristic elements in the wake of the Boer War and the 1902 Education Act.