Workpeople Leaving Dugdale's Paradise Mill, Blackburn (1900)

Dinner time at a textile mill in Victorian Lancashire.

Lancashire communities were built around textile mills and this film, shot in Mitchell and Kenyon's Blackburn base, captures something of the vibrancy of these industrial hubs. The workers' reactions reflect different attitudes towards the still young medium of film. While the boys in the foreground are transfixed by the camera some of the older women are less eager, and even conceal their faces.