Co-operative Wholesale Clothing Factory in Manchester (c.1900)

Victorian Manchester mill workers enjoy the novelty of a moving picture camera.

The showman who appears at the beginning of this film, like the gang of cheeky lads who loiter in shot later, would have been working with Mitchell & Kenyon to animate the crowds passing through the factory yard. The incorporation of such staged antics was a key element of these films - reminding us their purpose was to entertain and not to be the social documents we see them as today.